I wasn't an immediate disciple of Charlie when he first came unto us. It took a couple of weeks for me to pledge my unswerving fealty to my ten pound liege lord. I remember precisely when it occurred, and I'm still not totally sure why this moment was such a trigger for my devotion. It was late at night and we were housesitting/dog sitting for my mother-in-law. It was decided, much to my muttering and grumbling dismay, that Charlie needed a quick evening stroll so that he might relieve himself before settling in for a long winter's nap. After completing our mission and turning to head for home, we came to a street corner, and turned right, walking into another pedestrian with a dog about four times the size of our ten pound Charlemagne. The owner of the other dog desperately yanked back on the leash as his pet emitted a bark so thunderous it made me flinch. But Charlie didn't flinch. He didn't run. He stood his ground and roared right back, bracing himself for some kind of combat. If a canine can have a moment of Churchillian defiance, Charlie displayed it in full bellicose splendor for us out there on that darkened street corner. And it was in that moment that he converted me. As we leaped forward and grabbed up Charlie and carried him in all of his flailing fury down the street past the bully dog, I became Charlie's most staunch disciple. In that instant out on the street I saw what Charlie had contended with during his days on the street. It was like a James Earl Jones voice went off in my head, intoning, "WE GOTTA TAKE CARE OF THIS LITTLE GUY." We gotta take care of this little guy. He's vulnerable and he's adorable, and bad people and bad things are going to see him as an appetizer or some manner of sick entertainment. And we gotta protect him from all that. I think after cancer that protective instinct, that protective voice, got a lot louder and insistent in my head. You become more alert to the demons and depravity that can come rearing out of darkened corners, and you become more focused on shielding those precious to you, those who are especially vulnerable, from the perils lurking in the shadows. And that's how without saying a word, Charlie enlisted my devotion to his cause.
Since this post stems from ruminations on Parkland and its grief-stricken aftermath, I issue the following disclaimer at the outset: I do not like guns. Not a fan. Nor am I a fan of recent readings of The Second Amendment that supply intellectually disingenuous cover for a particular group's insatiable appetites for unlimited arsenals. Nevertheless, there is something about the arguments of those calling for greater gun control that is profoundly amiss to me, and the core of the problem is that word, "control." Simply put, there's none of that to be had, and the pursuit of such control is a fool's errand that leads to disappointment and dismay. It is the domineering parent insisting on panaceas surpassingly worse than the illnesses they profess to cure. It is the boast of the rugged individualist and the architects of Vietnam and Iraq. One of the many things learned at the feet of that cruel tutor, cancer, is that we have no control over anything. Though we might strive and rage for control, true control is ephemeral, if not illusory. At best, it is sand through the fingers, at worst, a tormenting mirage. One of the savage lessons of a history relentlessly ignored or unlearned is that nobody really has any control over anything. Nor is there some magic formula for gaining control over events, actions, and individuals. There is no outlawing tragedy, no plausible prohibition of misfortune or malevolence. We could move heaven and earth to disarm the ranks of the gun-toting, we could coerce the consumption of nothing but fiber, we could mandate the abolition of the internal combustion engine, and bad things would continue to happen to good people. Today's cry of "Never Again" is an admirable and heartfelt absurdity, the most doomed expression of grief-stricken hubris for a species both blessed and burdened by the gift of free will. The only solution for a people deluded by the belief of control is to accept the absence of control, and embrace with relief the liberation from its curse. The day that we realize we have no control is the day we strike off its shackles and set ourselves free.
Nietzsche famously warned that "if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you." Never has this warning to all the boys and girls at home been more acutely relevant than in the present social media free fire zone moment. "Shots fired on Twitter," is a comical understatement. What's euphemistically dubbed as "cyberbullying" is more accurately characterized as a thermonuclear exchange of bile, invective, and character assassination in the name of...persuasion? We are a society drowning in our own snark and devastated by our own discourtesy, ninety-nine percent of which we would never unleash in that quaintest and increasingly antediluvian of interactions, the face-to-face conversation. Robert Preston warned of "Satan's playground" in "The Music Man," referring to the smoke-filled pool halls of the late nineteenth century. He missed the mark, failing to envision the emotional No-Man's Land that would emerge with 21st century social media. So how does one cope? How does one prevail in the face of an electronic Frankenstein's monster that has turned so many inner lives into an emotional Love Canal? The obvious solution is to heed the words of Barry Corbin's general in "War Games," when he barked, "Just unplug the goddamned thing for Chrissake!" There's that. That, and a good walk outdoors is a sure tonic for the Cuckoo's Nest of the Internet. But even a physical retreat from the screen abyss does not unsee or erase the cruelties and creative ridicule seared into one's psyche or consciousness. What is the panacea for that? To the extent that there is any salve, any balm for the wounds inflicted by the electronic blast-o-gram, it is found in a kernel of sagacity imparted to me a few years ago, and it is this; "The world doesn't define you. YOU define you." Why then would you accept an external definition of yourself, conceived in malice and inaccuracy? When one internalizes the profound wisdom of that axiom, the evils of the Internet lose all their power, and you have your antidote to the abyss.
