tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85826826138943841652024-03-13T06:39:57.328-07:00Sense OffensesI can’t shake the sense that the sex-offense mania – and the matrix of laws that are still growing around it – constitute a serious symptom of a profound falling-away from Constitutional maturity in the government and in the citizenry. That’s my primary concern here. As so often, the media focus stays on the vivid surfaces and immediate excitements of something that is actually of a much wider and deeper and larger significance.Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.comBlogger247125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-48682211594268911802012-09-02T08:30:00.001-07:002012-10-07T11:00:45.777-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE CONCLUSION<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In this Post I will conclude my mini-series look at
Roger Lancaster’s book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He concludes with the question: “Whither the
Punitive State?” (p.227)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He further asks “Is the punitive turn winding down?”
(p.227)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then “If so, will the compromises of rights and
procedures that dominated politics of the recent past be discarded or will they
be incorporated into a reform version of the punitive state?” (p.227)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In partial response, he then notes that “the
Republican ‘Southern strategy’, with its subtle and not-so-subtle appeals to
racism, no longer packs an electoral wallop”. (p.227) Which may be true –
although I would have to point out that that ‘Southern strategy’ did not simply
concern itself with ‘racism’; with the Democrats in the very early 1970s having
decided to go whole-hog for creating new Identities (each with its marquis
‘victimization’ and – of course – its own Necessary Victimizer) and then
passing into law whatever dampdreams each of their organized advocacies could
think up, the Republicans became by default the only Party of refuge for any
voters who thought that somehow the Democrats had started the country down a
very dangerous and potentially lethal road. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(The quickly-developed Correct come-back to that, of
course, was that since most of the voters ‘just didn’t get it’, then the
government didn’t have to listen to them and, indeed, had to<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> change </i>them or create policies that
would <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sweep</i> them – like the iconic
Archie Bunker – into the new Correct American version of the dustbin of history.)**<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And all that Identity-Politics (with its Gender war
and all the rest, including the ‘war’ on men because of their ‘sexual violence’
that needs to be eliminated at the source) has done is to expand that ‘Southern
strategy’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the Left</i>, embracing
the new Identities as We now know them (as opposed to the old Southern
‘identity’ to which the old ‘Southern strategy’ appealed). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The politics of pandering to new demographic
Identities by deploying government police power against each such Identity’s
Necessary Enemy synergized tightly with the politics of fear that created the
Necessary Enemy to begin with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL thinks that “the politics of fear is beginning to
lose some traction”. (p.228) I’d like to hope so, but I’m not so sure. Both
Parties are now addicted to that “politics of fear” – as well as not wanting to
look like they’ve made some huge and perhaps lethal mistakes (such as, for
instance, the SO Mania Regime). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And at this point, have the consequences of the past
decades of ‘the politics of fear’- now erected into legislation and policy, as
well as so powerfully amplified by the media through the sly manipulation of
public opinion – become so entrenched that their effects are for all practical
purposes not only ineradicable but irreparable? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s difficult enough to get legislation abrogated
and major court decisions reversed. But how do you go about changing all the
inaccurate perceptions that now constitute (an increasingly distracted and
incompetent) public opinion? Especially since <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We have now had several generations of children raised with the idea
that the SO Mania Regime is somehow ‘normal’</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It would be a cutesy sound-bite to assert that the
Democrats are the Party of Regressives rather than the Party of Progressives.
But that isn’t accurate because for so long <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">both</i>
Parties have for their own purposes and using their own ‘justifications’
supported the SO Mania Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes hopefully that “the courts repeatedly
swatted back against the [G.W. Bush] administration’s most egregious examples
of executive overreach during the war on terror”. (p.228) Which is true, as far
as it goes. But the SO Mania Regime is not simply a creature of the Executive
Branch’s desires; it is based in the purposes and agendas of <em>both Parties in
Congress</em> and established by legislation and – in still too many instances –
major court decisions (including both the 1995 New Jersey <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poritz</i> decision and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smith v. Doe</i> decision). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, there might be some hope in the fact that most
of the subsequent SO Mania legislation – on both national and State levels –
has had to be passed by voice-vote or other procedural subterfuge in order to
protect what apparently are the many Members who really don’t want to be
publicly on record as having voted for legislation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yes, there might be some hope in the fact that
as the government itself runs out of cash to play with, then the vital enabling
funding – feeding not only formal government enforcement but also the many
remora-like cottage industries that have sprung up to suck down all that public
cash – might dry up in the general scrum for funding in the increasingly
strapped government budgets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I wonder if We shall ever see the government
reject this SO Mania Regime with the same intense publicity with which it
embraced the Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The budget and the courts seem the best chance, but I'm not the expert on that: perhaps the pols can be worked-with at this point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes that the government has been dialing-back
its punitive approach to certain crimes, such as drug-use crimes – but I don’t
think sex-crimes (however broadly and vaguely defined) are going to benefit
from that tide: the radical-feminist advocacies have too much invested in the
government somehow ‘suppressing’ males. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yes – as RL notes – there has been some pushback
as the government, at the behest of various organized advocacies and special
interests, started up SO Mania attention on teen ‘sexting’ and such, including
children (sometimes of grammar school age) having some form of overt sexual
encounters.*** But is that likely to create sufficient movement toward
dialing-back on the entire SO Mania Regime? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the Salem Witch Trials the madness and mania
finally got tamped down by the government when accusations were leveled at the
wife of the royal governor himself. But in modern America – alas – most elected
officials don’t seem to hold themselves accountable (or to be held accountable)
to the very laws that they have passed. Few – even if they have been forced to
resign office – have ever wound up on a Registry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And while there is some movement toward a general
look at reforming the entire criminal justice system, there is still some
serious question as to whether such reforms – if they are recommended <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> officially acted-upon – will
actually reach a dismantling or major reduction in the SO Mania Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We can certainly hope – with RL – that “key
institutional actors are beginning to question the desirability of organizing
social relations around panic”. (p.228) I would add that it is not only a
matter of ‘desirability’ but of the ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">dangerousness</b>’
– on the most vital and fundamental levels or the nation’s political life and
integrity – that should be of concern (and even alarm). <em>The SO Mania Regime
comprises both the philosophy and the structural characteristics of a police
state – and no republic can survive or even co-exist with a police-state
government.</em> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Being in his heart a ‘liberal’ – meaning that he
tends to see so much of the ‘change’ and ‘reform’ of the past decades as ‘liberation’
– it is hard for RL to get beyond that mindset in order to see the Costs and
Consequences that have accompanied so very much of all that ‘change’ and ‘reform’.
But the probability of all those Costs and Consequences are very real and they were
built into it all from Day One. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And those Costs and Consequences are here now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And all that ‘liberation’ has led to a nation that
now imprisons more of its Citizens than Stalin did in the days of the Gulag or
that China imprisons even today. But no elite or mainstream political discourse
wants to connect any dots to try to explain just how this repugnant and
alarming situation has come to pass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL keeps coming back to the post-9/11 engorgements
of government police authority. But as I have been saying, all of those
engorgements were based on the prior and already well-established derangement
of the Constitutional and Framing Vision’s first principles <em>that had been
corroded and undermined in the SO Mania Regime for a decade and more before
9/11</em>. Those corrosions and derangements simply migrated and mutated even more
virulently under the pressure of the 9/11 event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">National
Security simply adapted the corrosions and derangements that had been imposed
in the name of – if I may – Sexual Security</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So at this point – especially as We now see a
hotly-contested election in which nobody but nobody on the political scene
wants to point to the SO Mania Regime as an example of their Party’s ‘success’ and
instead there is a remarkable public and official silence about the whole Thing
– I think it becomes clear that this lethal and Constitutionally noxious and
toxic system of laws and cultural presuppositions demonstrates <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">by that very absence from public discourse</b>
a) just how deeply bad this whole Thing has been for the country and b) just
how deeply almost all the political elites and players as well as the Citizenry
itself realize that stunning reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But nobody dares to speak about it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i> has been ripped open like a tuna
can, yet the general awareness and discussion of shipboard matters excludes
that vital and primary reality from consideration.****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL will discuss (pp.229-230, as one example) the
situation of African-American prisoners, so often imprisoned on drug-charges.
But that race issue is one of the marquis and still discussable elements of the
half-century old ‘liberal’ agenda; the SO Mania Regime – which is far more
lethal in its corrosions and derangements – still remains untouchable in ‘liberal’
discourse (or in putatively ‘conservative’ discourse as well). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL comes to realize that something is going on here,
and that’s a good thing. But if even he can’t take this lethal bull by the
horns, then it’s open to question just how much better a job the responsible political
and commentator elites will be moved to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He acknowledges – and rightly so – that “the
apparatus of punitive government … is not a fragile regime” but rather “has put
down deep roots in far-flung institutions and social organizations”. (p.230)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One thinks of the same strategy deployed in the
post-WW2 Pentagon strategy of placing its defense industry facilities all
around the country, and expanding its reach into universities through the
generous distribution of national-security research grants and funding. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This strategy hardly differs in its
fundamental dynamics from drug-lords’ strategies for creating and continually
intensifying addiction to their ‘product’ and ‘services’ among the general
population. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And he rightly asserts that “the sex panics treated
in this book are an important part of the picture; they constitute the frontier
where the punitive state’s line of march seems least obstructed”. (p.231)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes. They seemed such a good idea at the time (to
those not looking or thinking carefully enough about just what the hell was
being constructed). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He also describes how ‘successive waves of sex panic
have kept sensational crime stories in the news, produced new victim (and
villain) identities, legitimized the political expression of rage, spun
elaborate webs of legislation eroded rights of the accused and other norms of
democratic law, and driven a culture of fear deep into established institutions
such as the family and the school system”. (p.231) Not a bad list at all. It
should be the cause for great public alarm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, he says, “by tying together institutional and
popular thinking about such esoteric subjects as life, innocence, and risk, sex
panics have fostered new social norms and supplied a reliable and reproducible
set of tropes for the production of other panics in many domains.” (p.231) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This rightly takes things to a new and deeper level
of analysis and possible comprehension of the SO Mania Regime. What are the
philosophical (and I also mean vital political and cultural and social philosophy
here) implications and conceptual fundaments of the SO Mania Regime? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What does it say about Our ‘new’ approach to human
beings that such a cartoonish Good/Evil vision of Our fellow Citizens can come
to drive how they are treated by the government coercive authority? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What does it say about Our commitment to the first
principles of the Framing Vision and the Bill of Rights that We can <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not only allow but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">approv</b>e</i> such official and formal corrosions and derangements of
fundamental Constitutional rights? (Recall that certainly since the early
1970s, but rooted back in the original Progressives’ approach a century and
more ago, the entire Framing Vision and the Constitution that was based upon
that Vision were considered by up-and-coming ‘knowledge elites’ to be outmoded
and insufficient to Ground and Shape the ‘progress’ of a mighty new nation in
the modern age.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What does it say about Our fundamental approach to
conducting a human life itself that We not only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seek a risk-free environment</i> – no matter what the Constitutional
cost – but also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">look to the government to
ensure it</i>? This is not – as used to be said – the spirit that built the
country. (It is evident even in military operations, where ‘force protection’
is now the primary concern; where would Lincoln have been had his generals seen
their primary task as protecting the force rather than engaging in the awful
risks of necessary battles that would win the war?) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And again, and again oddly and even weirdly, so much
of the past half-century of ‘liberation’ has led to a police-state government
that takes upon itself to guarantee that there will be zero-tolerance for ‘risk’
of any kind. Yet in a world where human beings are imperfect, how can a
risk-free life be guaranteed by any earthly power? Is it even maturationally
and existentially healthy for an entire citizenry to seek – let alone achieve –
a risk-free life? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL also notes the role of the “endangered innocent
child” in the sustaining and intensifying of sex panic. (p.232) Once again,
this is a devilishly difficult topic to discuss: children were slyly put
forward almost like baby harp-seals to lubricate this monstrous slide into a
police-state. Where Lenin and Stalin and Mao (among a thousand other lesser dictatorial
demons) would impose their regimes on behalf of ‘the masses’ or ‘the fatherland’,
the American variant of the police-state will impose itself ‘for the children’.
And who can be ‘against’ that? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That Question deserves more serious and sustained
critical thought than it has received. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As a result of the ‘sexual liberation’ agenda of the
past half-century, RL sees that “sexual anxieties” have been greatly
intensified. (p.233) People may fear the whole trend from a philosophical point
of view (is ‘sex’ that important and will its ‘liberation’ necessarily lead
only to a ‘better’ quality of self and life?); or they may fear their own society
and fellow Citizens whose approach to ‘sex’ is somewhere to the left of Yaaa-hooooo!
There may well be a widespread and deep (but unrecognized or unacknowledged)
fear of a Shapeless society where anything goes if you feel it supports your ‘right’
to ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of these Questions and concerns were present
from the get-go half a century ago. But you don’t make a ‘revolution’ – or a
whole mess of revolutions – by asking and answering questions or Questions, or
by thinking-things-through. You have to act – and for the Progressive mentality
in its core that means that the government, informed of course by its
benevolent and oh-so-knowledgeable elites, must act. In that belief, both super-guy
Republican Teddy Roosevelt and professor-preacher Democrat Woodrow Wilson fully
concurred. And things have gone on from there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And now look where We are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, RL continues, (p.235) ‘sex panic’ and the fear
of crime blended together like two poisonous streams, their hydraulic pressure intensified
and amplified by government and – I would add – so very many of the usual-suspect ‘elites’
in media and academia, quoting thoughtlessly from that pandemonium of entrepreneurs who have battened onto this whole Thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He takes a swipe at “Puritanism” as a cause. (p.235)
In a smaller sense, I might agree. But in a larger sense, the Puritan insight
was that it was a risky world because human beings themselves were risky amalgams
of good and evil and the Puritans preferred not to take too many chances: they
would create a solid Shape and structure to society and to people and thereby
they hoped to reduce some, or a whole lot, of the chances and risks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sounds familiar. The Puritans did it by erecting a religious
theocracy in the New World. The Progressives derided the Puritan theocracy and
instead sought to have the government set up an authoritarian, we-know-what’s-best/just-do-what-you’re-told
regime. But the basic game-plan remained the same, and remains the same even
unto this day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The result, as RL notes, is a “system of social
control”. (p.235) And worse: some amount of control is necessary in every life
and every civilization and in every society. But the genuine and originating American
idea was that <em>people would be the first sources of their own control through
self-control</em>. A self-control buttressed by religious and traditional ways of
leading a life in society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But instead of such an interior-based self-control –
once the whole idea of self-control and self-discipline was kicked to the curb
half a century ago – the government (which had greatly abetted that kicking to
the curb) stepped in to provide control of the self and of the society <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the outside</i>, imposing such control
through criminal laws and policies. Again, precisely the enabling dynamics of a
police-state. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL goes on to note “paranoia about strange outsiders
[and] enactment of dramas of peril and rites of protection”. (p.235) Yes. And
all of these primeval human fears and sensibilities were played upon and
manipulated skillfully by the government and the story-desperate media in the
construction of the SO Mania Regime. Abetted by various special-interest
organized advocacies who sought both the deconstruction of any ‘oppressive’
Shape to society while also demanding Total Security from the inevitable
consequences of such deconstruction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus We wind up with the dynamics of an endless
feedback loop: the more ‘liberation’, the more ‘risk’ and thus the more need
for externally-imposed Shape and Boundaries by the government. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">No democratic republic can long survive this type of
dynamic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This constitutes what RL will call “the new
authoritarianism”. (p.239) In appearance it is not the more ‘classical’ jack-booted
and uniformed authoritarianism of Lenin and Stalin and Mao and all the rest of
that demonry. Instead it is ‘sensitive’ and ‘liberating’ and concerned (not for
a genuine public morality or sense of self-discipline and personal responsibility
but rather) for a risk-free and zero-tolerance police state regime cloaked in those
‘sensitive’ and ‘liberating’ costumes and pretexted by ‘victims’ who are
voraciously fore-grounded by the cameras. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes that “a number of social critics, not all
on the Left, used the term ‘fascist’ and related vocabularies to describe the
alarming usurpations of power that occurred under the Bush-Cheney
administration”. (p.239) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I can only add here that you would be rewarded by a
look at Jonah Goldberg’s book which I discuss a bit in Note ** below. Goldberg
raises the vitally interesting point that Fascism was a movement <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the Left</i>: Mussolini and Hitler saw
themselves as ‘revolutionaries’ of the Left who would unite ‘socialism’ and ‘nationalism’
for the purpose of controlling capitalism’s effect on the masses of their
citizenries. Recall that Hitler insisted loud and often that “there will be no
further <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">revolution</i> in Germany for a
thousand years”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is Goldberg’s contention that while in the (now
almost totally unremembered) prewar years, Mussolini and even the early Hitler
were considered paragons of efficiency not only by the actual Left but by the
American Progressives as well. It was only after the war and its revelations of
the Holocaust that the Left focused on the militaristic and nationalistic
elements of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s regimes, thus tarring the Right with the
monstrosities of those regimes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But from 1922 (when Mussolini got started) up until
the outbreak of the war, the Left and the Progressives looked approvingly on
the programmes, agendas, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and methods, and
human costs</i>, of the putatively marvelous and thorough and efficient government
‘reforms’ that Hitler and Mussolini enacted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After the war, there was still Left and Progressive
admiration for Stalin and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i>
approach (although the dawn of the Cold War tamped that admiration down at
least in its public form). As late as 1978 when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn berated
American ‘liberals’ in a Harvard address for supporting the Soviet and
especially Stalinist regimes, he was received cooly and with distaste by the assembled
high-elites because he not only embarrassed ‘liberals’ by bringing up that
by-then buried sore point, but even more so because he had suggested that the
Russian state and people had to return to some genuine and profound
spirituality – precisely as the American Left and ‘liberals’ were trying to
secularize American society and culture in the name of ‘liberation’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But perhaps I digress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL proposes that “something went terribly wrong in
American society during the first decade of the 21<sup>st</sup> century”. (p.239)
I would say that it went wrong far earlier, but certainly as early as the first
‘sex panics’ of the very early 1980s (the McMartin Pre-School Ritual Day-Care
Satanic Abuse cases) or the mid-1960s and the first formal enactments of ‘victim-friendly’
legislation (in California; when former CA-governor Reagan became President in
1981, he quickly made ‘victimism’ a national initiative, and as I have often
pointed out, formally enabled the synergy between the law-and-order Right and
the radical-feminist Left with its simultaneous demands for women’s sexual ‘liberation’
and for the suppression of males’ ‘violent sexuality’ … all of which was simply
put into super-charged overdrive when the Clinton administration came to power
in 1991). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL concludes his book with a call for “a sounder
public discourse”. (p.243) I can only strongly agree. But you have to wonder
how much possibility remains of recovering such a discourse since “the public”
has over the ensuing decades become so incapable of sustaining attention and
serious critical analysis and thought; and since there are now, as I have
mentioned, several generations that have been raised with the idea that what is
actually a punitive carceral state and an apparently unending SO Mania Regime
are ‘normal’ or at least ‘necessary’ and generally Good things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But RL offers some starting suggestions (p.243-4):
Take a deep breath; Always insist on hard evidence; Demystify; Be wary of
biopolitical monsters; Return to basics; Forget; Try retrofitting; Accept some
risks; Change the political discourse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By ‘Forgetting’ he means growing away from the
sustained re-ignition of old ‘rage’ about face the present and the future. This
refers to Victimism’s (in its American mutation) unending demand to focus on
past victimizations – genuine or otherwise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By ‘Retrofitting’ he means trying to find some other
and more constructive and less corrosive use for all of the cottage-industries
and government bureaucracies and political strategies that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have grown up around ‘sex panic’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is going to be a nation-sized task of
essentially weaning addicts off addiction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So much, then, remains to be done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**This general vision of the role of the government –
knowledgeable and benevolent ‘elites’ who would advise the government on how
best to shape the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">demos</i>, the masses
(formerly known as The People in the Framers' and Lincoln’s vision) – wasn’t all that new. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the first decade of the 20<sup>th</sup>-century
the American Progressives (who, whether Democrat or Republican, were for big
and knowledgeable government, both for re-creating the lumpish American masses and
for sending out the gunboats to bring the blessings of modernity to whatever
peoples on the globe were sitting on some useful real estate) pretty much had
the same idea: the masses didn’t really know what they were doing and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">needed to be led</i>. Both Teddy Roosevelt
and Woodrow Wilson subscribed to this political vision, even though to all
appearances the former was a macho and gregarious do-er, and the latter was a
bookish and preachy think-er and so it appeared as if there was a major
difference between the two Parties’ basic concept of government for 20<sup>th</sup>-century
America. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus the Citizenry and The People – along with their
18<sup>th</sup>-century ‘democracy’ – weren’t really <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the most up-to-date Way Forward into the
glittering 20<sup>th</sup>-century America. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If you are interested in American intellectual and
political history as it bears on contemporary America (and on the SO Mania
Regime) then I could recommend a look at Jonah Goldberg’s 2007 book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liberal Fascism</i> (Doubleday; ISBN
978-0-385-51184-1). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For a hundred years and more, the Beltway –
Republican and Democrat – has been under the strong impression that it could
and should do ‘whatever it takes’ because it is the only element in the country
that knows what has to be done; and that in furtherance of its plans and
visions and agendas it should not allow ‘the masses’ with their ignorance and their
doubts and their ‘democracy’ to stand in the way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This now-long established presumption is, I would
say, yet another reason why the SO Mania Regime has been so resistant to what
is now 20 years of evidence that it doesn’t work and that it constitutes a
serious threat to genuine American democracy and moves the country ever closer
to a totalitarian police state. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">But these Mania Regime laws were not originally
passed on the basis of any demonstrably-proven rationality, and thus they are
not going to be repealed on the basis of any demonstrably-proven rationality;
they were politically opportunistic from the get-go and genuine ‘science’ and ‘rationality’
didn’t enter into the pols’ calculations at all. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To the Progressives, the then-new idea of the
‘totalitarian’ state – meaning a state that was competent enough and powerful
enough to shape and guide and impose its ‘wisdom’ on the ‘total’ life of the
country and the Citizenry – was taken as Gospel from the get-go. The Beltway
would make and ‘improve’ people the way Henry Ford was making and improving
automobiles (back then, the Model T). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Decades later, this presumption fueled and continues
to fuel the SO Mania Regime. If the Beltway was ‘wrong’, then that would cause
everybody to doubt the omni-competence of the government, and you simply could
not allow <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i></b> to happen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">***I point out again the incoherencies of all this
over the past half-century: the flower-child Boomers were all for a culture of
overt and for all intents and purposes formal or official ‘sexual liberation’ (which
kinda sorta shades quickly into sexual libertinism in practice) while their
radical-feminist sistern insisted on ‘sexual liberation’ as a vital necessity
for ‘women’. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That </i>required a
loosening of parental authority and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>worked
out to a ‘deconstructing’ of almost all social and cultural authority (with its
traditional ideals of commitment and sexual self-discipline). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But then – quickly and hardly surprisingly – the replacement
for the cultural abolition of parental authority in matters of sex (abetted by
the government and the media as ‘liberation’) became <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the government’s own sovereign coercive police power. </i>And thus one
of the prime feeder-streams of the SO Mania Regime became joined to the ‘gender
war’ agenda against males (pretexted as the male propensity to ‘sexual violence’
or even pretexted on the presumption that pretty much all (heterosexual) sex is
rape) which has now mutated toward the official presumption that all
sexual-experience is rape if the female at any point (including well after the
event) decides she feels it was rape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And while political programs aren’t necessarily
noted for their coherence (rather: only for their political attractiveness to
this or that demographic cache of votes) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yet