Within the world of political science nerds, there has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments about the stupor-inducing topic of gerrymandering. Like its equally overrated cousin, campaign finance, gerrymandering is allegedly hastening the demise of the Republic with its malevolent manipulation of voters whose political intelligence is relentlessly insulted by the hand wringers and pearl clutchers preoccupied with these alibis for why their side loses elections they're obviously entitled to win. I'm not disputing the existence of gerrymandering. Both sides do it when they can. Both sides scream bloody murder when they're on the receiving on the receiving of this scam dressed up in democratic pretense. I'm not challenging its occurrence. I question its relevance, its utility. I question whether it works. My skepticism about the peril of gerrymandering is fortified by current events. Nearly every time we have a special election here in the age of Trump, the party of Trump loses. Increasingly those losses occur in places that haven't elected a Democrat since...well, they often can't remember. Whether it be Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Virginia, Kansas, or Wisconsin, districts stuffed to the gills with Republicans are using, you know, their BALLOT, to hand over legislative offices to Democrats. Maybe gerrymandering works when voters in a district are checked out. However, it increasingly appears that when voters are engaged and attentive, gerrymandering is puny protection indeed for an unpopular party. It's certainly a weak alibi for unhappy electoral outcomes.
I've been studying U.S. history since I was about four, and I'm always learning something new. Yesterday, I stumbled across a story about an American President who I'd grown up despising and deriding, and what I read didn't just change my opinion of the man; it gave me chills. So I'm going to share my personally electrifying discovery with the three of you reading this thing. The time is the summer of 1979. The president was Jimmy Carter. While it was an unpleasant time to be an American, it was far worse to be Vietnamese. While in the U.S. there were gas shortages, debilitating inflation, and rising unemployment, in Vietnam there was apparently something far worse in progress under the new Communist regime. So terrible, in fact, that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were changing their residence by sailing away from the Marxist utopia that was Vietnam. These "Boat People" were enduring every conceivable manner of horror to get pretty much anywhere that was not Communist Vietnam. Their top choice was generally their comer ally, the U.S. Nobody had witnessed such an exodus from Vietnam during the Vietnam War, when more bombs were dropped on Vietnam than during the entirety of World War II. There must have been something about that Communist regime that got two million people doing a Magellan-in-reverse, but that's a subject for another blog. The Boat People suffered on a biblical level to escape Communism and get to the U.S. Many were perishing in the Pacific during their nautical exodus. The magnitude of their desperation, however, was lost on the vast majority of the American people during that summer of 1979. A New York Times poll from the time showed that 62% of Americans opposed admitting more Vietnamese refugees to the U.S., a proportion far greater than those opposing admission of Syrian refugees to the U.S. in 2016. Which brings us to the president, Jimmy Carter. Carter's approval rating that summer of '79 had just clocked in at a lowly 28%, and his own party was eyeing a revival of Camelot for the 1980 election. Presidents with far greater popularity (say, F.D.R.) had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the plight of refugees in their day. But Jimmy Carter was convinced that like the Blues Brothers, he was on a mission from God. And while that sanctimony could be homicidally annoying when he was telling us to turn down the thermostat and put on another sweater, the pious preacher from Plains was going to step up for The Boat People in a way that should have earned him a really quality statue, eternally free of bird droppings. Defying the admonitions of the public and many in his own party (then California Governor Jerry Brown had staunchly opposed admitting Vietnamese refugees to the U.S., especially his state), Carter not only admitted Boat People refugees to the U.S., he ordered the number admitted to be DOUBLED. He then strode out of the White House on the afternoon of July 6, 1979, walked across the lawn to the fence where protestors on behalf of the Vietnamese refugees had gathered, reached through the fence and clasping the hands of the protestors declared, "I will not let your people die." That's not just a moment worthy of Hollywood. That's a scene that could have vaulted out of The Old Testament. Or The New Testament. He then walked back inside the White House and ordered The Seventh Fleet to PICK UP the Boat People struggling to escape Vietnam by sea. Jimmy Carter didn't have to do any of that. An already unpopular president might well have dodged the refugee issue entirely and spared himself almost certain risk. Carter defied popular will and political pressure to help an unpopular and powerless group of people in their hour of most extreme need. He exhibited the bravery of a REAL Commander-in-Chief, and in this week that began with the annual rankings of the presidents, it would be fitting, if unlikely, that we consider such uncommon courage as criteria for our accolades.