then this whole multi-headed dynamic <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">was
erected into law</b></i>. And<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> thus</i>
the watering down of evidentiary standards and the presumption of innocence of
the accused that was built into the Bill of Rights and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thus further </i>the erection of the SO Mania Regime with its
still-engorging Registration requirements. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus a culture built upon traditional ideals was a)
swept away and b) replaced by government fiat through its sovereign coercive
police power and through the civil and criminal law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Leading inevitably and ineluctably to a national
culture sustained <em>not</em> by the moral will and self-structuring of the individual
Citizens <em>but rather</em> through the imposition of government police authority. This
is a clear characteristic of an authoritarian or even totalitarian police state,
where government coercive authority is the primary Shaping force of the ‘totality’
of the culture (as well as of the economy and so forth). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">****This grossly unhealthy civic dynamic is especially
evident in erstwhile ‘liberal’ commentary that now decries that National
Security State derangements of the post-9/11 era, in both foreign and domestic
government activities, yet never ever mentions the SO Mania Regime as one of
the most influential and early sources of those now-florid derangements. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I can recommend a look at this <a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11264-john-cusack-and-jonathan-turley-on-obamas-constitution">interview</a> with
Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He doesn’t mention the SO Mania Regime; he is
focusing on the erosions of legality and of Constitutional first principles
evident in both the Bush and Obama administrations in their ongoing pursuit of war
on terrorism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But he notes that a) in the Beltway there is no
longer any concern for ‘principles’, but rather merely the overriding concern
for the objective that the government has chosen to pursue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And that b) there are thus no longer any “bright-line
rules” which provide boundaries and which constitute a “Rubicon” which can
never be crossed by the government power. We have seen this in the SO Mania
Regime with its vague and ever-expanding definitions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And that c) there is no longer any “clarity” –
meaning that words and terms no longer mean what they appear to mean, and that
descriptions of the actual actions taken are no longer meant to actually
describe those actions accurately, but rather merely to spin them for the convenience
of the spinner. Thus “due process” in the matter of the President’s ordering
the execution or assassination of persons is nothing of the sort; it is now
actually just the government claim that we have a due-process, but it’s a
secret one, and you can’t know anything about it. Which is precisely the
opposite of the public and highly-structured due-process guarantee demanded by
the Framers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And that d) in light of (c) the government is
essentially just saying “Trust Us”. But Turley points out that the Framers
erected the Constitution precisely because human beings are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not</b> angels and that therefore no
government comprised of human beings can ever be so fully ‘trusted’ to remain
benevolent and honest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And that e) the primary Question facing voters and
Citizens is not What Obama or the Presidency has become but rather <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We </i>become</b>? And this, I have often said, is the truly profound
Question at the bottom of the SO Mania Regime: its costs and consequences for
Our own integrity and the nature of Our stewardship and tenure as individuals
on this earth and as Citizens of this Constitutional republic. And at this
point – with Our government conducting so much violence around the planet,
lubricated by the ‘normality’ of such egregious monstrosities as the SO Mania
Regime – what responsibility We bear as the ultimate governors of Our
government. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Finally, says Turley, it comes down to wondering
when We as the voters and the Citizens say “Enough” and start making the
government move back from the edge of the moral abyss to which it has brought
Us all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-12961790684130532142012-08-28T05:23:00.000-07:002012-08-28T05:23:14.130-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 12<link href="file:///C:%5Cwindows%5CTEMP%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5Cwindows%5CTEMP%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5Cwindows%5CTEMP%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL begins his eighth (and final) chapter, entitled
“The Victimology Trap”, with a quotation from Brit writer Margaret Atwood: “I
know you’ve been told that this is for your own safety and protection, but
think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t
used to be so easily frightened.” (p.214) She wrote that in her “Letter to
America”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here RL is going to take a few bulls by the horns:
“What is the connection between the punitive turn, with its expressly
authoritarian politics, and the liberal political tradition with its emphasis
on individual rights?” (p.214) I would answer here that built into the
Beltway’s eager pandering to any demographic group that looked like it could promise
electoral success, were three anti-democratic dynamics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First, the government will have to selectively exalt
that demographic and treat its agenda and demands with favoritism; and second,
the government will have to impose upon everybody else that demographic group’s
agenda and demands – including going-after that group’s Necessary Enemy; and
third, the government would have to involve itself actively in both reshaping
the most profoundly interior mentality of the Citizenry while also ‘pursuing’
the Necessary Enemy deep into every structure and sanctuary of the nation’s
culture and society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then – of course – you have to factor in the
cumulative reality: each demographic had its own Necessary Enemy so the
government was simultaneously pursuing numerous classes of such Enemies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The government thus in effect declared war on substantial
chunks of its own citizenry, ostensibly merely on behalf of other, more
‘marginalized’ chunks of that citizenry, but once governments get the taste of
this type of blood – so to speak – they are not often returned to their former
non-feral and domesticated condition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, RL then asks: “How is the punitive state
related to capitalism, especially the privatized, deregulated variant that has
prevailed since the end of the 1970s and is known as neoliberalism?” (p.214)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Economically, the Beltway’s failure, starting 40
years ago, to keep American jobs here (lubricated by radical-feminism’s demand
for the deconstruction of the ‘macho, patriarchal, hierarchical, sweaty,
lunch-bucket culture of the Industrial Age) resulted in a general sense that
the ‘Male’ as he had been traditionally conceived was expendable and no longer
necessary to national success. Thus it became much easier to indulge in
demonization of Him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The many hundreds of thousands of Registered SO’s
would also – even without a prison record – effectively be out of the job
market and perhaps off the voting rolls, thus clearing jobs for the newly
‘valorized’ Identity-groups (had the Adam Walsh Act scheme worked as fatuously
intended by the Beltway, the number of SO’s affected would have increased
substantially). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – as with any large government Initiative –
numerous jobs at all levels of skill and pay would be created: whatever
government bureaucracy was created to keep the files on SOs and whatever law
enforcement agencies required more hires to pursue them and whatever government
resources were needed to spin the whole Thing to the public and sell it to the
State governments. While simultaneously, the government would make public tax
monies available to an increasing pandemonium of cottage-industries and
entrepreneurial efforts somehow connecting themselves to some aspect of this
whole Initiative. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Before the TSA was erected in the period immediately
after 9/11, a Sex-Offense demi-world of government hiring and funding <i>had already been created</i>, replicating
ominously the purpose and shape of the old East German <i>Stasi</i> organization, the domestic elements of the old Soviet KGB
(and its predecessors: the <i>Cheka</i>, the
OGPU, the NKVD), and the marquis monstrosity of the Third Reich’s <i>Gestapo</i>. But – and this was the work of
the slyly-constructed and presented Stampede – it all seemed to far too many
Americans <b>such a good idea at the time</b>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The German people – so roundly ridiculed for it in
the later 1940s – made the same defense of what they had gone along-with in the
1930s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It has to be admitted that Americans could no more
imagine their own democracy deliberately and formally starting down the
police-state path than the passengers and command staff of the <i>Titanic</i> could imagine that mystically marvelous
modern vessel destroying herself on her maiden voyage. It was precisely this
failure of imagination – which, actually, was enabled by a PR campaign that cheeribly
oversold the vessel’s strengths and slyly ignored the dangers of early Spring
crossings of the North Atlantic – that caused not only her passengers but her
command staff to minimize the very real dangers she (and all of them) faced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And if this country will no longer have the
productive abundance to ensure her ‘economic independence’, and indeed may
experience significant civil unrest greater even than the period from the 1880s
to the 1930s, then the temptation for the government will be to set in place
and to ‘normalize’ – by whatever pretext necessary – mechanisms by which hefty
numbers of Citizens can be detained or tagged or imprisoned and/or ‘registered
and tracked’, all on the flimsiest of evidence and on an emotional appeal to
‘the emergency’. <b>This</b>, I would say,
is the still-unseen strategic consequence built-into the SO Mania Regime matrix
of laws. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He acknowledges that “the dominance of a vengeance
orientation today is linked not only to various forms of conservatism but also
to a genealogy of liberalism.” (p.214) And that point can never be made too
much – both sides of the political spectrum are involved in this. (Which is
why, I think, in a hotly contested political campaign and race nobody but
nobody – Democratic or Republican – talks about their Sex Offense ‘successes’
or the other sides Sex Offense ‘failures’: because there is plenty of evidence
that both sides were in this mess up to their ears from the get-go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And now,<i>
nobody </i>wants to talk about it. What sort of ‘success’ has nobody who will
acknowledge having caused it? The kind of success – I would say – that we call
‘failure’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He mentions author Wendy Brown, who in her 1995 book
<i>States of Injury</i>, speaks out against
“the politics of victimology she sees inherent in modern liberalism, especially
some of its feminist variations”. (And yet by 1995 Megan’s Law was already
before the New Jersey Supreme Court, which would issue its now-ludicrous
upholding in the <i>Poritz</i> decision.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At this point neither ‘liberal’ nor ‘progressive’ would
care to claim responsibility for the SO Mania Regime; nor would the
law-and-order bunch. After all, in an election where each side is desperately
trying to demonstrate that they can come up with workable solutions that are both
intelligently conceived and effective practically, who wants to be tarred with
responsibility for the SO Mania Regime?** Is there any larger Picture into
which this dishonestly-justified and dishonestly continued and dishonestly
sustained Program can conceivably fit to make it seem worth the effort and the
damage it has cost? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was built into liberalism’s embrace of victimism
from Day One: if you were going to ally yourself with Victims, and those
Victims demanded that you do whatever it takes to get the Perps who had
victimized them, then liberalism was going to have to adopt the techniques of
the police state, especially if you were going to try to give the impression
you could “outlaw injury” or even just ‘prevent’ it, everywhere and all the time.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As RL puts it: “Freedom, defined as protection,
comes to mean subjection”. (p.215) It’s going to be a hallmark failure of the
recent 25 or 30 years that far too few on any side of the Question, on any
point on the political spectrum, realized that soon enough to do something
about it. What did people expect, as <i>“fear”
began to “colonize social spaces</i>”. (p.214) [italics mine] We have been
‘colonized’ by fear in this country, in a way We never had been prior to the
victimist-radical feminist Ascendancy of the past several decades. And that
fear has driven Us to accept alarming amounts of government coercive intrusion,
under the guise of ‘protection’ and ‘prevention’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He notes that liberalism has an innate tendency to
“justify government action narrowly as intervention on behalf of the weakest
and most vulnerable” – but that actually results in a liberal government that
“aims to correct the worst abuses, rather than address the logic of the system
as a whole”. (p.215) In other words, in trying to put out the fire they pour on
all the water from all the fire hoses they can bring to bear; and so they wind
up flooding the ship and rather than burning up with fire it fills up with
water from the fire hoses and sinks anyway. Such government. Such
problem-solving. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This tendency to over-react and under-think and under-visualize
on the part of the Beltway (now a bipartisan hash of leftists and rightists simply
looking for their side to ‘win’) has resulted in the feminist-victimist
‘special interests’ being allowed to write their own agendas and dampdreams into
law, and what<i> that</i> has led to is that
they have adopted the techniques, tactics, panoply and pandemonium of a classic
police state and made it all seem like A Good Idea and The Next New Thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Liberals, RL
says, have proven disturbingly susceptible to the political seductions of
“victimization narratives” and the concomitant “narrative of rescue” script. And
even though liberalism is theoretically as traditionally averse to emotion as
was its ancestor the Enlightenment, yet the not-always-subtle hysteria and
histrionics of victimization and its narratives still quietly flood the
foundations of American political liberalism. (p.215)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL takes the bull by the horns and proposes outright
that “victimist statutes, with their mania for exacting detection and excessive
punishments, represent <i>a disintegration or
involution of political norms, <b>not</b>
their extension</i>”, resulting in the alarming reality that “liberal political
traditions, for all of their shortcomings, <i>now
take abnormal and unhealthy forms</i>”. <span> </span>(p.215) [italics mine]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And there were even more serpentine connections. RL
quotes author Marie Gottschalk, whose research indicates a curious twist in the
turn toward the punitive state: “As social services began to shrink in the
1980s due to the tax revolt, the recession, and the Reagan revolution, services
for crime victims … expanded”. (p.223) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems to me that, in connection with<i> political</i> pandering to the agendas of
the Victimist and Radical-Feminist advanced-level advocacies, the Beltway
embrace and valorization of Victimhood also enabled the pols to keep up <i>re-distributional</i> pay-outs to selected
Identity-groups, even as formal social-service funds were being cut: if you
could (and it wasn’t difficult) establish your official status as a ‘victim’,
then public monies would be made available to you either directly from the feds
or through State-administered programs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus the Punitive state – quite happy engorging and
‘normalizing’ its authority against this and that Identity’s Necessary Enemy –
also serves as a hidden sub-support of the Welfare state. But what many don’t
realize is that with their victim checks and victim status comes also the
living specter of the police-state’s engorged coercive power. Which, further, once
established sufficiently to stand on its own authority – instead of borrowing
the authority of an ‘emergency’ or an ‘outrage’ – may well turn on <i>any</i>body; as Clint Eastwood’s
ex-gunfighter Will Munny says to an aspiring apprentice: “We <i>all </i>got it comin’, kid”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Once again, it is a failure of the American civic
imagination not to realize just what sort of a Vampire-power has now been
invited into the national hearth. (It is a painful irony that a civic
imagination far too easily able to conceive of Monster Stranger Sex Offenders
Everywhere, was yet too weak to conceive of the imminent though well-established
historical dangers of an engorged coercive authority and the clear procedural
adoption of police-state dynamics.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I will conclude this mini-series on Rl’s book in my
next Post, with an overview of what he sees as the current condition of the
Punitive State and its future potentials and possibilities, in relation to the
SO Mania Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i>Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**I have noticed that even nowadays, as both
liberal-progressive and conservative commentators are uncovering more and more
evidence of government trampling on citizens’ rights with the cocky impunity of
a police-state, and where commentators are trying to trace the causes of this
alarming problem, yet nobody has traced the causes back to the SO Mania Regime
nor so much as mentioned the term ‘sex offense’ in reams of commentary on How
We Got Here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-69921135393635882902012-08-19T14:00:00.002-07:002012-08-21T19:24:12.427-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 11<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL had concluded his prior section regretting how
things had turned out, with so many “missed opportunities” as feminism mutated
here in the United States. Feminism in other countries had taken other paths –
allying with prisoners’ rights groups and remaining “aloof from the growing
crime-control apparatus of the state” while supporting “a more consistent
articulation of social-democratic principles”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He’s a little too easy on “liberals” here, making it
sound as if “liberals vacillated” because “as political tides turned, a
punitive and increasingly conservative logic overtook” them. (p.211) I would
not give so much away: feminism was overtaken by its own Radical elements –
anti-male, hostile, grievance-based and demanding “redress”, aggressive, anti-democratic
(since so many people ‘just didn’t get it’) and they had deliberately adopted assorted
French anti-traditionalist and anti-foundationalist critical theories as well
as Leninist-Gramscian political strategies and visions in order to give
themselves a ‘solid’ philosophical grounding for their agendas and demands.**<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus, fundamentally, the now-Radical feminist
approach – which provided the core justifications and gameplans for all the
other ‘liberations’ – was keyed from the get-go to require state suppression of
the Necessary and Designated Oppressor-Enemy (especially when it came time to
try the first wide-scale government suppression-and-control gambit that was the
SO Mania Regime). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Radical is hell-and-gone from Liberal; the Radical Stance
indicates a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Content</i> that is
considered both fundamental and essential, and a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Method</i> that consequently demands immediate and complete
implementation. To such a Stance, the partial and slow processes of democratic
politics – persuasion and compromise until a sufficiently wide-based consensus
is worked out – are merely obstructions and pacts with Evil. Thus, Jacobins in
the French Revolution and Abolitionists in the antebellum era here and Soviets
in Russia a century ago did not support ‘politics’ but rather sought to crush
political activity in favor of overt revolutionary activities such as capture
of the government power and deploying it to impose their agendas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And so you can see how an SO Mania Regime that sort
of seemed in the beginning to have wide ‘political’ support actually turns out
to be resistant to all political efforts to change it: what had been driving it
all along was <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not</b> genuinely
political <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but rather</i></b> a manipulated and fake politics that was really
masking a profoundly anti-political and anti-democratic source-vision and
power-source. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, of course, given what I said in recent Posts in
this mini-series about Theodore Lowi’s exposure of the true dynamics of
“interest-group liberalism” – that the pols let the interest-groups and
Advocacies themselves write the laws and regulations, which the pols will
simply rubber-stamp (in exchange for votes or cash) – then you can get an idea
of what actually went into the writing of all the Bills in the SO Mania Regime
that were then passed into law: every dampdream and overzealous excitement that
the Advocates came up with was simply written into the Bill that would be sent
to the pols’ offices for rubber-stamping. (I can’t help but think of late-night
collegiate bong-and-beer sessions back in the day where eager ‘revolutionaries’
whomped up whatever ‘reforms’ to the curriculum and university administration
appeared to their wobbly minds as The Very Thing that was
oh-so-necessary-and-good.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At this point, if anything is slowing it down, it’s
the fact that the fuel of government cash is starting to run out. If you tried
to fight it purely on principles and rational political persuasion, you would
never succeed. (And – conversely – if they had tried to get it started simply
by convincing you purely on principles and rational political persuasion, they
would never have succeeded in erecting the Mania Regime in the first place.
Which is why they didn’t even bother to try.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
is what has been driving the SO Mania Regime, far far more than any rational
assessment of the Problem and the emergency and the threat (or not) and more
than any serious and careful legislative deliberation about what workable and
effective law-making could address the situation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus too I can’t agree with RL’s thought that it
was “an increasingly conservative women’s movement” that embraced all this. The
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">radical</i></b>
nature of the women’s movement was – all by itself – headed straight for a
police-state government from Day One. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Indeed, no genuine ‘conservative’ could ever have
embraced the grossly anti-Constitutional and anti-Framing Vision scheme that is
and always has been the SO Mania Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL then asks – and rather bravely, given the
atmospherics surrounding this whole matter – “is injury ennobling?” (p.211)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The idea that injury empowers or gives insight to
the injured has proved difficult to resist, even in scholarly works”. (p.211)
How true it is. And it is a vital element in the Victimist presentation: you
have to listen to ‘the victims’ not only because they have been victimized (and
always ‘horrifically’) but also because victims now constitute the wisest and
most insightful Citizens in the country today. Simply because they have been
victimized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He quotes noted radical-feminist writer Judith
Butler (‘scholar’ would have to be used in quotes; like any good revolutionary,
she only studies in order to ‘prove’ what she had already decided was ‘true’
before she began her research … which happens a whole lot in ‘advocacy
scholarship’), who “wishes to preserve the central role of trauma in the
leftist political imagination”. (p.211)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Even – he marvelously adds – “while disavowing its
uses by the post-9/11 right”. (p.211)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And here RL draws a hugely useful line connecting
some vital dots that the Beltway and the SO Mania advocates and the media would
rather not be connected in the public mind: well before the Patriot Act the SO
Mania Regime had already been set up, and its precedents and dynamics simply
migrated and mutated and were adapted to suit the purposes of the Patriot Act. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He quotes Butler as she burbles that “to be injured
means that one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has the chance to</i>
reflect upon injury, to find out the mechanism of its distribution, to find out
who else suffers from permeable borders, unexpected violence, dispossession and
fear; and in what ways”. (p.212) [italics mine] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In a perfect world, or in an ideal working-out of
the victimization experience, that may happen: the victimized individual gets a
chance to reflect deeply and maturely on the nature of his/her experience. Look
at how Boethius handled it, writing down his profound reflections in his
classic work <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Consolations of
Philosophy</i> (which he wrote, by the way, while in prison for treason because
he wasn’t quite in sync with the government of his day). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But that’s all only a possibility, in an ideal world
or in the ideal possible working-out of a victimization experience. You don’t
have to look at many online comments or published news stories about ‘victims’
to realize that a very very large proportion – and perhaps the majority – don’t
quite rise that high to the occasion. Instead, there is anger and outrage and a
queasily obvious desire for vengeance, and most surely no serious consideration
of any Larger dimensions of their experience than their own personal feelings
and the hopefully retributive consequences that the government (and the eager
pols) will impose forthwith on the alleged victimizer (or preventive
consequences to be imposed on any future potential victimizer). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This type of reaction is understandable and
certainly deserves some attention – and also requires some serious
working-through efforts, in the therapeutic and personal-maturational forums. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But to demand an immediate response consisting of a
dense skein of draconian laws and punishments, and preventive laws as well, at
whatever cost to legislative and jurisprudential and law-enforcement integrity
… this is too much to ask, let alone to demand. Let alone that the pols (and
far too often, the courts) have been doing their best to satisfy such unripe
and highly-fraught demands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Look what happened following 9/11. Building on the
‘trauma’ that all Americans putatively suffered, the government sent out the
military in a still-increasing strategy of (mis-)adventures all over the world.
To prevent any further ‘traumatic victimization’, of course. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – in a darkly marvelous reprise of the refusal
to reconsider the faulty Findings that ‘justified’ the many SO Mania Regime
laws – the government didn’t even care to reconsider when the allegations of
‘WMD’ and Iraqi involvement were demonstrated to have been very wrong indeed;
nor – still today – does the government hesitate to fiddle with ‘definitions’
and to drone-bomb funerals in Afghanistan on the assumption that if we kill
somebody we decide to define as a ‘terrorist’, then we can presume that only
other ‘terrorists’ will attend the funeral. (‘Terrorists’ can now be
‘identified’ by such diagnostic ‘evidence’ as missing a finger, stockpiling too
much food, or travelling a lot … mirroring precisely the unending plasticity of
the definitions connected with sex-offenses and sex-offenders). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Left”, advises RL, “should reconsider its
fixation on injury, its attachment to political strategies based on victimization”.
(p.212) Yes indeed, although by this point a whole lotta investment has been
made in the game: laws have been passed and courts – including the highest –
have largely found ways to uphold them; entire cottage-industries of
remora-like entrepreneurial types have been set up and have gotten used to
cashing in on the huge amounts of government monies made available; the various
media have made a lot of hay leading with ‘victimization’ outrage stories; and
there are now an awful lot of voters who have pretty much defined their role,
status, and purpose as human beings and as Citizens to be based on their
victimhood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, of course, how can the pols now back off from
what they have assured everybody was a very real and very urgent and very
permanent Crisis and Emergency and Outrage? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And what happens if they back off, the aura of
“inevitability” and Goodness wears away, and the public starts looking more
carefully at what has been done under the cover of this whole Stampede? As one member
of Lenin’s early governing council put it in a meeting (with an honesty he perhaps
lived just long enough to regret): What happens when the people find out what
we’ve <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really </i>done?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“No less resistant to criticism is the idea that
empathy with the victim is, or ought to be, the basis for ethical political action.”
(p.212)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here RL approaches the huge Question: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just how far can the government go in
legislating ‘solutions’ (especially ‘preventive’ ones) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">before it is no longer</b> the American government – bound and limited
by Constitutional principles and Framing-Vision presumptions – envisioned by
the Framers? <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">No legislation and few jurists have dared to
approach this Question. Nor very many in the media. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet this is the Primary Question that should be
addressed in the deliberations about any proposed legislation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He acutely considers the work of the late
philosopher Gillian Rose (she died in 1995): she had examined “the forms of
identification and feeling prodded by the early 1990s Stephen Spielberg movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schindler’s List</i>” and how it illustrated
“how the innocence of the perfect victim is made possible by … ‘the
sentimentality of the ultimate predator’”. (p.212)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have mentioned in a Post on Adolf Eichmann’s trial
in Jerusalem in 1961 that the Holocaust was a made-to-order Victimist event:
genuinely innocent victims, in their millions, horribly treated and killed, by
monstrous Nazi executioners. But, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then</i>
pointed out, that the Holocaust was so unique in modern history that the way it
was allowed to override usual legal protections for the accused should have
been accepted as a huge (if justified) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">exception</b>
to legal process against victimization, rather than – as happened – being
raised up as an<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> example</b> of how
victimization should be handled by government justicial action. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The presence of “an ultimate predator”, Rose
observes acutely, enables such “sentimentality” – meaning an overriding
emotionalism – that people can feel far too ‘good’ about ‘doing whatever it
takes’ to destroy such a perfectly monstrous predator. The Nazi was certainly
suited to the role of such a perfect “ultimate predator”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rose, RL notes, then went on to draw a far more
disconcerting conclusion: “It is my own violence that I discover in this film”.
(p.212) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We humans are all of us violent. Our violence against
others in the service of our feelings or desires, individually and acting
in-concert, is an ever-present potential. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But
then</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">,
how can a government, especially a democratic and Constitutionally-limited
government, ‘eradicate’ this profound and deep-set human potential? Can it take
the ‘criminalization’ path <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and yet avoid</b>
becoming a police-state of near-ultimate proportions? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And what deformations will ensue for a government
that allows huge chunks of its own Citizens in this day and age to be characterized
(even if only ‘metaphorically’) as incorrigible victimizing Nazis? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And what deformations will ensue for the political
integrity and unity of a Citizenry so divided, permanently and profoundly, into
sheep and goats, into totally innocent victims and totally evil victimizers? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He concludes that “injury ennobles no one; it makes
no one any smarter; it gives no one insight beyond the simple experience of
pain … at best, it leads to a blinkered view, in which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the world revolves around one’s own pain</i>; at worst, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to the development of a perverse politics of
identity</i>, in which everyone is defined by exquisite experience of injury
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acts</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">politically to extort sympathy</i>”. (p.212) [italics mine] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would only add that the experience of injury <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in and of itself</i> offers no magic-path to
increased maturity. In ideal – and rare – cases, particular individuals can
work an experience of injury into a powerful catalyst for increased maturity.
But that’s in ideal – and necessarily rare – instances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For the rest, there is a much lesser, more violently
vengeful, and more self-crushingly centripetal impetus to cave in oneself and
one’s pain … and then, as has been seen so vividly in the SO Mania Regime, to
demand truly dangerous ‘responses’ to that pain, from government and law and courts
and law enforcement and prosecution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In that direction there lie, as RL concludes this
chapter, only “punitive governance” and the “punitive state”, (p.213); a police
state – I would only add – that begins to assume precisely the shape of the
truly monstrous governments of recent world-history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So much, then, remains to be done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**If any or most of this doesn’t sound familiar,
then you now realize exactly how little mainstream media, political, and
intellectual elites failed to analyze or at least disclose to the Citizens what
was really going on in and what vital first principles were really at stake in the
assorted ‘liberations’ and ‘preventions’ of American politics in the past four
decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the Truthout site there is an <a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10861-criminalizing-dissent">article</a> by Chris
Hedges discussing the lethal Constitutional dangers of the recent National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). And within this article there is a link to an
article by noted author Naomi Wolf listing what she sees as ‘the ten steps to
fascism’, many of which are already now operating in the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I say again that the SO Mania Regime had already
instituted many of those steps when it was erected more than twenty years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I include here a comment made on that site in
response to the Hedges and the Wolf pieces:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I offer this thought to support what Wolf
notes about how fascism creeps up (Justice Douglas once said something to the
effect that it comes upon a country like the darkness after sunset, in a slow process
of Dusk where things get imperceptibly darker and suddenly it's Night):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This country set up a
sex-offense Regime that was comprised of many of Wolf's elements ... and it
seemed like such a good idea at the time. Vague psychological and legal definitions;
the creation in the public mind of a type of incorrigibly crazed yet
diabolically clever Monster (a combination of Frankenstein's monster and Count
Dracula); the whipping up of a Stampede in public opinion demanding action; the
ominous mantra that some crimes are so 'heinous' that Citizens accused of them
don't deserve Constitutional protections or that the danger creates such an
'emergency' and 'danger' that such protections must be overridden; the passing
of draconian police-state laws so reminiscent of Gestapo and Stasi
'registration' files (now enabled by computer databases) and the tagging of an
entire group with some sort of 'yellow star' on their 'papers'; enabling
legislation that was based on Findings (20 years ago) that have since been demonstrated
to be very largely inaccurate and exaggerated; a refusal by legislators to
re-examine their assumptions when they passed the laws; the ongoing
intensification and expansion of both definitions and restrictions; the
legislative enabling of police-overstepping by formally excluding any 'good
faith mistakes' from civil or even criminal liability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As so often, such
seemingly 'good' ideas contain the clear potential for setting lethal
precedents in legislation and jurisprudence and law enforcement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the entire Stance
or Attitude or Approach that these laws encourage, and the Method of governing
through them, then also migrates into other areas of governmental activity and
also mutates as it goes. (So the NDAA has some sort of an ancestor in the sex-offense
regime legislation and the media and even jurisprudential support for it.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And of course, using
another of Wolf's categories, to doubt or disagree as to the wisdom of such a
matrix of laws becomes a sort of 'treason' ... to 'sensitivity' and to 'potential
victims' (in the prevention of whose pain any and all Constitutional
deformities and overrides are instantly and indubitably justified).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Such a good idea it
all seemed at the time, decades ago. And yet look - I submit - at how such a
precedent has rooted itself, and migrated, and mutated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nor was all this done
in some far-distant past or in some other country: rather, within the adulthood
of most readers here and within the very framework of American Constitutional
democracy and the Framing Vision bequeathed by the Framers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Food, I would suggest, for much serious thought.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-61063744297227117112012-08-13T13:30:00.002-07:002012-08-13T13:30:58.162-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITVE STATE 10
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL – with a becoming honesty, given his genuinely
and decently liberal stance – examines the phenomenon of “feminism and the
state”. (p.209)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He notes that there is “a surprising amnesia” when
it comes to “the history of women’s reform movements”, as one (female) author
noted in her own book about “the rise of the carceral state”. Another (female)
author speaks of “the feminist alliance with the state”. (p.209)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He takes this hugely un-discussable bull by the
horns: “the dangers of viewing rape and domestic violence through a
law-and-order lens should have been obvious”. This is the heart of the
Victimist mutation in this country, driven by political efforts to attract voters.
The Republicans started it, perhaps – I think – seeking to attract women voters
without looking like they had embraced feminism in its more outré ‘liberal’
forms such as the Democrats had done. Hence Reagan’s law-and-order approach, a
solid red-meat and red-blooded Republican option.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So, I think, once a political Party embraced the
option as a way of garnering votes (and, worse, of playing-to the voters) then
the more awful and horrendous and terrible the Problem, the more electorally
profitable for the pols as they rode to the rescue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This was on top of the advocacies’ own
selling-strategy: the more awful and horrendous and terrible the Problem, the
more pressure could be exerted on pols to accede to the advocacies’ agendas and
demands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The media, of course, would lap it all up like
catnip – and thus the more awful and horrendous and terrible the Problem, the
more competent, relevant, concerned, and ‘serious’ they would look as they
published the various stories and visuals that had already been slyly crafted
on the model of old Hollywood silent-film Innocent Victim/Evil Perp scripts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Like examining a monster killer tornado or
hurricane, you can watch this Thing taking shape as multiple smaller dynamics
begin to get sucked into its vortex. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And all of this takes place in a dynamic Theodore
Lowi** analyzed years and decades ago: Congress, for its own reasons, had come
to quietly abdicate its oversight responsibilities, “delegating” its powers to
“interest-groups” – which were Business, Labor, and Agriculture in the
immediate postwar era, and then about 1970 or so those “interest groups” came
to include the assorted Identity-Group advocacies (based on race or gender or
what-have-you).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To all of those “interest groups” – assisted by the
now ubiquitous “experts” (paid by Congress or by the “interest groups”) –
Congress allowed its legislative power to “drain out” (Lowi’s phrase for it):
those “interest groups” would be allowed to pretty much write the laws and
regulations and policies, which Congress would simply rubber-stamp with its
Constitutional authority and power (having yet retreated from its
Constitutional responsibilities to soberly deliberate and examine such proposed
laws before passing them). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And this, I think, explains three things, among
others: first, the Findings that preface the SO Mania Regime laws which were so
highly dubious when they were first published and are now demonstrably so
obscenely inaccurate and yet the Congress displays utterly no desire to go back
and reconsider its legislation in light of the research that has now been done;
Congress didn’t pass these laws and adopt these Findings for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the country</i> – it did so for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the advocacies</i> that wrote them and the
demographics those advocacies allegedly represent. And while the Consequences
for the country may not be good, yet the advocacies still hold to their agenda
… and it is the advocacies who have been allowed by Congress to control the
whole thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, and this is especially so in the case of the
SO Mania Regime laws, Members – many of whom are themselves attorneys – are sufficiently
worried about the consequences and quality of these laws that they so very
often resort to various legislative-rules ploys to prevent their vote for the
laws from being publicly connected to them; thus there are suspensions of the
rules and voice-votes and any other diversions by which a Bill can be passed
into law without the names of those Members who voted for it being made public
(and the Member later held responsible for his/her vote). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And of course the ultimate sop to the pols’
consciences is the LBJ approach to legislation: “pass the damned thing – we can
always go back and amend it later”. Thus, even as the Mania Regime laws
demonstrate both their fundamentally unsound basis in fact and their lethal
(and expensive) consequences on so many levels, the laws <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">remain</i> and are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">followed by
further</i> laws: the pols are trying to “amend” what doesn’t work, although
really they almost invariably wind up simply intensifying the originally rotten
dynamics they had allowed to be set in motion with the original law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Third, the habit of naming laws after the most
PR-attractive victims or their cases, rather than after the essential purpose
of the law itself. This is the demographic dynamic compressed into a very small
place: you as a Citizen and voter and taxpayer are to be distracted and
manipulated by the ‘story’ and not by the actual dynamics (and the
consequences) that the law is going to set in motion. This is the carnival
midway magician’s old scam: distracting you from the real movement by flapping
some bright and shiny diversion. OZ and the citizens of OZ – that’s what
Congress and We have become. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In saying all this am I seeking to ‘disrespect’ or
‘re-victimize’ the ‘victims’? No – I am simply saying that in the grave and
sober matters of erecting useful and workable legislation, no distractions can
be allowed to override the vital responsibilities that both legislators and
Citizens bear to ensure the integrity and efficacy of the laws. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL goes on quickly to note that there were other
ways of addressing rape and domestic violence: “in other developed democracies
relationships among victims’ rights, women’s rights, and judiciary procedures
took less toxic forms, and women’s movements internationally have tended to
maintain a critical distance from the power of the state”. (p.209) And
“generally, they have not made harsh criminal penalties a central demand”.
(p.209)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I would point out here that it is not simply the
formally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">criminal</i> penalties but
rather the “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">administrative</i>”
consequences built-into the assorted Registration schemes that tag and track a
Citizen for decades or for a lifetime. In that regard, I think that the
developed democracies of Europe still retain personal and institutional
memories of the era of Nazi and Soviet ‘classifying’ and ‘tracking’ of citizens
by the police organs of the state … and they are not about to go down that road
again. No such memories were strong enough here, alas, and Congress has allowed
such dynamics to start up here. (And – as I have often pointed out – those
dynamics have both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mutated</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">migrated</i> to other areas of national life
and government practice.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – of course – there remains the general judicial
refusal to forthrightly term most of the Registration schemes’ consequences as “criminal”
rather than “administrative”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes that much of the funding for the early
rape-crisis-centers was drawn from the old Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration (LEAA) budget pot, which began to draw those movements into the
orbit of the police-authority. True enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But you only have to read radical-feminist law
professor Catharine MacKinnon’s 1989 summa, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toward
a Feminist Theory of the State</i>, to see that criminalization was a key
element of feminist advocacy efforts <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>
so was built-into the radical feminist demands <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the get-go</i>, as part of their war not only on “patriarchy” but
on the “patriarchal” Constitution and on the “patriarchal” Rule of Law. And in
1989 MacKinnon is talking, as she herself says, about an agenda that has been
in play since the very early 1970s (and in the Clinton 1990s era of “governance
feminism” would go supernova). (And those agendas have also mutated and
migrated into all areas of government practice, as can now – alas – be seen.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes that “the early domestic violence shelters
and rape crisis centers aimed to bolster women’s liberation against the power
or the state and the power of the police”. (p.209) Rape-crisis counselors began
to cooperate with police and prosecutors, setting an ominous dynamic in motion.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then and thus, with the eager help of the
Beltway pols, these advocacy efforts were “co-opted” into an alliance with the
police power of the state that has proven (tactically) hugely beneficial to
both the advocacies and the pols, although also to the police power of the
state and to the great and perhaps permanent and certainly lethal detriment of
the Rule of Law and the very first principles and foundations of this country
as a democratic republic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Indeed, before long, even the early advocates
themselves were engaging in a type of “vigilantism” (often spun nicely as
merely ‘women’s defense’ and public ‘consciousness-raising’, I would add), and
some rape-crisis centers “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">published</i>
the names and photographs of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> alleged</i>
sexual assailants; other radicals threatened to submit rapists to various forms
of public humiliation”. (p.209) [italics mine]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So you can see that the SO Mania Regime’s
Registration schemes were evident from the get-go, and the pols simply accepted
them as part of the agenda to be rubber-stamped when the pols decided to enter
upon their collusive embrace with the (thus hugely strengthened) advocacies.
The various whacky and grossly inaccurate Findings gave the pols their fig-leaf
while the courts – alas – so very often bent themselves and the law into
pretzels in order to justify the whole shebang as being Constitutional and so
very democratic and – of course – vital and helpful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(RL goes into a fascinating exploration as to how
the early 1970s feminists – white and middle class – were much more hospitable
to the ‘crime/police’ approach since they did not share the experience of
police that non-white females largely experienced. Nor did those white feminist
activists care to consider the experience of non-white communities at the hands
of unbounded police authority; discussion with Jim Crow-era black females, for
example, might have provided sound warning of what happens when a police
authority is both un-boundaried and put in the service of a Bad Idea.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL rightly mentions “the growing significance of
personal horror stories”. (p.210) This element started out as part of the
‘sharing’ experience at rape-crisis centers, and then became part of a corpus
of stories routinely (or doctrinally) deployed to raise the consciousness of
aspiring activists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it then found an entirely new second career when
the media (increasingly anxious for ‘customers’, increasingly eager to please
any new customer-demographic, just like the pols were eager to please any new
voting-demographic) began to run such stories as ‘news’. And then along came
the daytime women-focused talk shows that did not resemble Sunday-morning
talking-heads, but rather seemed a misch of old-time revival meetings,
consciousness-raising sessions, women’s ‘chat’, and – buried deeper down – a
highly emotional and manipulative dynamic that I have always felt would have
been a frightful tool in the hands of Goebbels or the early Soviets, had the
technology been available in their day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It should be familiar now, how “personal horror
stories” then developed a third career as ‘evidence’, both for legislative
Findings and, following numerous feminist and victimist inspired deforms (used
as a noun; pronounced like ‘reforms’) to the judicial system, for both civil
and criminal law (as well as in the far less-noticed military law). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Two of the most significantly-fraught aspects of all
this are that a) the ‘story’ itself is almost never interrogated or assessed
for credibility (to do so would, of course, be insensitive and ‘re-victimize’
the teller; and b) the deployment of such a ‘story’ on one’s own behalf almost
immediately conferred ‘victim’ status on the teller in any forum where s/he
chose to play the card. At which point, in any setting, a certain Script pretty
much had to be followed: the expression of an appropriate (and Correct)
‘sensitivity’ and emotional response (some mix of sympathy for the teller and
outrage at the ‘victimizer’) on the part of all those who heard the story. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Unsurprisingly, such a Script made for great (and
useful) entertainment in any PR venue: as ‘news’, as ‘testimony’, and – but of
course – as made-for-TV movie scripts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL’s assessment is that “In the end, feminism
contributed to the development of a specific sort of victims’ rights movement
in the United States”. (p.210) By which he means that “mainstream feminists
made common cause with law-and-order conservatives, and some in the women’s
movement assisted in the promulgation of unmistakable punitive laws”. (p.210) I
would add: laws that were not only “unmistakably punitive” but that were also
primitive and regressive by any Western and American Constitutional standards
(had not those standards already been kicked to the curb by pols eager –
treacherously eager – to pander). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nicely, he notes the Midwestern (and rightist) Women’s
Crusade Against Crime (which for a while outranked the lefty National
Organization for Women in the then-conservative Midwestern cities): the
Crusade’s primary goal was “to support, assist, and augment the criminal
justice system in doing its job”. And it was in Washington State (so curiously
a blend of coastal urban-suburban liberals and inland rural conservatives) that
“women’s groups spun a rape reform law as a crime-control bill” as early as
1975. Further, that “nationwide, new laws made it easier to convict men accused
of rape or wife battery”. (All quotes in this paragraph, p.210)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To anybody concerned for the Framing Vision and the
Constitution, the entire concept of making it ‘easier to convict the accused’
should have set vital alarm bells ringing. So-called “rape-shield” laws made it
possible to lodge formal accusations without having one’s name published, and
with a level of anonymity not granted to the accused – which should never have
been permitted: if you want to take an issue to the very public forum of the
civil or criminal law (rather than the therapeutic or perhaps even media forum)
then you are demanding the public deployment of the Sovereign coercive
authority of the government, and you must be willing to become public when
entering the public arena. Otherwise the case against the accused is tainted
from the get-go (you are accused of committing a crime so heinous that the
accuser is granted the public protection of anonymity – so you must have done
something really really bad). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The whole dynamic, as RL says, “set judicial
practices on a slippery slope”. (p.210) How vividly and lethally true. And, of
course, so many of these repellent and dangerous deforms did not long remain
confined to the ‘unique’ realm of sex-cases, but instead migrated to other
realms of criminal and civil jurisprudence and then to government practices,
mutating even more virulently as they went. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By the time of the passage of the Violence Against
Women Act (1994), enfolded into the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
Act of that year, RL notes that it seemed “natural” that feminist advocacies
would be strong and active proponents of the whole thing. (p.210)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He reflects ruefully that liberals should have worried
– as few did – when “local police began sponsoring Take Back The Night rallies”.
(p.211) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And by the time Bush 2 invoked “women’s suffering”
under the Taliban and Saddam as justifications for those invasions, “the
legacies of state-sponsored feminism were glaringly apparent”. (p.211) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I still don’t think all that was apparent enough to
enough people, but here’s hoping more folks make the connection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And his usage of “state-sponsored feminism” is
surely an eye-catching but not inaccurate formulation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The profound monstrosity of the SO Mania has been
for so long and for far too long encloaked in the comfortable and comforting
wrappings of just plain old nice liberal ‘concern’ and homey conservative law-and-order
… when really it was from Day One a lethally insidious anti-Constitutional
fabrication, a virulently mutating and actively migrating infection that
endangers the integrity and deep-political health of the entire American
polity, and has spread even beyond Our borders on the wings of warcraft. Nor
does the future – without vital public intervention – promise anything but more
of the same, and worse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011). ISBN:
978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**See either of his two books: 1969’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End of Liberalism</i> or 1995’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End of the Republican Era</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-14292168115610636202012-08-08T19:37:00.000-07:002012-08-09T09:35:43.437-07:00WE KNOW POLITICS NOW<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p>
</o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York
Times</i> columnist Frank Bruni <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/bruni-truculence-before-truth.html">wrote </a> a few days ago about Senate
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid’s recent and continued accusation that
Mitt Romney has not filed tax returns for the past ten years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Let me say here that I am not in any way taking
or implying a political position on Mr. Romney in this Post.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bruni’s is a lament that the SO Community knows well
– and perhaps saw this all coming down the pike twenty or so years ago, as the
Sex Offense Mania took shape and was catapulted off the deck of the great
vessel of the Republic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“For the dwindling few out there who still believe
that big accusations require a little foundation and that truth – as opposed to
conjecture – matters” … he begins. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, for how long has the SO Community seen that
accusations (let alone legislation) not only don’t require serious grounding in
truth, but that the law has actually been deformed (not really ‘reformed’) and
deranged (not merely ‘changed’) to make that all easier?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now it’s beginning to dawn on more mainstream types.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So far, Bruni notes, Reid “had backed up his claim …
with absolutely nothing more than some vague reference to some unnamed guy who
said something of the sort to Reid during some phone conversation some time ago”.