I never liked dogs until I met The Apostle Charlie. Charlie came unto us four years ago, a six pound miniature poodle who'd escaped the mean streets of Santa Cruz for the comforts of my mother-in-law's home. He had black fur and an overbite that made him look like he was perpetually grinning about something, possibly the luxurious new dwelling that he now got to call home. When you meet Charlie, he looks like something created by Jim Henson, more endearing Muppet than canine, almost teddy-bear in form. He is cheerful, inquisitive, energetic, and mostly gentle, although strangely vigilant against aircraft. One can almost envision Charlie perched along the white cliffs of Dover, gazing out across the English Channel, barking to a squadron of Spitfire pilots with warning of the impending arrival of the Luftwaffe. A most enthusiastic pedestrian, Charlemagne fancies himself a canine sleuth, abruptly plunging into bushes and hedges to investigate some new clue that has come wafting into his highly attentive nostrils. For a nine-year old dog, he is downright Spiderman-like in his ability to scale walls and rock piles with a single vertical leap. I worry almost incessantly about his health (which is robust), and his safety from break-ins of one kind or another. I readily concede that my devotion to this little dog would fairly qualify as neurosis, and I do not apologize at all for my fealty. People who have known me for decades are perplexed by my affection for, and allegiance to, this mute, ten pound creature. They were under the distinct impression that I didn't like humans, much less dogs. Hence, his title, The Apostle Charlie. His presence has truly occasioned a conversion experience within me that I can scarcely analyze, much less articulate. It might have something to do with my season with cancer and realizing that the cruelest tragedy reaches out to engulf us when we least expect it, particularly consuming the most vulnerable and dear to us, and that we must take the steps necessary, however inadequate and feeble, to protect those we most cherish, those who cannot defend themselves. G.K. Chesterton wrote that, "the way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." Charlie has made me attentive to the great truth of those words. He is truly the dog who made a difference.
American history abounds with tragic irony. One particularly relevant example of such irony can be observed in the origins of the trendiest epithet of the twenty-first century; "privilege." Privilege, once known as advantages, is the favored cudgel in the identity politics bloodletting of our time, as is to be expected. Excavate the creation myth of any nation, and one will unearth triumphant groups amassing advantages for their tribe at the expense of the vanquished and luckless competitor tribes, then dressing it up in self-congratulatory virtue. The United States is not fundamentally different from its compatriots on the planet in this regard. Nobody should take history personally. Whatever happened back then, YOU didn't do it. However, you might well benefit from it today. That said, the privilege that has so many in either a defensive crouch or finger-pointing righteousness today was principally authored by the ideological ancestors of the same faction that so excoriates that systematic privilege today; The Left. This is not an editorial opinion. This is unassailable scholarly truth. Richard Rothstein, a man of The Left, produced his brief for the culpability of FDR's New Deal and Truman's Fair Deal in our current racial and economic predicament with his masterpiece, "The Color of Law." Every American should read this towering triumph of intellectual honesty and historical scholarship. It proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the institutional racism that warps and afflicts our society today in the form of residential segregation was no accident, but the deliberate product of relentless government policy. Author Rothstein lays the lion's share of the guilt for that Jim Crow housing policy and the river of ills that flowed from it at the feet of the Democratic Party and multiple generations of The Left and progressivism. So when The Left of today expounds upon the evils of privilege and insists upon the immediate construction of a new utopia to remedy these past sins, remember that this mess was of their making.