Which sounds pretty much like a recovered-memory or other type of claim in any
sex-abuse lawsuit or even criminal trial: I don’t have a lot of facts but I
just know I was victimized - or, at least, I want you to <em>believe</em> I was victimized. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now the pols who enabled all these <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deforms</i> (used here as a noun, pronounced
like ‘reforms’) are beginning to use the stuff themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“But for Reid it was enough to level his charge, but
also, as the days pressed on, to double and triple down on it, his language and
manner growing more righteous even as his evidence grew no more detailed or
persuasive”. Surely Reid is taking a page from the old Victimist game-book
here. The less facts you have, and the more people are beginning to ask
questions, then the more you ramp up the righteousness and the vividness of
your claims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it gets worse. As the SO Community might well
imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In an interview Reid responded: “Well, do I know
that’s true? … Well, I’m not certain”. Which is, laudably, more frankness and
honesty than you get in the standard Victimist Script. But then, in the Script,
there are plenty of maneuvers to be deployed at this point, to take the focus
off the credibility of your claims and put it on the ‘horrific’ experience
implied in your (un-tested) story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, in best Victimist playbook form, Reid upped the
ante by then claiming that actually Romney’s fortune (which in the scenario is
his key ‘offense’) is “probably greater than published estimates”. In other
words, if you don’t believe my story, then I am suggesting that this guy is
guilty of even a hell of a lot more than you imagined. Sound familiar?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bruni is now on the scent. “And so a wild supposition
was magically transformed into the given from which yet another bit of
speculation blossomed, and any concern with provable information was long gone,
a casualty of the craven rules of political engagement these days”. But those
craven rules migrated over from the craven rules of Victimist law deforms that the
pols have been liberally (but without possibility of tracing their vote)
passing into SO Mania legislation for nigh on twenty years now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">People who do this, Bruni says, have put their “conscience
on ice”. Which is a vital deform that had to be imposed in order to launch the
whole SO Mania to begin with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Spew first and sweat the details later”, figures
Bruni. And how true it is. And has been – in SO Mania matters – for all these
years. And – of course – by now enough deforms have been introduced into the
legal system that you rarely have to do any “sweating” later on anyway: no
prosecutor or jury is going to ‘re-victimize’ you by either a) asking you
probing questions about your story or b) holding you legally responsible for
any crimes (perjury, say) that you may have committed in the process of
achieving your laudable and heroic goal of ‘justice’, ‘closure’, and ‘sending a
message’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Speak loosely and carry a stick-thin collection of
backup materials, or none at all.” Bingo. The ‘story’ is all. If it’s vivid and
gripping, then it will be a good-enough ‘hook’ and your script – pitched to a
jury like a script is pitched to a Hollywood producer – will ‘sell’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But here Bruni goes off the scent, perhaps because
he is writing for a ‘liberal’ paper and it’s a tough election year: “It has spread
beyond the practiced rabble-rousers of the far Right, and Democrats are exuberantly
getting in on this unbecoming, corrosive game”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Democrats have been buying-into and
funding this game since their embrace of Victimist law deforms long decades
ago. And – yes – the Republicans started it in Reagan’s day with their embrace
of Victimism, but the Dems quickly got into a ‘bipartisan’ collusion, on behalf
of their radical-feminist and other assorted Victim-Identity demographics,
united not in a common Citizenship and dedication to the commonweal, but rather
merely in a common – if multiform – Victimization. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So it’s not quite the whole truth of the matter to
lament that “Republicans were by and large willing to play faster, looser and
flat-out nastier”. In fact, I’ll say that Karl Rove, arch-spinmeister with the
professional morals of a feral alley-cat, wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did
with his plans if he hadn’t been able to take advantage of the already-established
deep and vital corrosion worked by Victimist deforms that weakened not only the
integrity of the Beltway and the Rule of Law, but also the general public’s intensifying
inability to sniff out truth from untruth, fact from fiction, after years of
watching the spectacle of the SO Mania unfold. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ditto, Bruni notes, that the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee last week had to issue a formal apology to
Republican money-bags contributor Sheldon Adelson, who was accused of “profiting
from a Chinese prostitution strategy” at a casino he runs in Macau. And you can
see in this Adelson bit (as you saw with Julian Assange) how easily now ‘sex
offenses’ have become a handy political tool, or assault weapon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems to Bruni that the operative political ‘philosophy’
here is that a target “[M]ust be discredited and neutralized by whatever means
necessary. Details, schmetails.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
has always been a Victimist play, and I would point to the sustained efforts by
‘secular liberals’ to do the same thing to the Catholic Church by turning it
into a piñata for sex-abuse claims and trials, such as the recent Philadelphia
show-trial and the Santa Clara trial (about both of which I have written on
this site).** <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And along those lines, Bruni also notes that Reid’s
defenders claim that since Romney won’t release more than a year’s worth of tax
returns then that somehow “makes clear that he is hiding something”. In other
words, if you don’t give us what we want, then we’ll just claim that your very
refusal is grounds (if not also “proof”) that you must be hiding even more
stuff. Shades of the Catholic Church in the abuse ‘crisis’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bruni asks: “Is this a road we really want to
continue barreling down?” Well, the country has been zooming down this road
since at least the beginning of the SO Mania Stampede, and – contrary to Bruni’s
limited view of the causes at work here – it didn’t all start with the current
presidential election cycle. Not hardly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But he still has some acute insights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The new shape of the news-media universe doesn’t
help. Balkanized into micro-niches where partisans can have their passions stoked
and prejudices reinforced, it gives reckless allegations many place to land and
even stick before they get a sober look.” This, as the SO Community knoweth
full well, has been going on for quite a long time. And for many that “sober
look” is yet to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But – in best Victimist playbook form – Reid remains
“unbowed … inconsistent too”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bruni
reports that Reid had told a bunch of (friendly, I imagine) reporters in his
home state (Nevada) that “a number of people had whispered to him of Romney’s
alleged tax evasion”, although at another juncture Reid issued a statement
referring only to a single but “extremely credible source”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a classic from the playbook: you
buttress your un-grounded assertions by claiming that lots of people have told
you (although you can’t quite name them or recall them specifically). Although
Reid slathers it all on rather thickly by then immediately using another trusty
bit from the same section of the playbook and claims that he has one hugely
reliable source (also – as Bruni notes – unidentified). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And
then </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Reid takes it over the top by saying in twenty-five
words or less what the playbook usually recommends that you pussyfoot around: “I
don’t think the burden should be on me … the burden should be on him [Romney] …
he’s the one I’ve alleged has paid no taxes”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, once you’ve made
your (un-grounded and unsubstantiated) accusation, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">then the burden of proof is on the guy you’ve accused. </b></i>This is
Victimist jurisprudence 101, but you’re not supposed to expose its ugly kisser
to the public – you’re supposed to finesse it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But Reid doesn’t have to play the Game quite so
cautiously – he is, after all, a Senator and a highly-placed one at that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So much for the first principles of Law in this
country: that the burden of proof lies with the accuser. (Except in military
sex-offense law, where under Reid’s tutelage that vital Framing principle was
overturned in favor of the ‘victim’.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Said the Speaker of the House (Republican John
Boehner): “It’s one of the problems that occurs here in Washington. People run
out there without any facts and just make noise”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Washington has been erecting this sort of ‘problem’
into legislation for decades now. And at this point the pols have been infected
with the same plague-bacillus that they’ve been spreading throughout the entire
national culture and the legal community for all those same decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So the Victimist Playbook is now becoming the
Beltway Playbook. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This can’t be good. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor can it end well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*The print-version appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i>, Sunday, August 5, 2012, on page 3 of the ‘Sunday
Review’ section. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After garnering 330 or
more comments in three days, the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Times</i>
has closed down further commenting. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**In the specifics of the Rule of Law, of course, it
is precisely “details” [such as i) evidence (admitted according to rational
objective evidentiary standards), ii) the presumption of innocence of the
accused, iii) the focus on adjudging the specifics of matching the accused’s
actions and the Charges lodged and not puffing up a ‘show trial’ to ‘send a
message’ and iv) the commitment to both objective and rational proceedings <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> to the principles of the Framing
Vision] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that comprise the working
structural members of the Rule of Law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And in this regard I note the acute but profoundly
alarming observation made by Theodore Lowi in separate books published in 1969
and in 1995: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that liberal politics are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">precisely antithetical to Law and the Rule
of Law</b></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> because Law and the
Rule of Law provide solid obstructions against the deal-making ‘flexibility’ so
vital to modern liberal (Identity-based) politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You have only to read radical-feminist law-professor
Catharine MacKinnon’s 1989 summa <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toward A
Feminist Theory of the State</i> to see her striving mightily to ensure the ‘deconstruction’
of Law and the Rule of Law and the traditions based on the Framing Vision and the
first principles of the Constitution. And since her book arrived precisely as
the 1990s – era of ‘governance feminism’ flourished under the Clintons – were dawning,
then you can see what a perfect storm was brewing in the Beltway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And you can see now, I think, on just what grounds
the profoundly and vividly anti-Constitutional foundations of the SO
Registration and Mania Regime were ‘justified’ in the minds of the pandering,
deal-making pols in the Beltway and in the several States: both the deal-making
pols and the Victimists share a lethal presumption, i.e. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that if Law and the Rule of Law stand in the way of getting your deal/providing
‘justice’ for the alleged Victim<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, then
Law and the Rule of Law have to go. </b></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Hey hey, ho ho, the Rule of Law has got to go! And
as Frank Bruni may now begin to realize: so it has. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
So much remains to be done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">LINKS<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/bruni-truculence-before-truth.html<o:p></o:p></span></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-57954939356945491972012-08-06T12:04:00.002-07:002012-08-06T18:10:46.837-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITVE STATE 9<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Having given us Janet Reno’s stunning bit of treacly
but treacherous boilerplate from 1997, RL quickly continues expand upon its
implications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The liberal hero of yore – the risk-taking
individual who takes responsibility for his or her own fate and triumphs over
adversity – gave way to the aggrieved victim who perpetually recounts unhappy
experiences and calls for the punishment of others”. (p.205) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I point out that “responsibility” here is not used
in the simple and in some ways shallow legal sense, but in the much more
profound <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">existential</i> sense: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">every human being has – and cannot shuck
off – the ultimate responsibility for adopting and sustaining her/her Stance
toward his/her life experiences. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> not</i>
to say that every person is in control of or can exercise complete control over the
experiences that s/he will have in life. This is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> to say that every person is somehow completely responsible for whatever
experiences enter into his/her life (although one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> so shape and conduct one’s life that some experiences are less
likely or more likely to happen). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But every human being is indeed responsible for the
Stance that s/he adopts toward whatever experiences arise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1971 or thereabouts a university psychology
professor came up with the phrase “blaming the victim” in a book – if I rightly
recall – of the same title. If any of what I’m saying here seems a bit ‘off’,
then chalk it up to the eager taking-up of his phrase and slopping it like
paint over everything; he struck a hugely congruent chord (and a useful one)
with the then-emerging social-constructionist and Victimist approaches to living
a life: you can’t be blamed for your experiences because they are mostly caused
by ‘structures’ or forces operating beyond you and therefore anybody who is
experiencing life-problems is really a ‘victim’ (tah-dahhhhh!) and should not
be dismissed or ‘judged’ or ‘stereotyped’ as having somehow failed to ‘get it
together’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of this dove-tailed nicely with an emerging ‘liberal’
politics that was seeking to build new demographic groups to replace the old
New Deal Democratic electoral coalition of Northern industrial blue-collar
workers and Southern Jim Crow supporters and ‘Old Left’ liberals, a coalition
dating back to the 1930s that had been shattered by the civil-rights
developments of the late 1950s and especially the early 1960s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Alas for everybody, the new electoral coalition
would be constructed of groups not united by class or economic interests, but
rather by a common experience of ‘victimization’: by whites against non-whites in the matter of Race,
by males againt females in the matter of Gender, by native-born against immigrants in the matter of being outsiders,
by grown-ups against youth in the matter of being too young to really sustain mature
participation in politics and national affairs.**<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Very useful as a purely political tactic, this shift
in favor of being a ‘victim’ held within itself much deeper consequences for
the country and its culture, and RL will characterize these consequences as
being fundamentally a “redefinition of core values”. (p.205) More specifically,
that the new model for adult-living was now “the aggrieved victim who
perpetually recounts unhappy experiences and calls for the punishment of others”.
(p.205)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I add here that in the interest of enlisting ‘bipartisan’
support from the Right by appealing to ‘law and order’, this entire tactic<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> then</i> had to distort itself in order to
become heavily enmeshed with crime: the arch-crime was to ‘victimize’ anybody,
and ‘victimizing’ had to be dealt with through law-enforcement and the
immediate and forceful and expansive deployment of criminal law. By the
mid-1970s the country was already on the way to expanded police-state type activity
and more specifically it was on the way to the SO Mania Regime, which with the
Domestic Violence Regime became the first really broad government effort to
start effecting a police state, under the doubly-attractive and bipartisan
rubric of engorging the government coercive police authority in myriad ways in
order to (pick one or several: protect-against, punish, or prevent) victimization. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And</i>, of course, the particular types of
victimization raised up for the public’s attention would conform to the agendas
of the various ‘victimized’ Identity groups, especially the radical-feminist
advocacy’s concern with ‘sex’ and ‘males’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes that by the late 1980s and very early 1990s
there were already voices being raised warning of the deeper consequences of
this whole trend. There were books about “the spread of an increasingly
irrational therapeutic culture of victimization” and of a “culture of complaint”
and “a nation of victims” and even Alan Dershowitz weighed in with a book entitled
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Abuse Excuse</i>. (p.205)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL observes rightly that “the emergent culture of
victimization was not without paradoxes , contradictions, and flash-points”:
because “it embraces a privatized view of justice, so far as the accused is
concerned, while dispensing empathy, forbearance, and state largess so far as
the victims of crime are concerned”. (p.205) I would add that there is nothing
wrong with concern for victimization – if it is genuine – but you have to apply
a vital cost-analysis when you try to alter fundamental legal principles and
principles of objectivity and even truthfulness in order to somehow ensure a
wide government embrace of such empathy and forbearance and largess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Also, since from the very beginning the New World
provided a lethal and foreboding challenge to anybody trying to start up a life
here, the country had – even long before 1776 – developed a “traditional
disdain for complainers and malingerers”: male and female, you had to shoulder
your pack, and work hard and long in order to build yourself and your family a
civilized life in this New World. And this remained true right up into the 20<sup>th</sup>
century. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Like sailors on a ship, persons had to carry their
weight in order to keep the whole shebang afloat. Everybody had to “do their
bit” – as Brits used to say during the Blitz. And that meant putting up with a
lot of hard knocks and setbacks and overcoming all sorts of adversity in order
to construct a basis for an individual, familial, and social and cultural life.
Life in the New World was not a game for kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When, then, it became politically necessary to
embrace ‘victimization’ in the early 1970s, there were going to be huge
consequences and costs at very profound cultural levels if suddenly the new
model of Citizenship and even adulthood was going to be the ‘Victim’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The first sly effort to neutralize or wish-away
these costs and consequences was to insist that to ‘put up with’ adversity was
simply to collude in your own ‘victimization’ and to keep a stiff upper lip and
just ‘get on with it’ and ‘do your bit’ was simply going to perpetuate your
particular version of victimization. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The second and even more sly effort – evident in
Janet Reno’s speech in 1997 quoted at the end of the immediately prior Post in
this mini-series – was to actually claim that to loudly and vigorously embrace
your victimization was a form of good, old-fashioned, red-blooded traditional
American courage and heroism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which should have been a huge warning flag:
Victimism as it was mutating here was going to require turning the entire
American cultural value system upside down. (And – as the SO community knows so
vividly – the legal system as well, and the first-principles of the Framing
Vision and the Constitution too.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus too the Victim, envisioned as “noble” and “entirely
innocent” will also be able to sidestep the ancient human cultural distinction
expressed in the West by the distinction between the “deserving poor” and the “malingering
poor”: the latter were simply looking to mooch a free ride from everybody else,
the latter were trying to be industrious and carry their weight but
circumstances indeed beyond their control had temporarily blunted that effort. (p.206)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The ‘new American Victim’ – as outlined in Reno’s
sly speech – would be ‘deserving’ simply because such horrific things had
(allegedly) been done to her/him. Indeed, as I have said, the ‘new American
Victim’ would heroically and courageously take up the torch of the hardy
frontier settler and the hard-working immigrants of the Great Age of
Immigration (1880-1920) and would thus ‘deserve’ all possible honor, respect,
aid, and indulgence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Neat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Or rather, neat as a conceptual construct moved
around on a mental chessboard. In actual historical events, the whole Thing
worked out quite differently, and not in the happy sense of that word. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nicely, RL observes that these huge transformations –
almost invisible here, especially in their costs and consequences – have not
gone unnoticed abroad. He quotes a “middle-aged Mexican shopkeeper” who offered
as her thought that “You [Americans] … used to be a nation of businessmen; you
buried the dead and faced forward to the future. Now you are a nation of
commemorators, memorial builders. You cannot let go of your hurts. You cannot
stop inspecting your neighbors for signs of transgression. You are becoming a
nation of victims”. (p.206) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would add that “inspecting your neighbors for
signs of transgression” is even more ominous that simply as an indicator of
victimhood: it evokes clear dynamics of German society under the Nazis or East
German Communist society, where neighbors were constantly observing their
neighbors for signs of un-Correct or ‘counter-revolutionary’ behavior that
would be reported to the <em>Gestapo</em> or the <em>Stasi</em>. Now that both the Nazi and East
German regimes are gone, we have access to their files and can see that a vast
amount of the secret-police workload consisted in processing and
sifting-through mountains of ‘reports’ voluntarily sent to them by persons who
had ‘detected’ signs of such transgressions on the part of this or that
neighbor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – as the SO community can well imagine – it all
went into a file; once somebody suspected and reported you, then you were ‘tagged’
and there was a file on you. Who can forget the huge problems in the former
East Germany as its secret-police files were discovered and made public, and
citizens got to see just who among their erstwhile friends and neighbors had
reported them to the “organs of state security”? Having thought about that,
look at the Registry regime, especially in its Adam Walsh Act incarnation, now
being pushed upon States by the feds through the (specious) promise of more tax
money to implement it. You see where this Thing has gone in this country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then – and it must have hurt a decent liberal
like RL to realize it – he asks the question: “The Left Makes a Right Turn?”
(p.206)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Left was scarcely an innocent bystander in the
development of new modes of identity based on victimization and trauma”.
(p.206) And with that I can only agree wholeheartedly. The Left, that started
out in the 1950s being very anti-government-authority, had by the 1970s, and increasingly
so since then, become very government-friendly indeed. In fact, it depended
almost completely on the government for the monies and political enabling that
erected the agendas of its various victim-Identity groups into national law and
policy, police-state regimes and all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Talk about social oppression leads to victimization
narratives”. (p.206) Yes indeed. And every victimization requires a Perp and
every Perp deserves to be tagged and punitively dealt with and any concern for
Constitutional niceties and legal principles is just collusion with
victimization or obstruction of the victims’ need for ‘justice’ and ‘closure’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Moving on to what he terms “The Blame Game” (p.208)
RL notes that the country’s leftist social movements have historically “held
the politics of complaint in dynamic productive tension with the politics of
liberation”. (p.208) By complaining effectively you can help increase ‘liberation’
by getting this or that thing changed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which is all true. You can struggle against
instances of “oppression” while “keeping the promise of freedom in clear view”.
(p.208) But I note that clearly something else is operative in all this, since
in the past forty years the country has wound up imprisoning a larger
percentage of its Citizens than any other country, including Stalin’s back in
the day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Even more acutely, RL notes that this “productive
tension” turns out to be “not always <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a
stable mix</i>”. (p.208) [italics mine] And here he starts penetrating to the
dark beating heart of Victimism as it has mutated here in this country. Because
after the initial ‘high’ of liberation, as leftist initiatives begin to
demonstrate their weaknesses and leftist influence begins to decline from its
constructive beginnings (as, for example, in this country since the heyday of the
1960s and early 1970s), then the “emphasis” shifts to “grievance, injury, and
resentment”. (p.208) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, but the ‘valorization’ of all that grievance,
injury and resentment was built-into the Victimist gambit from Day One. And I
would say that even though the leftist <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">zeitgeist</i>
is now in decline, that simply means that the Advocacies and their political
enablers are going to have to “double-down” (like Bush in Iraq for all those
years) and intensify their efforts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First, because in a difficult but vital presidential
election-cycle the Party has to appeal to all its fractalized, single-issue,
Victim-Identity ‘bases’ and keep them happy by continuing to give them what
they demand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, because once you have created a matrix of
tax-fed cottage industries around your initiative, then they are all now
expecting continued funding and are threatening to withdraw their political
support for you if you don’t provide it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Third, because once you have created a profound and
huge ‘crisis’ to justify starting the whole Thing to begin with, then how can
you suddenly back away and say it wasn’t such a big crisis after all <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or</i> that suddenly it’s all fixed now? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And this is especially so if you as a politician are
threatened with numberless gaggles of ‘victims’ now showing up outside your
office, putting themselves in front of the cameras like baby harp-seals and
claiming that you, a heartless and faithless politician, are now clobbering and
‘re-victimizing’ them by withdrawing all the tax money you had been feeding
them for decades?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">With Victimism as it has mutated in this country the
Beltway – to borrow Thomas Jefferson’s deathless phrase – now “has a wolf by
the ears”. (Meaning: you are now holding the lethal beast so closely that if
you let it go it will bite your head off, and yet if you hold on you are locked
in a death-embrace with it until … something gives.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Beltway pols and all the State pols have left themselves
now with few options: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">either</i> keep
feeding this Thing tax money and further corroding the Constitutional Rule of
Law <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or else</i> run the almost certain risk
of being pilloried in the treacherously-hungry mainstream media as being ‘anti-Victim’
and/or ‘pro-Perp’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Victim
retains his/her public status not on the basis of any heroic or courageous
struggle, but simply on the basis of having (allegedly) been victimized.
(p.208)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, RL observes, “the retrograde … politics of
victims’ rights” have so rapidly “bent diverse strands of liberal, progressive,
and leftist activism into a profoundly conservative shape in the modern state”.
(p.208)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would only disagree about one thing here: the
bending has not been into a “profoundly conservative” mis-shape, but rather
into a profoundly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">regressive </b>shape.
No genuine American conservatism (or, for that matter, genuine American
liberalism) can or could ever work such a profound corrosion and corruption of
the Rule of Law and the first principles of the Framing Vision and the
Constitution. What has happened as a cost, consequence, and highly predictable
result of the Victimist mutation in this country has created a profound
back-tracking and regression to the type of law and culture that hearks back to
primitive times of yore, long pre-dating the bright and truly
progress-producing characteristics imparted to this nation in the Framing
Vision and such further extensions of that Vision by Lincoln and Martin Luther
King. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So much, then, remains to be done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**Thus the general-purpose composite ‘victimizer’
became the patriarchal white older American male. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-52292004004019084532012-07-30T04:24:00.000-07:002012-08-06T06:37:20.001-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 8<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL then considers how the government set out
“institutionalizing victimhood”. (p.200)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of the States and the District of Columbia now
have adopted some form of a victims’ bill of rights and thirty-three have
actually amended their State Constitutions to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He rightly observes that “these newly minted rights
tilt law enforcement practices away from a constitutional emphasis on rights of
the accused while embedding a punitive pre-emptive orientation even more deeply
in institutional practices everywhere”. (p.200) I would add that this dynamic
has been carried on even more lethally in the courts, where the zero-sum of
‘rights’ between accused and accuser has resulted in a subtraction from the
Constitutional rights accorded the accused and an addition to these “newly
minted” victims’ rights. There’s no way to put a happy-face on that, or to wish
it away. From the get-go, victims’ rights had to be taken from slices made into
the corpus of rights accorded to the accused in Western law and the
Constitution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He mentions the ‘right’ of the victim to be
protected from the accused, and rightly traces its origin to feminist and
womens’-services advocates who saw such a demand as a neat way to prejudge the
accused in domestic violence case: i.e., the accused is soooo dangerous, that the
accuser has to be protected by the government and the police. Once that thought
is planted (by a helpful media) in the public mind, then any accused is
effectively pre-judged before anybody gets to the court-room and the legal
process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The presumption of innocence, RL rightly notes, is
gone – even reversed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have always thought that the reversal of such a
profoundly basic and essential principle of Western law should have raised a
red-flag from Day One. And many legislators were themselves law-school
graduates (although as Joe Biden cheeribly admitted, law school “bored” him –
no wonder he was just the Senator to steer the Violence Against Women Act and
its add-ons through the political process). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And once this dynamic is in play, the assumption of
guilt “favors pre-trial detention and thus gives prosecutors a powerful weapon
to wield against the accused” since isolated and incarcerated defendants “are
more likely to seek a plea bargain or enter a guilty plea than are those who
remain at home awaiting trial”. (p.200) It is anybody’s guess how many
guilty-pleas and plea-bargains were made under such duress, deliberately
fabricated by the pols and administered by the prosecutors, the whole shebang
eagerly amplified by the media. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Victimism is lethal to a democracy as well as to
Constitutional jurisprudence. It requires – if you think about it – that the
common-bond of the Citizenry and of The People be fractured, bluntly and
forcefully sliced-up into Victims and Perps (or potential Perps). Somebody
should work out a pie-chart of the population: each Victim group, its claimed
‘oppressor perps’ (and potential perps) … and draw lines through the pie for each
pairing from each Victim group: by the time you get through, most of the
Citizenry is somehow a sheep or a goat or perhaps both simultaneously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the sex-based Victim groups (shading so
complexly into the Domestic Violence groups) enjoy – at the moment – the greatest
cachet, reflecting the pols’ eagerness to placate the radical-feminist
Advocacies and their hanger-on pandemonium who get a cut of the sizable
government monies allocated for the Problem generally. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes the claim that participation – and
influencing outcomes – by Victims in various phases of the legal processes is
“therapeutic”. And so it may well be; in the same way that road-rage against
somebody you feel has cut you off at a traffic light is – for a moment –
“therapeutic”: you feel a really neat surge of power and – not to put too fine
a point on it – vengeance. Until, anyway, you realize what you’ve done,
especially if – say – you cause an accident or injury to somebody while in the
process of getting your “therapeutic high”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is anybody’s guess how many such persons are now
trudging around the country, their initial ‘high’ gone, an awareness of damage
caused (especially if it was disproportionate to the allegated offense or if
the initial report they made was a false one). But then would an addiction
dynamic kick in? Since the first high has worn off, might you need to somehow
get another dose? Surely psychological ‘addiction’ experts are flexible enough
to consider that type of addiction, on top of all the other types said to be
rampant in the country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But – and RL discusses this (p.201) – how genuinely
and lastingly ‘therapeutic’ can such vengeance be? While ‘getting back at’
somebody for some hurt real or imagined has always had its seductive charms, hasn’t
the more mature and enriching course been to first master your own responses to
your experiences and then, once those are mastered, to consider what
retributional options might be available? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – as RL also considers – what, really, are the
reliably-known dynamics of “trauma”? Why is it that some people are not
‘traumatized’ by substantial events that they experience, while others are
‘traumatized’ by much less substantial events? (All of this presumes that
sufferers honestly report their internal experiences, which is a verrry big
presumption – especially when the government has gone and guaranteed that if
are ‘traumatized’ you can collect some free money.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse “the prevailing rhetoric of the victim’s
movement is that no punishment is ever severe enough”. (p.200) That’s true.
Although to no small extent this demand is slyly masked: no punishment is ever
severe enough because we are always ‘discovering’ how utterly horrific even the
most minor ‘victimization’ can be. It’s not, then, that the victimists are
trafficking in state-abetted vengeance; it’s just that they are honestly
reflecting the ever-increasing ‘knowledge’ that is constantly being
‘discovered’ to the effect that even the most minor instances of victimization
can have ‘soul-killing’ consequences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is especially true in the sex-and-violence
arenas, where things have now reached the point that it is difficult to draw
distinctions and gradations for the purposes of sentencing those convicted:
it’s no longer the guilt for the Charged Crime that drives matters, it’s the
presumed horrificness of the victim’s (claimed) internal experiences. There
might as well be just the one crime of Victimizing, which would carry a minimum
twenty-to-life sentence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL discusses “emotional pre-sentencing testimony” by
victims (or their kin or friends) – as if the judge were not able to make
his/her own assessments from all the trial material. And once again, it injects
a queasy soap-opera or melodrama note into what should be more serious proceedings
(people’s liberty, property, futures, or even lives are at stake here). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I would also add – as we have seen in the recent
Santa Clara trial where a man assaulted an old man he claimed to have sexually
molested him 40 years before – the hardly unpredictable gambit of introducing
emotional ‘testimony’ about the alleged molestation (which had itself never
been examined or proven) at the beginning of the trial <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as a justification</i> for the A&B he admitted he committed. And
the jury bought it and refused to convict him of A&B even though he
admitted he had done it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL notes legal experts who have pointed out how
lethally all of this undermines the necessary impartiality of judges and
jurors. (p.201) But I point out that it was precisely a demand made by radical
feminism** that, ‘impartiality’ and ‘abstraction’ are nothing but patriarchal
and macho refusals to enter into the pain of the story and that the justice
system therefore needed to be ‘reformed’ to make it more ‘sensitive’ to – as radical-feminists
put it – women’s very special and non-macho way of processing and constructing
experience: by feeling – the theory goes – rather than by thinking or
‘abstracting’. Also you shouldn’t be so insensitive and macho as to ask
questions about deeply felt stuff (such as the truth or accuracy of stories
told in police reports or under oath) … Radical-Feminism gave Victimism a
philosophical ‘justification’ for gutting the American justice system of some
of the most primary principles and practices of Western and Constitutional law.
And that’s what happened to the Rule of Law, in case you were wondering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nicely, RL quotes attorney and author Wendy Kaminer
that “the prosecutor and defense are not engaged in a ‘duel about punishment’;
they’re engaged in a duel about guilt”. That’s the way it should work and did
work. But now in victim-friendly law you can’t really ‘duel’ about guilt
because the victim’s story cannot really be questioned … so what’s left to do? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, Kaminer rightly asserts that defendants
should be the center of attention at trials <em>because they are the ones being
tried</em>. And because it is their liberty or property or even life that hangs in
the balance. It is therefore a gross and fundamentally grotesque deformation
and derangement of the trial-process to make anybody else the center of
concern. Trials are not primarily spectacles; they are workaday processes to
handle the vital but lethal deployment of the government’s sovereign coercive
power against an accused Citizen.***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL neatly gives Kaminer’s neatly-put conclusion:
“It’s hard to argue with the desire to reform trials in order to help victims
heal – unless you consider the consequences. Because the victims’ rights
amendment decreases the rights of defendants. It’s not simply a grant of rights
to the crime victims; it’s a grant of power to the state.” (p.202) And – I
would only add – it’s a grant of rights to the victims that are taken from the
accused. (And while the formal Victims’ Rights Amendment to the Constitution
has failed, the government has continued to keep the ball rolling in lesser
venues, especially courts and law-enforcement policies.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of which “naturalizes vindictiveness”, as RL
nicely puts it. (p.202) And such a naturalization of one of the more primitive
human emotions is nothing less than a deliberately-induced regression in the
nation’s civic and cultural life. If this or that genuinely guilty perpetrator
may often said to be ‘primitive’ (and in need of some growing-up as a Citizen
and an adult), the entire Citizenry is seduced into such regressive
primitiveness by participating – even if only as a spectator from a distance –
in the staged state-administered vengeance-sessions that so many trials have
now become. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor does RL mince around the more delicate of the
lethal ‘reforms’: “If vindictiveness seems natural, even honorable, today, it
is thanks in no small part to the careful placement of white, infantilized
crime victims at center stage in the national political drama”. (p.203) In a
sly but viscerally powerful PR move, the Victimists, themselves fronting for
the government police-power (either from the Left or the Right), hold children
up to the cameras like <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– I’ll say it –
baby harp seals. Despite the fact that the alleged myriads of missing and
exploited children are mostly fictional. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes – there are instances of genuine outrages
against children, but are they enough to derange the Constitutional walls that
protect Americans from the power of a government gone wild? (And still going
wild – as the National Defense Authorization Act **** clearly indicates.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And “during the 1980s and 1990s, victimization emerged
as a durable new source of identity”. I can’t begin to calculate how vulnerable
so many people are in modern-day America to the seductive lure of an
easily-acquired sense of ‘identity’ and of ‘social status’ and of ‘belonging’
and of ‘achievement’ (how easily now the term ‘hero’ is tossed around). On some
of the websites where victim-interested types tend to comment, you can almost
feel the strong pull. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And “as a
quasi-religious movement, the new victimology extended an evangelical
invitation to every corner of society”. (p.204) Here I’d only note that aside
from ‘men’ generally, the most sustained assault target of the
Victimist-nourished SO Mania Regime has been a church – namely, one of the
largest and most established. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, in that regard, recall that the ‘invitation’
was then sweetened by the lure of easy money, as legislators made it even
easier to present a story from the long-ago, claim ineffable trauma, and
collect a hefty settlement. The possibilities for mischief here are not small. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And such victim status also brings with it
“privileges”. In that role, one can “enjoy the empathy and indulgence of
otherwise unreceptive authorities” (especially once the Beltway let it be known
that federal money would be available to receptive authorities, and federal
hostility would be visited upon unreceptive ones). (p.205)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – as RL rightly continues the catalogue –
“victimhood too comes as a relief, a disclaimer of personal responsibility” and
the victim becomes “the undisputed hero of his or her story”. (p.205) Although
this is a heroism too-easily acquired: rather than achieving anything by dint
of sustained personal effort, one simply declares oneself a victim and perhaps
preside over a spot of vengeance courtesy of the government and perhaps even a
few moments in some form of media attention. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But that was the scam the government itself lured so
many into. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was Janet Reno, when she was Attorney-General in
the Clinton years, who really opened up new vistas for Victimism in a 1997
speech at a victim-rights conference: she “sanctified” it as the core of
American identity by asserting to the crowd and the cameras that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I draw the most strength from the victims,
for they represent America to me: people who will not be put down, people who
will not be defeated, people who will rise again and stand again for what is
right … You are my heroes and my heroines. You are but little lower than the
angels</i>”. (p.205) [italics mine] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are two tropes woven into this astounding bit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First, that being a Victim is now a credible –
indeed valuable – social role and identity. Is this a good message to be
sending to the young? Is this really a life-project or life-role that can
sustain a productive society and a common-weal? And, of course, every ‘victim’
requires a victimizing perp – so for that huge chunk of society that embraces
its victimhood, an equally hefty chunk of society has to be cast in the role of
victimizer. And the presumption will have to be continued: this country and
culture and society runs and works mostly through victimization. And how
develop a robust respect for and loyalty to the Framing Vision if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>is your basic take on what makes
this country work and run? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second – and this is truly a sly pre-emptive gambit –
Reno tries to make the ‘victim’ into some modern version of frontier settlers:
hardy, scrappy, resilient, no-nonsense, refusing to take No for an answer, and –
so familiar now – courageous and ‘heroic’. And yet this is hardly the
presentation mainstream Victimists proffer to the public in the endless horrific
‘stories’ and the claims of ‘soul-killing’ ‘traumatization’, especially in
sex-matters where you are supposed to believe that the merest incident of the
lowest-grade ‘abuse’ can derange and derail personal competence and
development. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But Reno’s spin lets you get to have your cake and
eat it too: hugely fragile and damaged and yet at the same time possessed of a
sturdy and robust and mature life-competence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is all spin. It’s political pandering to a
useful demographic. And yet that’s a demographic that demands the most lethal
and profound derangements of American law and jurisprudence and – ultimately –
civic competence that would support a commitment to the common-weal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And can it seriously be accepted that what has
become victim-friendly jurisprudence and the general manipulation of the public
Stance toward an accused is accurately describable as “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right</i>”? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And lastly, I note that queasy, childishly sentimental
faux-theological flourish about “the angels”. For a secular-Left government,
Victimhood is somehow now a quasi-religious substitute for any genuine
religious life. As if you could nurture yourself spiritually merely on the
governing dynamics of Victimhood as it has mutated in this country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But her speech served shrewdly to provide a
talking-points memo for ‘the faithful’ and you can see echoes of her spin still
surfacing 15 years later in various comments on various sites. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As I have often said, the government – from both
Left and Right – has embraced Victimhood and helped mutate it into the
monstrosity that it is today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the Rule of Law, and the boundaries of truth and
honesty that are vital to any genuine civic competence and integrity, are much
the worse because of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**The radical-feminist law professor and activist
Catherine MacKinnon goes into this at length in her 1989 book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toward a Feminist Theory of the State</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">***And have you noticed that this tendency has
migrated to other equally lethal arenas? So, for example, the killing of
‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or whomever happens to get hit by gunfire or
drone-fire in this or that of Our military misadventures becomes merely a
spectacle to be played on the evening news (if footage is available)? Victimism
has made vengeance – albeit mostly through a deformed legal process – a
‘spectacle’; and those who watch it start to resemble Roman crowds at the
gladiatorial arena. (If you watch the Starz satellite channel, their series
“Spartacus” plays on this reality, I think: when the gladiators are in the
Roman arena, the camera spends much of the time on the crowds, leering,
cheering, jeering, and generally giving in to their most primitive instincts.
It is not a pretty sight – but I think it is very revealing and deserves much
thought.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">****You can see <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/25/slouching-towards-nuremberg/">here</a> an article by Morris
Berman, author of the recently-published book ominously entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why America Failed</i>. He discusses the
National Defense Authorization Act signed by Obama in December, 2011. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As Berman puts it, this is the “indefinite detention
bill”: and “it has no temporal geographic limitations, and can be used by Obama
or any future president to militarily detain U.S. citizens” so that “as in
pre-Magna Carta days, you can simply be swept up and put away forever with no
explanation of why, no right to call or lawyer or anybody else, and no right to
a trial.” It is, he opines, “probably the greatest rollback of civil liberties
in the history of the United States”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Definitions are elastic: “literally anyone can be
described as a “belligerent”, or as they are now called, “covered person”. And
“the universe of potential ‘covered persons’ includes every citizen of the
United States of America … who could one day find himself or herself branded a
“belligerent” and thus subject to complete confiscation of his or her
constitutional civil liberties and nearly never-ending incarceration in a
military prison”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Recalling that America now has “more people under
‘correctional supervision’ that there were in the Russian gulag under Stalin at
its height”, he observes ruefully that “the distinctive characteristic of
American democracy, from 1776, was the protection of the individual and the
preservation of individual rights” but now “that no longer exists”. I would say
that the SO Mania, driven by Victimism and also by the Radical-Feminist
dismissal of the Constitution and all its protections as mere props for
‘patriarchy’, worked powerfully to undermine the integrity not only of the
legal system and of the government itself, but of any official respect for the
Rule of Law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So I can’t help but think that all of this was
clearly waiting in the wings when the curtain first went up on the SO Mania two
decades and more ago: the dynamics that render so many vulnerable to the
classification as “belligerent” or “covered person” are pretty much the same
that opened so many Americans up to the classification as “sex offender”. And
to read some of the Radical-Feminist and Victimist tracts, all men were almost
by definition rapists and ‘sexual terrorists’. Half the population,
‘classified’ in a single sweep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Berman also notes that even before the passage of
this law, the president had the ‘legal’ power to declare anybody on the planet
a “terrorist” and have him/her assassinated. There need be no trial since guilt
was presumed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I think you can see here where Victimism as it has
mutated in this country in the past decades <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has
actually weakened the Constitutional protections for Americans</i>. But worse:
it has gotten too many Americans <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">used to
the idea</i> that Evil can easily and quickly and with certainty determined,
and that such Evil has no rights and that if you just know somebody is Evil then
it’s only a matter of carrying out the punishment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And it clearly has gotten the government into some
very dark habits. Before Dick Cheney suggested that this country would have to
take a walk on path to the Dark Side, I think Victimism as it has mutated here
was already paving that path.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet, judging from how the SO Mania Regime was
given so much unthinking and well-intentioned public support or at least
acquiescence, so many will find themselves with nothing to say except “It
seemed like a good idea at the time”. But that won’t repair the damage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-6778827987077488012012-07-28T16:07:00.004-07:002012-07-28T16:07:54.407-07:00MASSACHUSETTS AND STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That State’s legislature has just passed a Statute
of Limitations (SOLs) extension. See <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20120725change_in_child_sex_abuse_law_appears_headed_for_house_floor/">here</a> for an article about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As with so much SO Mania legislation, it was slyly passed
by an untraceable voice-vote after the Rules were suspended. Thus no pol can be
skewered in the media by Victimist advocacies for voting against victims (or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i> sex-offenders, as it might be put)
while – in a neat balance – no pol can be personally held responsible for the
troubles and consequences the law might or probably-will create. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What sort of laws can these be that the legislators
so often don’t want to be individually associated with them? I think many
legislators have already figured out that these Mania laws are not really good
examples of competent and conscientious law-making – but they haven’t got the
chops to Just Say No. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And a lot of these pols have been to law school and
are card-carrying attorneys-at-law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I recall that in his 1969 book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End of Liberalism </i>the sociologist Theodore Lowi observed – with
an acuity that has only been proven even more powerful and devastating in the
ensuing decades – that ‘interest group liberalism’ (where the pols let the
‘interest-groups’ write the laws they want) is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">utterly antithetical to any
established and stable Rule of Law</i></b>. Because it leads to what I would
call ‘deal politics’ and in such politics <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">last</b> thing the pols want – Lowi
observes – is a solid wall of laws and the Rule of Law</i>, which will only
serve to obstruct the ‘flexibility’ they want and need to cut their deals with
this and that ‘interest-group’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, as I have said before on this site, the
interest-groups Lowi knew forty-plus years ago (business, labor, and ‘the
farmers’) have since been joined by the Identities erected especially by
Radical-Feminism and Victimism, which I call Level 4 Advocacies: seeking to
bypass any genuine democratic deliberation by the Citizens or by the pols, and
instead manipulating public opinion with false and selective information and
with horror-stories <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">while also</i>
seducing the pols into this and that ‘deal’ (i.e., you give us this law, and
we’ll tell our particular issue-group or Identity that you’re reliable on this
single-issue of ours). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So if you are wondering when the Rule of Law in this
country really started to get kicked to the curb, you have to go back beyond
‘Bush/Cheney’ to 1969 and then to 1990 when the cadres of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘governance feminism’ and Victimism realized they
were heading for the Beltway bigtime with the coming of the Clintons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the whole thing was being lubricated
philosophically by Richard Rorty’s witless but very useful insistence that
there is no reality anyway, but instead just different ways of naming stuff;
which Democratic uber-thinker George Lakoff is now <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/chairman-lakoffs-cognitive-casuistry/">pushing</a> as a full-blown
election and governance strategy: there is nothing but ‘framing’ and ‘spin’ and
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> task of politics (and
politicians) is to come up with the best ‘framing’ by which to ‘spin’ the
public (about what they have already made up their mind to pass into law anyway).*
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In precisely the type of dangerous practice that
Lowi warned about in 1969, this law was written with the input (a lot of it, I
bet) of a tort-attorney who has made quite a bit of money representing
‘victims’ in lawsuits about allegations that happened in the long-ago. The fox
is allowed to develop the blueprints for the hen-house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the said fox pronounces himself very unhappy
because the law doesn’t go far enough (he had been pushing for an almost total-eradication
of any SOLs at all). But that doesn’t mean he won’t take what he’s been given
here – and neatly he is on record both ways, and can have his legal cake and
eat it too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">See <a href="http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/House/H04329">here </a>for the text of this Bill, H.4329.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So now (Sec. 2) anybody wishing to start a lawsuit
has 25 years from the date of the alleged incident <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">or</b> to the age of 43 (if the allegation involves child-sexual
abuse). <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Or</b> within three years “after
the date upon which such cause of action accrued, whichever is later”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This last bit is a sly doozy: to “accrue” in legal
usage means that date upon which the claimant knew or should have known that
s/he has somehow been injured or had a tort of any sort committed against
him/her; and tort-attorneys can go to town making the case as to how the
allegant couldn’t have known until … just recently. (Perhaps the enterprising
attorney might also toss in that the allegant didn’t develop the ‘heroic
courage’ to come forward until just recently.) So it’s entirely possible that
one way or another the SOLs have for all practical purposes been
almost-completely gutted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But that’s not all. While ‘private’ institutions or
charities can be sued within this time-frame, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yet</i> if you want to file a claim against a public employer you only
have nine months (Sec. 1). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Two thoughts come to mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First, imagine that the legislature passed a law
giving allegants all those years to file a claim of abuse against a public
institution (a school, say) but only nine months against a private institution
or charity (the Church, say). What would you think about such a law? And can
you imagine the outcry by public-employee unions? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is precisely the dynamic in play here. For
a law that is supposed to be concerned for the ‘prevention of child sexual
abuse’, the entire realm of public-institutions are almost entirely exempted. While
private institutions or charities are rendered vulnerable to a window of
vulnerability almost completely bereft of SOLs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, what sort of mentality or Stance is driving
legislators to make such an obviously selective law? I would say that clearly
the pols are not letting themselves be ‘obstructed’ by any concern for the
integrity of any genuine Rule of Law. Rather, they are making a deal-politics
type of law: they can keep the Victimists happy while not enraging the
demographically powerful public-employee unions. (Although since just recently
a 55-year old man just started a lawsuit against Harvard for abuse by a
swim-coach that allegedly occurred while the man was a student there decades
ago, it remains to be seen how the hefty elite University-demographic is going
to respond to all of this.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But those aren’t the only holes in the wall in this
Bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Sec. 5(c) any aspiring plaintiff can file a
certificate of merit to bring a case from the long-ago, that includes a
notarized declaration by a duly-licensed “mental health professional” who might
be “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but is not limited to</i>” such
practitioners as “psychologists, marriage and family therapists, mental health
counselors, or clinical social workers” to the effect that “there is a
reasonable basis to believe that the plaintiff was subject to one or more acts
of sexual abuse as defined … that would cause emotional or psychological injury
or condition”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Two more thoughts occur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">else
besides</i> “psychologists, marriage and family therapists, mental health
counselors, or clinical social workers” are licensed by that State? This opens
the door to pretty much the entire pandemonium of cottage-industry (and perhaps
well-intentioned) persons who, with whatever ‘credentials’ (or not), set
themselves up to ‘counsel’ anybody claiming or suspecting to have been abused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For a) a person now in adulthood or b) a child whose
personality traits and characteristics are not yet fully describable it has to
be asked: just what particular “emotional or psychological injury or condition”
can be accurately characterized as having been<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘caused’ by the act for which the now-adult/then-child now seeks
damages? This is the mushy core of so much of Victimist civil-litigation theory.
Which, of course, they would very much like you to not-notice, hopefully because
you have been stampeded into outraged sympathy by a sufficiently ‘horrific’
story from that long-ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The good news in this Bill is that if you are
determined to be wrongly accused, you can recover attorney-fees from the
plaintiff ( Sec. 5(d)).<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> But</i> to get
there it’s not enough to have the jury in the lawsuit decide in your favor. You
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then</i> have to go to the court and
convince a judge that the accusation was made “with no basis in fact and with
malicious intent”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The only unalloyed bit of good news is that none of
this will apply if you have already signed an agreement for damages under the
guidance of a competent attorney (Sec. 5(e)). Although perhaps even then you
might find an attorney willing to argue that your prior attorney was not
competent. In tough economic times, who knows?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So there you have it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You can see where all of this is still going. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Another major bit of Lakoff’s: the Democrats
support a “nurturing” and participatory democratic approach to government,
whereas the Republicans represent a “strict father” approach that doesn’t
nurture or discuss but simply insists and demands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is hooey and baloney. Advocacy-group and
Identity-group politics no longer look for any participatory democratic public
deliberation (after all, most of the Citizens still ‘just don’t get it’ so why
bother with them?). The ‘nurturing’ bit describes the best-case <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">outcome</i> of the agenda they demand to
have erected into laws; but there is to be no risky ‘democratic deliberation’
about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how the law itself</i> is to be
passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You as a Citizen will simply
wake up one morning and discover that you are now required to obey a new
‘sensitive and nurturing’ law and the only ‘democratic deliberation’ allowed is
to figure out how best to make it work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
if you democratically disagree about the law itself, then that automatically
marks you as ‘insensitive’ and ‘non-nurturing’ – in which case you don’t
deserve a say in this ‘democracy’ in the first place anyway. Neat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-89643221582565927942012-07-26T08:50:00.000-07:002012-07-27T11:40:17.946-07:00MASSACHUSETTS AND ADAM WALSH ACT<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In a clear example of electoral politics and the SO
Mania, there is a push on now in the last week of that State’s legislative
session to bring Massachusetts into AWA compliance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yesterday, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boston
Herald</i>, sort of the tabloid-y alternative to the clearly liberal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boston Globe</i>, ran a highly and
selectively slanted <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20220725silly_policy_shelters_offenders/srvc=home&position=4">piece</a> announcing that a “silly policy shelters offenders” in big bold type. The 'offenders', as the story itself goes on to demonstrate, are sex-offenders. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As you might already have imagined, the fact that
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Herald</i> strikes an anti-‘liberal’
pose doesn’t prevent it from playing the Sex-Offender card; since the paper
affects a populist or ‘blue collar’ pose, then it can play to law-and-order and
‘family concerns’ and can do so in an assertively red-blooded way, and not in
any whiney ‘liberal’ way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not that it makes much of a difference. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Possessed of a strong State Constitution that dates
back to 1780 (and thus can be considered the oldest written constitution still
in force on the planet), Massachusetts (henceforth: ‘MA’) was able to retain at
least some significant procedural protections during the formative years of the
SO Registration Mania, even though the state was home to major contingents of
both blue-collar ‘family’ folk and a formidable array of ‘liberal elites’ resident
in its many universities as well as significant Knowledge-&-Service
economic new-rich elites. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus any Citizen of the Commonwealth convicted of
any sex-crime (that elastic and ever-expanding category) had the right to
appeal his classification as a Level 1, 2, or 3 offender (3 being the most
dangerous) at a Hearing conducted on the authority of the state’s Sex Offender
Registration Board (SORB). And further appeal of classification was possible to
the state courts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Given the political demographics, it has probably
been the State Constitution more than anything else that has kept some of the
more advanced Mania whackery at bay – including the presumptions and
regulations of the Adam Walsh Act (AWA) of 2006. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But there are several levels of politics at work at
this point. First, the state’s governor is a Democrat and all Democratic governors
are no doubt being pressured into helping make the White House look good and
play to certain ‘bases’ in a difficult election year by trying to bring their
states into compliance with AWA (a dubious dignity for which most States have
declined to apply). This is especially true since one of Congress’s most rabid
SO Mania legislation supporters is now chairperson of the Democratic National
Committee (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of FL). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, the state’s governor is himself black, and
has evinced an interest – as have other recent governors of the Commonwealth -
in spring-boarding from the drudgery (and increasingly onerous responsibility)
of elective office to some nice appointment in the upper echelons of the
government. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So bringing MA into AWA compliance would be a nifty
two-fer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Herald</i>’s
take on AWA is that hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal law-enforcement
monies are being lost because the state is not AWA-compliant. It has lost
$322,000 this past year and stands to lose more. But the paper says nothing
about the huge amounts of tax-money that it will cost the state to administer a
vastly expanded, AWA-compliant regime in perpetuity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The co-chairman of the state’s legislature’s Joint
Judiciary Committee, however, has been holding up the Bill submitted by the governor
in June of 2011, because “as submitted [it] is blatantly unconstitutional” and
its “crimes and penalties don’t match Massachusetts law”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No rationally-grounded lawmaker or attorney
could disagree. The chairman (Eugene O’Flaherty, a Democrat) worries about
“privacy protections”, among other things. He wants to do some “tweaking”
because he isn’t sure that Level-2 SOs should have their information posted
online. *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But “that’s just a silly argument” and “it’s
nonsense” says local SO Mania child-protection advocate, the former Assistant
DA and now law-professor (at an – ummm – non-first-tier local law school),
Wendy Murphy. Murphy – it may be recalled – has crowed loudly over various
victim-friendly reforms, asserting cheeribly at one point that she was pleased
as punch that “lack of evidence” no longer stood in the way of getting
“justice” for children. How any legitimate Western and Constitutional form of
“justice” can be achieved without solid evidence is a Question that does not
concern her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The state only posts its most-dangerous, Level-3 SOs
online (assuming that the Level-3 classification accurately described that
individual); AWA would have all SOs posted online, with a hugely expanded
panoply of personal information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The article mentions none of this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It does, however, assert that “the record is deep
with previously convicted Level 2 sex offenders, accused of committing later
sex crimes”. And – in a now-classic move – the paper gives three particularly
vivid examples (and – slyly – no overall numbers or stats). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Additionally, the first example is for a Level-2
convictee now (merely) indicted for multiple counts of child-rape of a 13-year
old daughter of a friend. Another received two years in 2007 for “multiple
counts of indecent A&B on a person 14 or older” – which seems a remarkably
light sentence, although the definition of “indecent A&B” and the age
(somewhere over 14) might hold more information than the paper finds it
convenient to report. A third was sentenced to 10 years for a parole violation:
found guilty of child-porn offenses, “he asked an elderly neighbor to hold onto
DVDs, tapes and a computer with depictions of adults raping children”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Curiously, the paper reports that the state missed
“last year’s deadline” to comply with AWA. Yet the 2006 AWA allowed a three-year
window for states to conform and, subsequent to that July 2009 deadline, for
only two extensions, each of one-year, the last of which expired in July of
2011. Last year’s was the ultimate final deadline – and most states chose to
give it a miss. You can review an extensive list of difficulties and objections
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in regard to AWA <a href="http://oncefallen.com/AdamWalshAct.html">here</a> . You can
review the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services 2008 letter to
the governor listing the difficulties with conforming MA to AWA <a href="http://documents.sdp123a.com/Lt_Gov_Patrick_compliance_in_Mass_2008.pdf">here</a> . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it’s a tough election year and the governor
would no doubt prefer to be a little further from the front-lines as the
economy threatens to put all public officials at state levels on a very
uncomfortable hot-seat. And the White House needs all the ‘bases’ it can
attract, inveigle, or seduce. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Governor tried to float this Bill in 2008 (see
that Letter to him explaining the problems with it just linked-to above). The
legislature did not go along with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now he’s trying it again, claiming that the AWA
deadline is July 27, 2012 – whereas the last AWA deadline expired in 2011.
(Although at this point the feds may be willing to cut any deals that any State
can come up with.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the new version of the Bill (see <a href="http://www.sdp123a.com/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=102&Itemid=169">here</a> for text
) is – the Governor claims – adjusted to be AWA-compliant while also not violating
the State Constitution.** <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But that’s not possible. A major problem with the
basic AWA scheme is that there is no leeway for any state’s sex-offender review
board or agency to make an independent assessment of an individual’s eligibility
for Registration (or not) nor is there much leeway for assignment of a
Level-status. The Governor’s Bill will simply pay lip-service to that vital
step in the MA process while removing all of its actual authority to make an
independent determination. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole
‘justification’ for the AWA scheme is precisely that it will ‘correct all the
discrepancies’ among the states as to how they classify SOs by imposing a
one-size-fits-all approach from the top-down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – as the legislators now realize (although the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Herald</i> prefers not to talk about it) –
the law-enforcement monies the State is losing are nothing compared to the
financial burden that the State will saddle-itself-with in the long run. (The
feds may try to neutralize this huge problem by promising more money to States
to administer compliance, but I doubt that the feds can cover the whole expense
for all States and – alas – if the feds run out of real money then that deal
will be off and the States will be left holding the bag. And state legislators,
I think, now realize all that.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So we’ll see how this plays out. Here’s hoping the
legislature sticks to its guns. AWA is one giant step toward the precedent of a
police-state – and nobody wins if that happens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Even the Massachusetts 3-tier system is a blunt
analytical instrument, when you get right down to it. Level-1 is pretty much
reserved for those caught urinating in the woods at night and such; Level-3 is
for the most heinous and/or dangerous and the most probably recidivist SOs.
Which leaves Level-2 for everybody else – and that’s a sizable and
widely-varying bunch of registrants, with not a few of them shading much closer
to Level-1 than to Level-3’s classic Monster Sex Offender. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**I can’t help but recall an exclamation that LBJ
once made about one of his Great Society laws that got the Beltway into verrrry
bad habits and has now become a standard political axiom: “Hell, just pass the
damn thing and we can go back and amend it later”. If AWA is any example,
passing a badly-conceived law on the pious hopes of ‘fixing it’ later on down
the road is not the way forward for any intelligent and sober legislature to
go. And that has only become more true as the national political discourse has
passed out of the control of the legislators and all sorts of ‘special interests’
now deploy their selective ‘narratives’ far and wide, manipulating and even
stampeding public opinion in bursts of carefully-calculated irrationality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-32721524876078036312012-07-22T16:10:00.000-07:002012-07-22T16:10:19.109-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 7<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The snowball would be thrown by the victims-rights
movement, RL observes, which was “arguably the most successful social movement
of the late twentieth century”. (p.194)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I call it Victimism, as it has evolved in this
country. After World War 2 there was a great deal of high-level international
concern for people who are deliberately victimized by their governments (Hitler,
Mussolini, Imperial Japan, and Stalin) or collaterally victimized as a result
of their government’s policies. Among other efforts that were generated by that
concern, the U.N. formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">in
this country – especially after the international victim-rights movement was
blended with the dynamics of Identity Politics and the hostilities of the ‘culture
wars’ (especially the radical-feminists’ Gender War) – you begin to see
Victimism develop here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus what had begun after World War 2 as a
concern for people being victimized by their own governments suddenly morphed
over here into Advocacies of this and that Identity actively demanding that the
government’s Sovereign police/coercive authority be deployed, not only through
legislation and policy but through the criminal law, on behalf of those whom
the Advocacies claimed to represent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And this blended with a very characteristically American
Hollywood-PR dynamic that called for <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a
melodramatic and even Manichean ‘script’ or ‘framing’ or ‘narrative’ in which
Innocent Good is threatened by Utter Evil and then ‘rescued’ by the heroic Hero
(that role to be played by the Advocacies and their political enablers in the
Beltway). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This in turn required romanticizing the Victim and
demonizing the Perp. And ‘the Evil Perp’ would be whatever Evil Ones this or
that particular Advocacy had selected as its particular ‘oppressors’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>turned
out, after cutting-and-pasting all of the various Advocacies’ particular
versions of the Evil Perp, you wind up with the ‘white patriarchal male’. And
since the radical-feminist Advocacy quickly became the primary Advocacy, then
the male preoccupation with ‘sex’ became weaponized as the Big Stick by which
that Advocacy would whack its tormenting oppressors a mighty whack. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And I would add – as the SO community well realizes –
that this was not simply a “social movement” but, rather, quickly morphed into
a hydra-headed agenda of legislative, jurisprudential, criminal-law and policy ‘reform’
– all of which was lapped up for its PR value by story-starved mainstream media
that were looking to attract as many viewers/readers as possible to keep up
profitability; the ‘story’ and the ‘framing’ soon became more important than
any ‘facts’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And RL – while acknowledging the role of the
law-and-order Right whose concerns were ignited by rising crime rates and a
general loosening of social habits and rules – observes that “paradoxically,
leftist social movements – civil rights, women’s movement, gay liberation –
provided the model for the political mobilization that also gave rise to victim’s
rights”. (p.194)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The game-plan”, he says, “was remarkably straightforward:
(1) define an injury; (2) create an identity around this grievance; and (3)
mobilize to seek legal redress, material compensation, and protection from the
state”. And thus, before long, a whole bunch of people “would step out of the
shadows to claim rights” and then “over time, redress and protection took
increasingly punitive form”. (all the foregoing, p.194)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would only add that all of this dangerous whackery
was clear at the very latest by 1989 when Catharine MacKinnon published her
radical-feminist social and legal philosophy book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toward A Feminist Theory of the State</i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">just in time for</b> it to become a prime handbook for ‘governance
feminism’ as the Dems took the White House for the Clinton years. Yet, she
said, all of these ideas had been floating around among Advocates and in the
Beltway since “at least 1971”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In RL’s estimation, the four major sources of what I
call Victimism in this country were the welfare state of the 1960s, the women’s
movement (I would say especially the radical-feminist elements within that
movement), the self-help movement, and “social service activists and
organizations” (I would add the increasing pandemonium of remora-like ‘experts’
and garden-variety ‘therapists’ who quickly battened on the federal funding
lavishly made available by the Beltway). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And while in the very early phases – that welfare-state
era of the 1960s – it was the ‘victims’ of poverty and social injustice who
were also the victims of violent crime, yet before too very long radical-feminism
had injected their Gender War agenda into the mix: the government had to insist
that ‘sex’ – which, they claimed, was almost always ‘rape’ – had to be the
primary focus of ‘violent crime’ redress and – very soon thereafter – of government
suppression and elimination efforts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The earliest of the victims-of-violent-crime
compensation schemes was enacted in 1965: if you were a victim of a violent
crime you were eligible for monetary compensation by your state government. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus, almost overnight, “a new social identity –
that of the crime victim” was “incorporated into the machineries of the state”.
(p.195) And the defining characteristics of that new social identity – and, I
would add, its new social status and its remunerative prospects – began what RL
characterizes as a “gradual construction” that kept expanding and intensifying
(in a lethal synergy with state and then federal politicians’ willingness to
fund the whole process with ever-increasing chunks of public funds). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I think RL is spot-on with his selection of the
term “construction”: the whole thing was increasingly ‘constructed’ the way Dr.
Frankenstein stitched-together his Monster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Naturally, the radical-feminists started steering
this whole parade toward their own advantage, while the pandemonium of ‘helpers’
realized that creating ever more categories of victims and ever-expanding
definitions of victimization was a surefire quick path to funding and
cutting-edge status. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus
Victimism quickly began operating in an ominous synergy with the Right’s War on
Crime, even as the Left’s radical-feminism and ‘liberation from oppression’
agenda began to forge new pathways of ‘alliance’ with the Right. And all the
while, the Beltway funded what it had helped create as a primary and surefire
pathway for the political payoffs of passing ‘victim-friendly’ reforms and for
the overall engorgement of the government’s intrusive police powers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A kind of Perfect Storm. And a very very lethal and dangerous
one for the rule of law and for the Constitution and the Framing Vision, I
would add.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Feeding into this was one of the politically lethal built-in
consequences of Identity Politics: “single-issue politics”. Each new political
Identity was formed by collecting a ‘demographic’ of persons who were
politically defined not as Citizens, but rather as victims of this or that single
specific ‘oppression’. Thus, politicians had to deal with each Identity’s ‘oppression’
and nothing else, if they were to garner that Identity’s (or at least its ‘official’
Advocates’) political approval and support. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus too, politicians at all levels began to give up
on their traditional – and Constitutionally expected – role of thinking about
the commonweal: ‘politics’ was now only about the best ‘deal’ that could be
made with this or that Identity’s Advocates around tables in non-smoking
smoke-filled rooms just off the legislative chamber.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus too, the Citizens began to fall away from
any effective concern for the larger common-weal. You weren’t so much a Citizen
of the American polity and society; rather, you were first and last and always a
member of this or that interest-group or Identity (thus also primarily a victim
of this or that outrage and oppression). And you would take your voting cues
from your ‘Advocates’ who would let you know – through the media especially –
which politician was going to be most ‘responsive’ and ‘sensitive’ to your
victimization. Nothing else should matter to you. And so it has too largely
come to pass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Almost immediately upon his election, Ronald Reagan
set up an Office of Victim Rights after convening a President’s Task Force on
Victims of Crime in response to Advocacy lobbying for a Basic Bill of Rights
for Crime Victims and Witnesses.**<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL nicely notes that that Task Force quickly
produced a ‘report’ which was “based largely on anecdotal horror stories of ‘double
victimization’ and ‘official unresponsiveness’ to crime victims”. The math of
it went – neatly – like this: you were first victimized by the crime/criminal,
and then you were ‘double-victimized’ when the government somehow wasn’t ‘responsive’
to what you wanted or wanted to see happen in the justice system. (p.198)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I note the introduction here of “anecdotes” about “horror
stories” to be taken as indisputable “evidence” of crimes. If you claim to be a
‘victim’, then any ‘story’ you produce in support is going to be taken by the
government as ‘evidence’ – nor will the government continue to ‘blame the
victim’ by having the temerity to ask any questions about your story. And this,
as we know well, was enacted into DoVi and SO Mania Regime law before very
long. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, the report opens by piously intoning that “Something
insidious has happened in America” because “crime had made victims of us all”. (p.198)
So Americans, beginning during Reagan’s Morning In America, were now primarily
to identify themselves as “victims”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Moreover, RL notes that the Chairperson of the Task
Force “pointedly calls for an emotional, not intellectual, approach to crime”.
(p.198) And this, surely, is the beginning of a lethally insidious fundamental
shift in American public discourse about ‘crime’ (and, but of course, about ‘sex
offenses’ and the ‘horror stories’ told by self-declared victims and amplified
by the voracious media). And not only in American public discourse about crime
but also about everything of national concern. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, the Chairperson instructs all Americans
that “you must know what it is to have your life wrenched and broken, to
realize that you will never really be the same”. (p.198) And again, here you
see a lethal shift that the government is working to impose, seducing all
Americans to see themselves as irreparably damaged or ‘traumatized’ by any ‘victimization’
whatsoever. Any idea of resilience or of the human capacity to deal with and
even master whatever experience they encounter is pushed away in order to get
Americans to see themselves as irreparably damaged by any claimed ‘victimizing’
experience (which was nothing but the purest catnip to tort attorneys as well
as to enterprising prosecutors and – of course – the media).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Eerily, this is stereotypically a more female than
male approach to life: males had always been taught to master their
experiences, whatever those experiences might be, and – as the Brits would have
said – ‘get on with it’, get on with their life.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – I add – as so many Americans came to believe
this, then any potential jurors in a civil or criminal case had already been ‘tainted’
and ‘prejudiced’ even before they got the summons to jury-duty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tort-attorneys and prosecutors lived the
ancient dream of having a defendant-hostile jury simply because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the entire potential pool of jurors had
already been tainted</i>, without the tort-attorney or the prosecutor having to
risk trying any unethical or illegal jury-influencing during the actual trial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, the annual budget of the Office for Victims
of Crime is about one billion dollars, ladled out to grassroots organizations and
programs, a variety of government agencies or state-subsidized organizations, and
various “national centers” that “raise awareness” and “promote compliance” with
various victim-friendly laws and policies. (p.199) I would add that this doesn’t
include whatever hefty amounts are earmarked in such other budgets as the
Department of Defense – which has hugely increased activities and regulations
in this area – and various police and law enforcement budgets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Neatly, the Reagan-era changes were ‘strategized’ to
be funded on the federal level by fines and property-seizures levied against
those convicted of federal crimes. (p.199)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But – as RL acutely observes – “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">this gives victim-services providers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">an obvious stake in</i> punitive laws</b>”. (p.199) [italics mine] And
also in expanding the range of those punitive laws.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a profoundly lethal dynamic to set in
motion. The government is hereby constructing a Problem and funding special-interests
to address that Problem, but whose own interests lie precisely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> in solving the Problem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but in perpetually expanding it</i>. Thus
the ‘victim industry’ is set on the same track as the
military-industrial-congressional defense-contractor industry: there must
always be yet another ‘enemy’ (or ‘oppressor’ perpetrating ‘oppression’). And
meanwhile the government and the pols derive Constitutionally-dubious benefits
by exactly the same perpetual expansion of police authority and deal-inspired
votes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A self-licking ice cream cone. But a truly poisonous
one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the government police/judicial-authority is
drawn into being merely the instrument of vengeance for ‘the victim’ and precisely
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> fulfilling its role as the
impartial, objective (and Constitutionally-boundaried) judge of demonstrable
facts in any matter against any accused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This was precisely the theory behind Lenin’s concept
of ‘revolutionary justice’: that ‘justice’ was defined merely and completely by
the maxim that What is against the revolution is by definition a crime and thus
that The only purpose of the revolutionary courts is to “strike” such
counter-revolutionary agents (who, once accused, are presumed guilty and God
help anybody who says different). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL concludes this section by quoting (p.200) an
author who notes how quickly under such a regime people began to ‘accuse’
business rivals and persons against whom they harbored grudges, in the sure and
certain knowledge that if they just made the ‘right’ claims, the legal system
would without further ado remove these targeted defendants from the scene. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That has an ominously familiar ring to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**Despite any boilerplate and pious declamations to
the country, the increase in any ‘rights’ for victims had to come from only one
source: those ‘rights’ had to be cut out of the ancient and Constitutionally-enshrined
rights of the accused. It is a zero-sum game. As any review of so-called
victim-friendly jurisprudential ‘reform’ quickly indicates. Up to and including
the most recent scam in this department: shrewdly and slyly calling Statutes of
Limitations and other long-enshrined protections for the accused “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">predator-friendly</b>”, thus neatly re-framing
the Problem and distracting attention away from the increasingly apparent
Constitutional dangers of ‘victim-friendly reform’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-81387154539204141242012-07-17T07:55:00.000-07:002012-07-17T19:44:54.309-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 6<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL looks at “some explanations for the punitive turn”.
(p.181) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Given his own natural liberal tendencies, he turns
first to “social conservative” explanations, which center around a “logical” response
to the high-crime rates associated with the 1960s and 1970s. While this
explanation accurately marks the moment in American history “when crime issues
began to be politicized”, it is insufficient – he thinks – as a sociological
explanation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Concern over “juvenile delinquency” was ignited as
juvenile crime rates began rising as early as the 1950s. And while crime rates
climbed dramatically in the 1960s, they essentially remained flat – although at
a highly elevated level – from 1972 to 1992. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus while the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">experience</i>
of crime in the 1960s and 1970s was congruent with the actual climb in crime
rates, yet in the 1980s – when the conservative law-and-order Reagan tilt
toward Victimism was initiated – the crime rates had actually flattened: it
was, to RL’s mind, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">perception</i> of rampant
crime rather than the experience of it that fueled – almost phantasmagorically –
the national concern over crime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In other words, while in the earlier era there
actually was a spike in crime, in the 1980s that spike had flattened and it was
a matter of public opinion, inflamed by “imagined dangers and an exaggerated or
misplaced sense of risk”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And it is here in the early 1980s that RL also
points out “the sensational sex panics that played an important role in the
punitive turn”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have often discussed the political elements active
in all of this: the growing power of Leftish advocacy-Identity politics
throughout the 1970s, tightly and widely embraced by the Democrats in 1972 and
extending throughout the 1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the first ominously powerful outburst of ‘sex
panic’ was the Satanic Ritual Day-Care Child Sex Abuse wave that occupied the
early 1980s. The more I think about this phenomenon, the more ‘constructed’ it
appears: the ‘satanic ritual’ bit reflected the concerns of that
fundamentalist-Christian demographic which the Republicans in the Reagan era
had quickly embraced as a counter-force to the secularist and ‘liberal’
elements that the Democrats had deeply embraced; the ‘day-care’ bit reflected
concern over the changes to family-structure (including the radical-feminist
insistence on the deconstruction of the Family in order to provide ‘liberating’
economic opportunities for women, coupled with a Beltway awareness that in
order to keep up accustomed levels of income and financial security, both
parents would now have to work); and the ‘child’ as subject of all this Victimization
provided a useful image of a Victim around whom the largest number of interests
might be united in an otherwise divided national discourse on the role of ‘women’
and ‘men’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the ‘sex’ bit – which ultimately was proven to
be almost completely non-existent – was, I would say, the most telling aspect
of this government-and-media-manufactured early phase of Mania: it captured
nicely the Right’s concern for the un-boundaried ‘sexual liberation’ of both
the Boomers and the radical-feminists on the Left: even ‘teachers’ were now
unreliable, since they had been ‘infected’ with the sex-crazed libertinism of
the 1960s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet it was here – I would say – that the
radical-feminist and Victimist advocates (rapidly organizing into permanent
pressure groups that I characterize as advanced-level Advocacy) first saw a)
how the Beltway and the media could literally create a mass ‘Issue’ or ‘Crisis’
where none existed and then b) how that possibility might be turned to their
own advantage in the radical-feminist-required ‘war’ on patriarchy and males. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Especially since ‘sex’ (defined as the act of
inseminating in order to produce more offspring) was something that males were
invariably driven-towards (as the theory of Evolution supports).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If then, those Advocacies could ‘criminalize’ sex as
widely and deeply as possible, then they would have an almost-permanent ‘stick’
with which to beat males, even with the criminal law. ‘Sex’ could be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">weaponized</i> in the Gender War. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, as RL observes, “while the sensational sex
panics that played an important role in the punitive turn in the 1980s were
buoyed by imagined dangers and an exaggerated or misplaced sense of risk … many
of the most punitive laws actually were passed after 1992, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a time of rapidly declining crime rates</i>”. (all of the foregoing,
p.182) [italics mine]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I agree. Although I note a) that 1992 and the
arrival of the Clinton presidency also marked the arrival of ‘governance
feminism’ as the Democrats’ strongly-embraced radical-feminist Advocacies were
given hugely expanded entrée into the Beltway and the federal bureaucracies and
into formal roles of governance; and b) efforts were immediately reinforced to
actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">intensify and expand the
crime-rate numbers by casting almost all heterosexual sex as somehow criminal</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus, even as crime-rates (meaning ‘crime’ as
classically-defined) were falling, the category of sex-crimes was suddenly made
the focus of intense and manipulative efforts to create a ‘crisis’ both huge
and ongoing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would say that crime and punitive efforts to
control it – by a broad and sustained government-sponsored campaign to ‘control’
and re-shape public opinion about ‘sex’ – became a tool or weapon in the Gender
War: the gender and Victimist Advocacies got funding, status, and authority
(with the help of legislators from both Right and Left); the media got a
never-ending supply of ‘horror-stories’ artfully scripted along the necessary
melodramatic lines of Innocent-Victim and Leering-Villain; and the government
authority itself (distinct from the political benefits to politicians and
Parties) got to engorge lethally and enormously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then there were all the ancillary beneficiaries
of this gambit: an increasing pandemonium of ‘therapists’ and ‘experts’ who
could cash in on the Mania; enterprising prosecutors and law-enforcement types
who could quickly build career-advancement or even a career-itself by providing
well-publicized ‘cases’ and the “spectacle” of arrests; and even
university-level scholars who saw what had to be done to keep government happy
and its vital funding flowing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Curiously, of course, and to no small extent
incoherently, the radical-feminist Advocacies were demanding far wider ‘sexual
freedom’ for ‘women’ precisely as they were also demanding the vast increase of
draconian law and policies designed to control (‘shape’ is perhaps more
accurate) sexual activity.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Forthwith, the prison population that had been
shrinking suddenly began to spike upwards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Left that had started out in the 1960s as an
adversary of government police repression and brutality suddenly morphed into
the greatest enabler of it by the 1990s. (p.183)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nicely, RL mentions David Garland’s observation (in
his 2001 study, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Culture of Control</i>)
that the idea had come to take root in society that “nothing works”.** I
wonder, really, how anything <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could have</i>
worked: the government, at the behest of its Identities and Advocacies was simultaneously
trying to create ‘liberation space’ that almost seemed to require a certain
tolerance for crime and violence; the Boomery infatuation with drugs was a ‘liberation’
that was criminogenic in and of itself and would only prove more so as time
went on; the police power was simultaneously seen as repressive and incompetent
and/or ineffectual; an d- generally – the government was trying to impose a
hugely novel social revolution (or many of them) while at the same time
reigning in the repressive aspects of police authority while at the same time
trying to demonstrate that it could keep law-and-order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And I can’t help adding here that the very notion of
‘law and order’ was anathema to the radical feminists at the deepest conceptual
levels: Constitutional law-and-order was merely patriarchal law-and-order. And
yet – as the SO community knows well – once weaponized in the service of their
Gender War agenda, the Left became verrrrry law-and-order oriented, to the
point of the police-state regimes of the Mania. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As Garland observed, the sense that “nothing works”
somehow discouraged genuine progressive efforts at prison-reform and
rehabilitation, and fueled socially-conservative*** demands to simply lock’em all
up and throw away the key. (Which fueled a public increase in prison-building,
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then</i> spawned an entire private, commercial
prison industry that is still chugging right along.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL attributes “zero tolerance” policies to the (social
and cultural) conservatives, but we have seen how quickly and completely “zero
tolerance” became a watchword of the Left-Victimist Advocacies as well. (p.183)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But then RL does point out neatly that “zero
tolerance” has become an instance of “the punitive culture rationalizing its
own existence”. (p.183) This, I would say, works this way: if we presume that ‘zero
tolerance’ is a good thing, then the government must have enough coercive and intrusive
police authority to prosecute every instance of crime whatsoever. And then, of
course, if you factor in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">preventive</i> intrusion
and imposition, the equation necessary to create a full-blown police-state is
completed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So the redefinition of ‘crime’ in the popular mind
from ‘street crime’ to ‘sex crime’ is, in my opinion, a lethal and ominous
gambit that has opened up the gate in the Constitutional wall that had kept
Kong away from civilization: Leviathan is unleashed once again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then RL notes the mostly unmentioned reality
that the vast increase in (mostly male) prisoners also serves to keep
increasing numbers of males formally out of the work force (and out of the official
unemployment statistics <em>and </em>off the voting-rolls). In a time of declining employment opportunities <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>the almost-doubling of the eligible
work-force through the demands of radical-feminism, the vastly expanded
incarceration of males creates needed ‘space’. (p.188) And I would add that
Registering so many others as SOs then adds to that dynamic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But RL then wants to get below the realm of
statistics to note the cultural consequences: this country has lost any sense
of balance and of rehabilitation and of second-chances. (p.189)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This almost had to happen. If in order to whomp up
public outrage and interest, the Advocacies had to perform the PR magic of
turning the ‘accused’ not only into the ‘perp’ but also into the monstrous and
incorrigible and Evil Perp, then clearly any thought of ‘rehabilitation’ had to
be kicked to the curb. You can’t – in this theorizing of the ‘crisis’ –
rehabilitate Evil. (You can only imprison it and – if you have to let Evil back
out eventually – ‘register’ it with an electronic-database equivalent of a
Yellow Star.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – as RL begins to arrive at it (p.189) – you can
also quickly and easily increase the amount of ‘proven’ Evil Perps by greatly
weakening evidentiary and jurisprudential standards (thus ‘victim-friendly’ ‘reforms’
that make any ‘story’ presumptively true and undercut any possibility of the
accused defending himself against the allegation). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I simply point out here that if these dynamics can
be deployed against SOs today, they can be deployed against anybody else
tomorrow. The government simply has to ‘discover’ and ‘declare’ some new ‘outrage’
and ‘crisis’ and who knows where that can lead? Once Kong is out of the cage
and through the ancient Gate, then does anybody really think the monster can be
controlled?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If LBJ came up with the image of ‘War’ with his ‘War
on Poverty’ in 1966, then Nixon followed with his ‘War on Crime’ in 1968. It
would serve, RL says, as both a counter-movement to all the Democratic liberal
talk of ‘War’ (on poverty, on conventional morality and traditional cultural
assumptions and society) while also distracting from the failing shooting-war
in Vietnam. (p.191)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus the matter of political demographics took a
commanding role. The rise of the Religious Right in the South and West merged
with a Northern blue-collar abandonment of the formerly-New Deal and now ‘revolutionary’
Democrats; “hardhat conservatism” was born as a major realignment of the
political map. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The police (and – less noted – the government’s
coercive police power) became the heroes of the Right; the Right embraced “the
veneration of policing and the idealization of tough law enforcement”. (p.192)
I note here that it would be a simple matter of political chemistry for the
Left to gain control of the levers of this rapidly-developing Machine in order
to deploy it – as we saw in the 1990s with the DoVi and SO Mania Regimes – for their
own purposes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Wave after wave of instances of “cultural paranoia”
started up. There was an abiding mistrust, now, of ‘others’. RL notes the early
1980s ‘tampering’ scares, where disgruntled or incompetent employees were
imagined to be tampering with medicine bottles on a vast scale. (Recall also
the Satanic Ritual Day Care Child Sex Abuse cases of the same era.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, the ‘celebrity’ dynamic began to emerge:
copycat ‘tamperers’ actually came forward to claim they too had done such
things, simply for a few minutes of media-attention and ‘celebrity’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, RL notes, the AIDS epidemic began to give
many people serious anxieties about sex. That epidemic “was fostering new anxieties
involving sex, and ever more bizarre imaginings of predation proliferated”.
(p.193) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As a result of which “sexual fears – some reasonable,
some delirious – would play a pivotal role in conjuring up sinister enemies,
feeding the frenzy for harsh retribution, forging strange alliances,
domesticating and co-opting elements of the Left, and planting the
psychological conditions of the state of panic in the seedbed of the family”.
(p.193)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes indeed. But I point out that almost all of this
was included in the radical-feminist menu of targets and tactics put forth (to
give just one example) in radical-feminist law-professor Catharine MacKinnon’s
1989 compendium of radical-feminist objectives, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toward A Feminist Theory of the State</i>. (See my mini-series on her on
my other site.) Victim-friendly legal ‘reforms’ justified by the illegitimacy
of ‘patriarchal’ Constitutional protections, the pervasive use of ‘sex’ as ‘oppression’,
the role of the Family in sustaining ‘patriarchy’ … they were all there, and –
MacKinnon says – had been there since the very early 1970s, waiting for the
right political moment to be introduced into the national culture and the
Beltway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, ‘rescue fantasies’ became a Hollywood staple:
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rambo</i> series became immensely
popular – first as the hero invaded and brushed aside evil foreigners to rescue
Americans overseas, and then as the hero (and spin-off heroes of other films)
began to do the same thing domestically, against this or that criminal or Evil
criminal mastermind. (p.192)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seemed that since “nothing works” then the only
thing left to do was to take the law into your own hands. (I can’t help pointing
out that just within the past two weeks this theme resurfaced in a
still-underappreciated court case in Santa Clara County, CA, where a jury
refused to convict a man, marvelously named Lynch, who had admittedly carried
out an assault against somebody he claims raped him almost 40 years ago; the little-noticed
but always possible Victimist-Rambo connection, shading clearly now into
lynch-mob type activity, has now started to enjoy official legal status.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then came the War on Drugs, with its lurid tales
of teens (especially ‘innocent’ white and middle-class) being lured into taking
drugs and becoming addicted. Although they were so often termed ‘children’ for
the obvious PR reasons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But ‘Just Say No’ wasn’t all there was to the
Reagan-era drug War. Substantial expansions of the intrusive and coercive
police authority were instituted and the era ushered in “draconian” drug laws
and rates of imprisonment. (p.193) You can see, again, where the equation was
almost complete, whereby the mere substitution for a radical-feminist emphasis
on ‘sex’ could create an entirely fresh and untapped field of expansion for
this engorged and expanding Machine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The SO Mania didn’t just suddenly ‘appear’, much as
its proponents want everybody to presume that ‘suddenly’ heroic advocates
simply ‘discovered’ huge and real amounts of sex-crimes. All the elements of a
perfect – and anti-Constitutional – storm were simply waiting for further
opportunities to engorge; the snow was all there, bunched up and ready to go –
it merely required somebody to throw the ball. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**I recall an episode of the TV detective series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kojak</i> in the early 1970s where the
precinct commander says precisely that – “we keep trying and nothing works” –
to Kojak as they face the task of law enforcement in the New York City of that
era. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">***I repeat a thought I’ve worked before: you can be
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">socially and culturally</i> conservative
without at all being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Constitutionally </i>conservative.
And indeed, neither social and cultural <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>conservatives nor social and cultural liberals
nowadays are actually Constitutionally conservative in the classic sense. To
the ‘conservatives’, Constitutional restrictions and protections obstruct the
punitive police power and to the ‘liberals’, Constitutional restrictions and
protections obstruct the deployment of the punitive police power on behalf of ‘victims’.
The Constitution has few major political defenders – and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that</b> cannot be a good thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-4890574824174262992012-07-14T08:13:00.002-07:002012-07-15T00:24:19.001-07:00THE INVISIBLE WAR(I put this text up as an Addendum on my very recent Post about agitation for a Military SO Registry. But since readers may already have read that Post, I am putting it up here as a free-standing Post as well. (I will have the next "Sex Panic and the Punitive State" installment up tomorrow.) <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Like so much of the SO Mania Regime, there is
always a curious element of ‘coincidence’ about this Thing – ‘coincidence’ that
belies the desired unthinking take-away assumption that its advocates would
like you to stumble away with: that all the brouhaha is just the honest
concatenation of a whole lotta real and honest victimization suddenly rising to
an innocent critical-mass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When actually, there appears to be a hefty dynamic
of wheels-within-wheels and the queasy sense of ‘strategizing’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So, in this case, it can actually be no coincidence whatsoever
that on June 22 an independent documentary film, entitled “The Invisible War” was
released, one which had received top-billing at the annual Human Rights Watch
Film Festival (the primary themes of which for 2012 are “women’s rights,
personal testimony, LGBT rights, and reporting in crises”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That last quote is taken from a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/168362/heart-and-soul#">review</a> by the
usually serious, astute and insightful Stuart Klawans in the July 2/9, 2012
issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Republic</i> (pp.44-5
of the print edition; the link brings you to a subscription-only firewall).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">personal
testimony</i>” is – but of course – a vital and lethal hallmark and fundamental
operating principle of Victimist strategy and jurisprudence: echoing the early
1980s exhortation to “believe the children” first deployed widely in the
Satanic Ritual Day Care Child Abuse trials of that era, which actually uses
‘children’ as a pretext and crowbar to move public opinion and – ominously –
jurisprudence and legislative Findings <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">away
from</i> a reliance on rational and careful and deliberate analysis of evidence
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">toward</i> an emotional, primally
limbic acceptance of whatever ‘story’ (usually a ‘horrific’ one) any
self-proclaimed ‘victim’ or ‘survivor’ (with its<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>queasy metaphorical undertone of the
Holocaust) chooses to push your way.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Carefully, Klawans makes sure to imply that all
of his statements are based on the assertions and presumptions built into this
documentary. But once he has covered that base, he opens up the throttle: the
directors have “committed impressive resources of research, skill and moral
gravity to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Invisible War</i>” –
although the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moral gravity</i> of the
Victimist agenda is verrrry highly selective, and does not extend to any
general morality or truthfulness, but rather only to the ‘revolutionary
morality’ that whatever is good for the revolution is Good and True and
whatever isn’t, isn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“To judge from statistics presented in the film”,
Klawans ventures shrewdly and carefully, “some 20 percent of the women who go
into the US military will be sexually assaulted by the people they most trust:
the servicemen with whom they live and work.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You see here the lethal and incoherent presumptions
which this Victimist Narrative requires us to presume without actually giving any
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it much thought: a) that despite
decades of (male) sexual-violence horror-stories, huge numbers of ‘women’ are
going into the military thinking that such purported sexual dynamics are not
operative (thus that when they are assaulted sexually, it is truly a case of
Innocence Treacherously Surprised – a nifty if ancient script hook); b) that
the same military that provides us with so many “heroes” is (purportedly) at
the same time one of the country’s largest pools of rampant sex-offending
perps; c) that sex-assault is rampant in the military, although military-law
has now been hugely deranged by deliberate ‘definition-creep’, whereby almost
any sexual act or encounter is ‘rape’ and any woman who has had just one drink
(or beer) is ‘incapable of giving consent’ (and thus any sexual-activity is ‘by
definition’ rape). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, Klawans immediately continues, “the real
percentage must of course be much higher, given the daunting pressure on the
victims to remain silent”. No doubt he got this pair of ideas from the film. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the SO community is well-aware of the value of
this queasy statistical gambit: on the basis of uncorroborated ‘stories’ gotten
in ‘surveys’ of the most primitive (yet carefully focused) kind, which are then
in their dozens of thousands compared to the actual formally reported numbers
of allegations filed, the ‘extrapolation’ is quickly made that the ‘real’
number of incidents outnumbers the actual formally-reported number of incidents
by a factor of 10 or 100 or 1000 or pick-your-favorite-exponent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And of course, this bit of frakkery is explained by
the ‘fact’ that the women who make the allegations are under “daunting
pressure” not to make such allegations (or – if you wish – ‘reports’). Thus
that there is a huge and evil (and patriarchal) organizational “culture of
rape” (remember that old saw from the 1970s?) in the military.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That the military might advise allegators to be
prudent lest they open themselves to charges of false-official-reporting (a serious
offense itself in the military justice system); that the military is trying
desperately not to have its resources diverted and attention distracted by the
usual and required victimist-SO soap opera; that the military itself is aware
of the incoherence by which male soldiers are now distracted from focusing on
war-fighting competence <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not only</i> by
the ever-present distraction of females living cheek-by-jowl with them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but also</i> by the ominous awareness that
any female at any time for any reason (getting out of an unpleasant assignment
not being the least of them) can make an allegation and literally – by the
latest regulations – ‘stop the music’ in an entire unit … none of these
possibilities do the Advocates want you to consider.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – even more slyly – Klawans stenographizes yet
another interesting bit from the film: “this is not just a problem for women …
men on active duty are raped too, at a lower rate but in higher absolute
numbers than women”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, neatly, this is
not just a ‘women’s issue’ because males are also raped in large numbers; but
at the same time it is – but of course – more important to focus on the women’s
stories.
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[And is male-male rape that prevalent in the
military? How is rape being defined here? When did this start? And how can putatively
patriarchal, macho males accept this without concomitant levels of
self-defensive or vengeful violence against their rapists? Or are the males
being ‘raped’ by the females? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What is
going on here?</i>]<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And you can see where this entire gambit has now
taken hold among the new-generations of military males themselves. And all the
usual reservations must apply to your assessment of the ‘crisis’. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But
then</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
– and here is the direct tie-in to this Petition – “many uniformed perpetrators
retire into the civilian community unpunished, unidentified, and amply
experienced in sexual predation”. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All</i></b> of which elements of this
assertion are dubious and certainly unproven: that anyone allegated-against is
truly a “perpetrator”; that they were thus worthy of formal legal punishment
and yet “remain unpunished”; and that all of them are “amply experienced in
sexual predation”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it’s a neat skein of illusions and rather
strategic – simultaneously from an ideological and a political and also a
commercial film-making point of view: this ties in the engorgement of the SO
Mania in the military, the civilian SO Mania (now waning, at least in terms of
media attention if not also in terms of the public acceptance of the Mania’s presumptions
and Script), and thus will hopefully re-ignite the enabling attentions of
legislators now sobering up at the prospect of costs and perhaps even
consequences to the common-weal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The entire film was itself enabled by a hugely
selective example of ‘scholarship’ in a “report” concocted by retired feminist
professor Helen Benedict (“The Private War of Women Soldiers”, published in
2007 on the online ‘women’s’ site, Salon Magazine). Perhaps the distraction of
this ‘private war’ is part of the reason the military from top to bottom has
not been more successfully focused on actually winning wars nowadays. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The witnesses” – but of course – “are stunning in
their pain and courage”. But of course nobody has any way of knowing if they
are genuine “witnesses” or merely story-tellers (nor do I presume to judge; but
it is vitally necessary that every such story of allegation be examined and
confirmed, especially in light of the consequences demanded by the
story-tellers and their Advocates). And given the still-unplumbed depths of
‘victim-friendly’ ‘reforms’ in Mania matters – whether in the civilian or
military forum – what ‘courage’, really, is required? No more than is required
to pull a fire alarm hook (perhaps anonymously), knowing that your action can
and will never be seriously examined or questioned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The film, Klawans reports, is (artfully) constructed
and woven of “extended conversations and contextual scenes” (merely a
story-spun, reinforced for dramatic effect by what are known in the trade as “dramatizations”
– filmed horror-stories and nightmares, none the less limbically and
emotionally seductive for their being – for all anybody knows – more ‘drama’
than ‘report’). And all of this by “survivors”, a manipulatively dishonest moniker
given that nobody’s story or comments has been analyzed let alone proven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The skein is then embroidered with a rapid sequence
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>filmed “comments” by whomever the
film director carefully selected for whatever telegenic reasons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“You get an appalling sense of outrage piled upon outrage,
even as the film moves along calmly and logically”, intones Klawans in a tone
of hushed awe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But of course it is “calm” because no shadow of
being held-to-account darkens the brow or the conscience of the film-maker, and
the “logic” is that of Goebbels: <em>once you have accepted the grossly illogical
and untruthful premises of the artfully-constructed presentation, <strong>then</strong> all
secondary logic is utterly tainted and deranged, not to say perverted.</em> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(I can’t avoid mentioning here Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
awesomely sober and rueful admonition to those among his circle and beyond it
who hoped that they could somehow ‘improve’ Hitler’s and Goebbels’s Third
Reich: “Once you have gotten on the wrong train, walking backwards through the
cars isn’t going to help”.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, and apparently to Klawans’s satisfaction, the
film demonstrates clearly and completely “how a culture of rape flourishes in
the military”, based on “a twenty-year history of sexual assault scandals”.
Such as the Tailhook scandal, now – twenty years or so later – revealed to be a
put-up job from the get-go, and its primary ‘victims’ demonstrated to be
untruthful and – let it be clearly noted – unpunished. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So you see how it works. And how even otherwise
sober and acute and reliable experts in their field can be hoodwinked, or at
least seduced into composing an approving encomium. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the band plays on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-42916087908461476832012-07-11T12:02:00.000-07:002012-07-15T00:22:56.231-07:00MILITARY SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A petition is now circulating <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/secretary-of-defense-create-a-central-national-registry-for-military-sex-offenders">online</a> urging the
Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) to create by fiat a national military
sex-offender registry. It has, as of July 11, about 89,000 supporters. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is not a new idea. Late last year Rep. Jackie
Speier (D-CA) submitted a short and quickie Bill (H.3435, see my <a href="http://senseoffenses.blogspot.com/2011/12/h3435-and-s1867-military-so-strategy.html">Post </a>) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– based, but of course, on amazingly huge ‘numbers’
of rapes and sex-assaults – demanding, among other things, a military
sex-offense registry. That Bill has been referred to a military-affairs
subcommittee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the 2012 military budget, which includes some
very extensive (and apparently incoherent) definition-changes to ‘rape’ and ‘sexual
assault’, there is no mention of a military sex offender registry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Speier’s Bill calls for the military to retain an SO
database of those convicted of (its increasingly engorging) sex-offenses,
although this database would be available only to military investigators. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But then it also calls for the Department of Defense
(DOD) to forward all information about military-convictees to the Department of
Justice (DOJ) for inclusion in the National Sex Offender Registry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now this is a ticking timebomb of no small
proportions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As I mentioned in my discussion of the
military-justice system in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Foster</i>
<a href="http://senseoffenses.blogspot.com/2011/08/brian-foster-and-military-justice.html">Post</a> , the military has been rather careful not to invite too much
attention to its system. There is good reason for this: the entire profound
Constitutional Question remains conceptually open: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">does Congress even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> the
power to authorize</b> the military (an arm of the Executive) to conduct trials
of accusation for offenses against the entire civilian Criminal Code? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The military won this ‘authority’ formally in 1916
when it claimed that it would be impossible to send all the accused and
witnesses to any serviceman’s alleged violation of civilian criminal law back
to the States for a civilian criminal trial; hence the military (then going
overseas for World War 1) was ‘authorized’ to use its already iffy justice
system to prosecute Citizens (albeit servicemembers) for any criminal law
violations. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This wall was breached – to the military’s and the
JAGs’ apparent advantage and with their support – in the very first SO Mania
laws: anyone convicted by courtmartial of a Sex Offense would be eligible for
the State registry. A convictee would, upon release from the military and any
imprisonment, have to go to the State in which he would reside and submit to
its SO Registration process; later it was arranged that the military would send
notice to the inmate’s designated State of residence so as to give that State’s
Registration Board a heads-up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus the military-justice system’s ‘convictions’
slyly insinuated themselves into the public mind as ‘criminal convictions’
(although the huge Constitutional Question remains very truly open, even though
the Supreme Court has done its heroic bit to justify the whole thing). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
the responsibility for SO Registration remained, as it Constitutionally has to,
with the States and it is conceivable that a State would examine the military
record of trial and decide that the potential ex-serviceman registrant was
“ineligible” – such are the annoyances of the Constitution in SO Mania matters.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Hence the so-called National SO Registry (named, as
always, after a victim, Dru Sjodin) is actually only a federally-administered
collection of all the State Registries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But what this Bill wants to do is to give military
convictions a formal authority to directly Register its SO convictees. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which also then burdens the State with the responsibilities
of tracking these individuals and also removes from the States their authority
to determine for themselves who does (or perhaps does not) qualify for their
Registries. And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> opens up a whole
universe of unsavory possibilities and Constitutional concerns. (Perhaps, for
example, the federal government might volunteer to take the burden off the
States by directly monitoring any of their citizens who bear a military
‘conviction’, and you can imagine what that further ominous possibilities <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> precedent might open up.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Given the functional failure of the Adam Walsh Act
of 2006* - which overnight would have hugely increased the number of
technically-defined SOs in their jurisdiction – States are not going to want to
add to their already costly and burdensome SO registration-notification
problems (and they are legion) by now taking on the hugely dubious and complex
challenges of adjudicating the ‘eligibility’ of those ‘convicted’ by
courts-martial under the queasy aegis of the military justice system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it’s a tough election year and pandering must be
intensified and extended to any and all of the ‘bases’. Rep. Speier’s
Congressional District – 12<sup>th</sup> CA – comprises, by the most amazing
coincidence, parts of Santa Clara County, which was most recently the site of
the jury-nullification verdict for an A&B against an alleged SO about which
I have Posted several times in the past couple of weeks, including a Post just
yesterday. Her District is just south of Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco District.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What better way to do some quickie and useful
pandering than to get an online Petition going about demanding a military SO
Registry that might well also open up a back-door to active federal
administration of Registries that the States now realize are not only of hugely
doubtful and oversold value to the public but are also very very costly in terms
of time and money? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Neatly, on the site sponsoring the Petition, the whole
thing is classified as a “women’s rights petition’. In case anybody was
wondering if there is a connection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As I have often said, given the fundamental
organizational objectives of any and all military undertakings, you can get
yourself court-martialed and ‘convicted’ for just about anything the brass has
a mind to Charge you with. And if you then factor in the SO Mania Regime as it
has run rampant in the military-justice system (where Constitutional
protections were already weak, before the Regime’s effects are factored in) …
you can see the possibilities for lethal mischief. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But all that would be thinking-too-much for politics
in an election year, especially among youthy or emotionally-reactive internet generations
that aren’t widely noted for circumspection and careful analysis of dynamics
and consequences and all that stuff. It just feels so good to be part of a
Good Cause. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If Justice Douglas was right when he reflected that
liberties are lost slowly – like the sun going down and dusk descending gradually
from almost-daylight to total darkness – then I would also add that to the
unreflective and unobservant, darkness appears to suddenly arrive ‘out of
nowhere’. When you aren’t paying careful attention, all sorts of stuff <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘just happens’, and ‘suddenly’ too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the Petition site, internet participants are
invited to say something. But not to ‘comment’; rather: to share their ‘reasons’
for supporting the Petition. A review of the many entries indicate very very
few actual reasons and thoughts, and a whole lotta ‘stories’. Which – but of
course – cannot be verified and – their writers probably know full well – will never
be examined closely, if at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As I have said before on this site, the advantage of
the military and clerical sex-offense cases is that they allow for a more
focused example and consideration of the dynamics and consequences of the
sprawling SO Mania Regime; they are the SO Mania Regime <em>‘writ small’</em>. And by ‘small’
I mean manageable in terms of observing and analyzing how this Thing works. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One comment-maker claims that when she asked about a
military SO Registry, “some” of the responses she was given were that it would
take too much paperwork and too much time. But a) how does anybody really know
that and b) what other responses was she given that perhaps to her required too
much (confusing or inconvenient) thinking? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps some acute responder told her that there
were significant potential or probable Constitutional problems. Or that the
military would rather not create a program that would have to allow for the
type of contested-Hearings by those under threat of registration that might
well expose huge shortcomings in the military justice system. Or that if this
scheme were to be made retroactive – as the civilian schemes are, because they
are ‘merely administrative and not punitive’ – then military convictions might
be open to formal Ex Post Facto court challenges that, again, invite unpleasant
public and even judicial scrutiny and also invite judicial-review into the
military system. Or that the whole thing is going to cost an awful lot of money
that the military needs for stuff like – not to put too fine a point on it –
recovering its war-fighting and war-winning capabilities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Or perhaps nobody did and she hasn’t even thought to
consider such ‘abstract’ stuff herself and she just has to imagine that since
her cherished Registration idea is ‘totally Good’ then the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">only</b> reason there is any doubt about it is because there is a ‘conspiracy’
to continue to ‘oppress’ victims (and, of course, ‘women’). Such
cartoon-thought is widespread nowadays, especially since ‘abstract thinking’
was kicked-to-the-curb as being ‘macho’ and ‘patriarchal’ and so on and so
forth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The whole bit becomes – for far too many – merely a
soap-opera chance to ‘be involved’ without having to do much serious thinking.
Which – to some minds – is totally OK because what they are trying to ‘change’
is so totally Evil in the first place that anything they want to see done is
totally Good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s anybody’s guess how all this is going to turn
out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But if for no other reason than money and turf, the
military might yet decide it’s not a Good Thing at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet, if it’s going to be a tough election, then
the Beltway pols might be in no mood to do any thinking themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*As of July 12, 2012 it has been just two weeks
short of a year since the DOJ’s SMART office (assigned to implement all
Registration and Notification schemes, including the AWA scheme) has posted any
press-releases. Prior to July 28, 2011 the SMART folks had been regularly and
frequently posting burbly and cheerible press-releases about the latest
jurisdictions to sign-on for the AWA-compliant certification. Not anymore. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But like so much of the SO Mania Regime, there is
always a curious element ‘coincidence’ about this Thing – ‘coincidence’ that
belies the desired unthinking take-away assumption that its advocates would
like you to stumble away with: that all the brouhaha is just the honest
concatenation of a whole lotta real and honest victimization suddenly rising to
an innocent critical-mass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When actually, there appear to be a hefty dynamic of
wheels-within-wheels and the queasy sense of ‘strategizing’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So, in this case, it can actually be no coincidence whatsoever
that on June 22 an independent documentary film, entitled “The Invisible War” was
released, one which had received top-billing at the annual Human Rights Watch
Film Festival (the primary themes of which for 2012 are “women’s rights,
personal testimony, LGBT rights, and reporting in crises”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That last quote is taken from a review by the
usually serious, astute and insightful Stuart <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/168362/heart-and-soul#">Klawans</a> in the July 2/9, 2012
issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Republic</i> (pp.44-5
of the print edition; the link brings you to a subscription-only firewall).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">personal
testimony</i>” is – but of course – a vital and lethal hallmark and fundamental
operating principle of Victimist strategy and jurisprudence: echoing the early
1980s exhortation to “believe the children” first deployed widely in the
Satanic Ritual Day Care Child Abuse trials of that era, which actually uses
‘children’ as a pretext and crowbar to move public opinion and – ominously –
jurisprudence and legislative Findings away from a reliance on rational and
careful and deliberate analysis of evidence and toward an emotional, primally
limbic acceptance of whatever ‘story’ (usually a ‘horrific’ one) any
self-proclaimed ‘victim’ or ‘survivor’ (with its<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>queasy metaphorical undertone of the
Holocaust).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Carefully, Klawans makes sure grammatically that all
of his statements are based on the assertions and presumptions built into this
documentary. But once he has covered that base, he opens up the throttle: the
directors have “committed impressive resources of research, skill and moral
gravity to “The Invisible War” – although the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moral gravity</i> of the Victimist agenda is verrrry highly selective,
and does not extend to any general morality or truthfulness, but rather only to
the ‘revolutionary morality’ that whatever is good for the revolution is Good
and True and whatever isn’t, isn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“To judge from statistics presented in the film”, Klawans
ventures shrewdly and carefully, “some 20 percent of the women who go into the
US military will be sexually assaulted by the people they most trust: the
servicemen with whom they live and work.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You see here the lethal and incoherent presumptions
which this Victimist Narrative requires us to presume without actually giving
it much thought: a) that despite decades of (male) sexual-violence horror-stories,
huge numbers of ‘women’ are going into the military thinking that such purported
sexual dynamics are not operative (thus that when they are assaulted sexually,
it is truly a case of Innocence Treacherously Surprised – a nifty if ancient
script hook); b) that the same military that provides us with so many “heroes”
is (purportedly) at the same time one of the country’s largest pools of rampant
sex-offending perps; c) that sex-assault is rampant in the military, although
military-law has now been hugely deranged by deliberate ‘definition-creep’,
whereby almost any sexual act or encounter is ‘rape’ and any woman who has had
just one drink (or beer) is ‘incapable of giving consent’ (and thus any
sexual-activity is ‘by definition’ rape). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, Klawans immediately continues, “the real
percentage must of course be much higher, given the daunting pressure on the
victims to remain silent”. No doubt he got this pair of ideas from the film. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the SO community is well-aware of the value of
this queasy statistical gambit: on the basis of uncorroborated ‘stories’ gotten
in ‘surveys’ of the most primitive (yet carefully focused) kind, which are then
in their dozens of thousands compared to the actual formally reported numbers
of allegations filed, the ‘extrapolation’ is quickly made that the ‘real’
number of incidents outnumbers the actual formally-reported number of incidents
by a factor of 10 or 100 or 1000 or pick-your-favorite-exponent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And of course, this bit of frakkery is explained by
the ‘fact’ that the women who make the allegations are under “daunting pressure”
not to make such allegations (or – if you wish – ‘reports’). Thus that there is
a huge and evil (and patriarchal) organizational “culture of rape” (remember
that old saw from the 1970s?) in the military.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That the military might advise allegators to be
prudent lest they open themselves to charges of false-official-reporting (a serious
offense itself in the military justice system); that the military is trying
desperately not to have its resources diverted and attention distracted by the
usual and required victimist-SO soap opera; that the military itself is aware
of the incoherence by which male soldiers are now distracted from focusing on
war-fighting competence <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not only</i> by
the ever-present distraction of females living cheek-by-jowl with them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but also</i> by the ominous awareness that
any female at any time for any reason (getting out of an unpleasant assignment not
being the least of them) can make an allegation and literally – by the latest
regulations – ‘stop the music’ in an entire unit … none of these possibilities
do the Advocates want you to consider.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – even more slyly – Klawans stenographizes yet
another interesting bit from the film: “this is not just a problem for women …
men on active duty are raped too, at a lower rate but in higher absolute
numbers than women”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, neatly, this is
not just a ‘women’s issue’ because males are also raped in large numbers; but
at the same time it is – but of course – more important to focus on the women’s
stories.
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[And is male-male rape that prevalent in the
military? How is rape being defined here? When did this start? And how can putatively
patriarchal, macho males accept this without concomitant levels of
self-defensive or vengeful violence against their rapists? Or are the males
being ‘raped’ by the females? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What is
going on here?</i>]<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And you can see where this entire gambit has now
taken hold among the new-generations of military males themselves. And all the
usual reservations must apply to your assessment of the ‘crisis’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But
then</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
– and here is the direct tie-in to this Petition – “many uniformed perpetrators
retire into the civilian community unpunished, unidentified, and amply
experienced in sexual predation”. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All</i></b> of which elements of this
assertion are dubious and certainly unproven: that anyone allegated-against is
truly a “perpetrator”; that they were thus worthy of formal legal punishment
and yet “remain unpunished”; and that all of them are “amply experienced in
sexual predation”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it’s a neat skein of illusions and rather
strategic – simultaneously from an ideological and a political and also a
commercial film-making point of view: this ties in the engorgement of the SO
Mania in the military, the civilian SO Mania (now waning, at least in terms of
media attention if not also in terms of the public acceptance of the Mania’s presumptions
and Script), and thus will hopefully re-ignite the enabling attentions of
legislators now sobering up at the prospect of costs and perhaps even
consequences to the common-weal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The entire film was itself enabled by a hugely
selective example of ‘scholarship’ in a “report” concocted by retired feminist
professor Helen Benedict (“The Private War of Women Soldiers”, published in
2007 on the online ‘women’s’ site, Salon Magazine). Perhaps the distraction of
this ‘private war’ is part of the reason the military from top to bottom has
not been more successfully focused on actually winning wars nowadays. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The witnesses” – but of course – “are stunning in
their pain and courage”. But of course nobody has any way of knowing if they
are genuine “witnesses” or merely story-tellers (nor do I presume to judge; but
it is vitally necessary that every such story of allegation be examined and
confirmed, especially in light of the consequences demanded by the
story-tellers and their Advocates). And given the still-unplumbed depths of ‘victim-friendly’
‘reforms’ in Mania matters – whether in the civilian or military forum – what ‘courage’,
really, is required? No more than is required to pull a fire alarm hook
(perhaps anonymously), knowing that your action can and will never be seriously
examined or questioned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The film, Klawans reports, is (artfully) constructed
and woven of “extended conversations and contextual scenes” (merely a
story-spun, reinforced for dramatic effect by what are known in the trade as “dramatizations”
– filmed horror-stories and nightmares, none the less limbically and
emotionally seductive for their being – for all anybody knows – more ‘drama’
than ‘report’). And all of this by “survivors”, a manipulatively dishonest moniker
given that nobody’s story or comments has been analyzed let alone proven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The skein is then embroidered with a rapid sequence
of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>filmed “comments” by whomever the
film director carefully selected for whatever telegenic reasons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“You get an appalling sense of outrage piled upon outrage,
even as the film moves along calmly and logically”, intones Klawans in a tone
of hushed awe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But of course it is “calm” because no shadow of
being held-to-account darkens the brow or the conscience of the film-maker, and
the “logic” is that of Goebbels: <em>once you have accepted the grossly illogical
and untruthful premises of the artfully-constructed presentation, then all
secondary logic is utterly tainted and deranged, not to say perverted.</em> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(I can’t avoid mentioning here Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
awesomely sober and rueful admonition to those among his circle and beyond it
who hoped that they could somehow ‘improve’ Hitler’s and Goebbels’s Third
Reich: “Once you have gotten on the wrong train, walking backwards through the
cars isn’t going to help”.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, and apparently to Klawans’s satisfaction, the
film demonstrates clearly and completely “how a culture of rape flourishes in
the military”, based on “a twenty-year history of sexual assault scandals”.
Such as the Tailhook scandal, now – twenty years or so later – revealed to be a
put-up job from the get-go, and its primary ‘victims’ demonstrated to be
untruthful and – let it be clearly noted – unpunished. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So you see how it works. And how even otherwise
sober and acute and reliable experts in their field can be hoodwinked, or at
least seduced into composing an approving encomium. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the band plays on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-75153919808444878902012-07-10T11:57:00.003-07:002012-07-10T12:05:36.815-07:00SANTA CLARA TRIAL 3<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">(Please
note that this is the second post today. The prior one is the next installment
of the Roger Lancaster book.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A local attorney has just put up an assessment of the Lynch-Lindner
case dynamics on the ‘San Jose Mercury News’ blog site. I have recently put up two essays on this Santa Clara trial. You can read them <a href="http://senseoffenses.blogspot.com/2012/06/santa-clara-trial.html">here</a> and <a href="http://senseoffenses.blogspot.com/2012/06/santa-clara-trial.html">here</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You can read the attorney's bit <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/7_10_12_priest_william_lynch_jerold_lindner_trial/">here</a> .</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t quite agree with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In CA, he notes, the difference between felony and misdemeanor
A&B is the severity of the injury inflicted on the victim. For a felony the
possibility of ‘great bodily harm’ is required, whereas for a misdemeanor-battery
one need only touch somebody without their consent or “in a rude or insolent
manner”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><strong>But </strong>in the Lynch case, we have
a self-admitted A&B that involved striking the victim and inflicting
sufficient damage as to require EMS and stitches. And when you strike an
elderly person, surely the possibility of great bodily harm is intensified. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So this attorney’s effort to claim that the jury was well
within reasonable limits not to adjudge the A&B felonious is not – to my
mind – credible. And that’s without considering the facts admitted by Lynch
(the lie concocted to gain ‘access’ to his victim, wearing gloves, asking the
victim to take his glasses off before he whacked him) which indicate – to my
mind – deliberate and premeditated A&B. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The attorney then raises the point that the jury can easily be
forgiven for not trusting a case where the victim’s (Lindner) testimony cannot
be considered.<strong> But</strong> in this case there was no doubt as to the fact of the
A&B (the defendant Lynch himself admitted it) or the extent (as far as we
know; old folks can develop problems later on since their physical systems are
more fragile) of the injuries resulting from the defendant Lynch’s actions.
And, as I said, it seems pretty evident that some amount of planning on the
part of the defendant went into this entire attack. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thus too, this attorney leaps far too optimistically (and –
I think – slyly) to the conclusion that once Lindner had taken the Fifth (about
the sex abuse alleged to have happen decades before) then the jury was
justified in not trusting the prosecution’s case because the
star-witness/victim was unreliable.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> But</b>
you didn’t need the star-witness’s testimony since you had a) the medical
reports and police reports and b) the defendant Lynch’s own admission that he
had committed the crime. With all that, what more did the jury need to know to
adjudge the Charge(s)?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thus too this attorney’s marvelously (and slyly)
disingenuous statement that without Lindner’s testimony the prosecution could
barely place Lynch in the room, “much less how the priest had come to suffer
his injuries”. Willy Tango Foxtrot? <strong>But </strong>Lynch admitted to going there and hitting
the priest; and how else would the priest have gotten his injuries? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the attorney admits that the jury was sympathetic to
Lynch from the outset because the defense had been allowed to play Lynch’s
videotaped dramatic story-telling about the 1975 assault as part of the defense’s
initial presentation.<strong> But</strong> as I have said in prior comments, this was completely
irrelevant material to the trial at this stage; it might have been legitimately
introduced in mitigation at sentencing if the jury found the defendant guilty,
but it was utterly irrelevant and prejudicial at the opening of the trial – and
especially if Lindner had always denied it and the allegations contained in
Lynch’s story had never been investigated and their veracity somehow
established. The operative legal theory apparently inherent in the presentation
of the Lynch story at the outset was that if somebody is sufficiently
victimized, then any violence they commit against their putative victimizer
decades later is not really a crime; the tactical courtroom strategy –
successful, apparently, in this case – is that the jury can be rendered sympathetic
to the defendant for whatever reason. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The attorney then claims (and perhaps he has managed to get
the jurors to talk to him, although they have remained resolutely silent in all
other respects) that the jury didn’t think that Lindner’s injuries rose to the
level of a felony. <strong>But</strong> clearly they do in terms of the statute; and if
anybody had hit an elderly person on the streets of San Jose and that elder
required stitches, would any jury consider that merely a misdemeanor? I doubt
it very much. Which goes to show that the jury was looking not at the crime
Lynch clearly committed (and quite probably with malice aforethought) in 2010, but
rather at the unproven story Lynch was allowed to tell about alleged events in
the year 1975. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The attorney then claims that defendant Lynch need never
have taken the stand in his own defense (because of the weaknesses in the
prosecution’s case above-mentioned) and that he did so – waittttt for ittttt! –
merely because he heroically wanted to confront Lindner in court and tell his
story – above and beyond the videotape – under the pains of perjury. <strong>But</strong> who is
to say that Lynch didn’t perjure himself in telling the 1975 story? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That</i> story has never been tested. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And perhaps now never will. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“It was clear to the jury that everyone, including the
prosecutor, believed that Father Lindner molested Lynch”, says the attorney.
But this is slyly deceptive. Yes, the prosecutor clearly believed it – with what
justification is another question altogether, and not an insignificant one –
but aside from the prosecutor and the defense attorneys perhaps, what other
relevant “everyone” were in the courtroom.? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Except
the jurors themselves</i>. <strong>But </strong>the attorney apparently doesn’t want to impeach
the jurors’ impartiality by saying that they were influenced by their belief in
an unproven assertion claimed by the defendant as a justification for his
crime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And then the attorney finishes up his presentation by posing
a couple of “difficult questions” of what the prosecution will now do next: retry
Lynch on a misdemeanor charge or not. No matter which way the prosecutor’s
office goes, the attorney bleats, somebody will be unhappy. Neat! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And yet the attorney’s presentation has clearly raised more
questions – and more vital and compelling and fundamental questions – in trying
to explain-away what happened in the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So my take on this local attorney’s presentation is this: he
wanted to get everybody off the hook and make it seem that the Santa Clara
legal system was precisely not a kangaroo process specifically tailored as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a pretext for simply validating the principle
that self-proclaimed victims can assault their alleged victimizers with
impunity and malice aforethought, whenever they want, even decades later.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the process, this attorney slyly tailors his assessment
to let everybody off the hook: the defendant, the defense counsel, the
prosecutors, and the jurors. All local folk, as is this local attorney. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And – but of course – leaving the actual victim of this
(premeditated) crime, Lindner, as the mule, blamed for it all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Phooey and baloney. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-12587020488039388752012-07-10T10:31:00.004-07:002012-07-10T10:33:07.229-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 5<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL raises the ominous point that in many States
ex-offenders are denied the vote. (p.149)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And even in States that are now choosing to restore
voting rights numerous conditions are imposed. In Florida, for example, your
offense has to be deemed “non-violent”, although that might cover up to 80pct
of Florida’s ex-offenders.**<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But even the good news is tinged with bad: the ex-offender
must initiate a demanding process of paper-work collection and documentation
(sometimes stretching back many years) and all applications – once laboriously
completed – must be approved by the State’s small Clemency Board. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Florida there are somewhere between 628,000 (the
State’s estimate) and 950,000 (advocacy’s estimate) eligible persons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And if you are re-arrested – even on the
technicalities of parole violations – you must wait an additional ten 10 years
post-release before you can apply. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And “even those convicted of non-violent offenses”
must first prove that they have “made restitution to the victim”. (p.150)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You can see – queasily – where such laws primarily
work against the voting-rights of males, and RL points out that this is
especially true of black males.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor is this true only in States of the old Jim Crow
South. “Progressive” Wisconsin has its own skein of punitive laws.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here you can see a clear indication of the toxic
‘bipartisan’ nature of SO Mania Regime law: Florida is most aptly classified as
a ‘conservative, law-and-order’ State; Wisconsin clearly as a ‘liberal,
progressive’ State – and yet they<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> both</b>
are robust participants in the Mania Regime. “Punitive governance” may be more
predictably evident (to the uninformed citizen) in the old Jim Crow States
(p.150), but that is only a matter of appearances: the ‘liberal, progressive’
States are equally enablers of punitive governance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Victim-friendly law is anchored in and plays-to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">both</i> law-and-order and ‘liberal’
politics.*** <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Also, I would add that States such as those of the
relatively peaceful upper Mid-West, the old heart of the Progressive movement,
where you would not expect so deforming an anxiety about crime, were
immediately and thoroughly ‘criminalized’ by the rapid engorgement of Victimist
law and especially sex-centered Victimist law: now you can have a crime-wave
wherever there is the possibility of sexual encounters. Neat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You can see the a further element of these same
dynamics operating in a State such as “progressive Wisconsin” as well as in an
increasing number of other States, where in order to qualify for a public
defender you have to earn less than three-thousand dollars a year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And in many States application fees are charged,
even though you are applying for a public defender. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The imposition of ‘fees’ is partly a spin-off of the
victim-friendly ‘restitution’ gambit. But it is also nowadays an increasing
characteristic of many now-cash-strapped States where State services now
require the payment of a fee. And this can only get worse, amplifying the
already-bad Victimist dynamics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL then goes on to draw the dark line of connection
between Victimist-law and the militarization of police and law-enforcement,
where the ‘dangers’ now so astronomically multiplied through the workings of
the Victimist re-definition of ‘crime’ were used to justify that
militarization.****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL thus refers to “lawlessness unleashed as law”.
(p.153) I would add that it was precisely this dynamic of ‘legalizing the
illegal’ and of ‘making the illegal legal’ that fueled Hitler’s early but vital
establishment of the ‘legal legitimacy’ of his odious regime. And once
law-enforcers realize that illegality – if deployed against designated
‘enemies’- is actually approved by the government, then an awful Rubicon is
crossed. In the SO Mania Regime this was done early-on, when all the initial
‘enabling laws’ of the Regime included a specific Section that made the police
and all enforcement personnel immune to criminal or civil liability for any
violations of law committed in the well-intentioned pursuit and apprehension of
SOs. Those laws are still on the books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet, as RL then points out, (p.153) the
increasing number of investigations into wrongful-convictions continue to
discover alarming numbers of persons railroaded ‘legally’ for major crimes they
were alleged to have committed. This is especially of concern in cases where
DNA evidence has removed any doubt whatsoever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of this got its start in the general public
revulsion at the lawlessness that erupted in the country at the end of the
1960s (fuelled largely by social unrest, cultural change and agitation, but
taking advantage of the Warren Court’s two-decade long emphasis on protecting
the rights of the accused). But in the Reagan years this drive was hugely
reinforced, even as Victimism was embraced by the law-and-order Right but then
quickly by the radical-feminist and ‘victim-friendly’ Left as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor – as is only now becoming evident – has the
slyly publicized presumption that ‘only the guilty’ needed to fear this massive
and pervasive engorgement of the writ of the Sovereign coercive power proven
accurate. Especially with the expansion and ‘re-definitions’ enacted by the SO
Mania Regime, a huge swath of the Citizenry became liable to police activity.
And it was on this entire foundation that post-9/11 engorgements were easily
constructed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Excluding traffic violations, 14 million Americans
are arrested each year – up from 3 million in 1960; and the arrest rate as
percentage of population has thus almost tripled from 1.6pct in 1960 to 4.4pct
now. (p.155) All the recent ‘liberation’ has – ominously – come at the cost of
a vast increase in prosecution and imprisonment. And this should have come as
no surprise, had anyone been actually paying attention to the essential
operative dynamics of the SO Mania Regime from Day One. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Crime control … has become the dominant model for
government”, RL quotes a pair of researchers as saying. (p.155) So when you
hear that ‘9/11’ and ‘the Republicans’ (for whom I hold no particular brief)
have done all this, be ye not deceived. This thing really got its start in the
bipartisan Victimism of the later 1970s and the 1980s, which then took fully invasive
and draconian public form in the ‘governance feminism’ 1990s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And if “punitiveness” was bad enough, “pre-emption”
and ‘prevention’ intensified the evils astronomically. And again: by ye not
deceived: pre-empting crime (in its newly and vastly enlarged definitions) is
‘the next logical step’ only if you are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not</b>
working on the logic of the Framing Vision. By effectively casting all Citizens
as ‘potential’ (or ‘not yet discovered’) Perps, Victimism requires a
police-state Government and undermines any sense of the Citizens as The People.
They are no longer the fundamental governors of their government, but rather
constitute a vast pool of potential perps who are thus enemies of the “zero-tolerance”
police-government, whether they have been finally discovered or are still –
like Communist agents – still loose in the land perpetrating their evil
designs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus the Citizenry is fractalized into Perps (known
or as yet still hidden) and Victims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – this demonstrates the lethal instability of
this paradigm of governance – today’s decent-citizen and Victim might yet,
through the mysterious and unpredictable workings of Victimist calculus, become
tomorrow’s latest perp-du-jour. Nobody, really, is safe or should feel safe … <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the Victimist classification of Perp-hood</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And a government that has so richly engorged itself
and its authority through such a calculus is going to remain addicted to that
engorgement, even if from time to time a particular form of Perp is no longer
the prime target. There will now always be some particular Perp raised up as a
boogey-man to justify the metastasized Sovereign police and coercive power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And technologies have developed to the point where
they can directly support or merely feed-into this tendency toward preventive
or ‘protective’ surveillance. Not only the panoply of background checks and
security checks and various tests for various things, and computer-guided
surveillance and identification programs, but even something as apparently
harmless as Google and other search-engines, which can yield whatever material
(there is no guarantee as to its accuracy) at the touch of a keyboard. All of
which contributes to “the dragnet of everyday life”. (p.159)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of which has been especially engorged in an
effort to maximize ‘child safety’, turning schools into the
security-equivalents of mini-Pentagons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet – weirdly – the Family itself has not only
been ‘devalorized’ in the process of ensuring somebody’s idea of ‘liberation
from oppression’, but has actually been turned into Victimism’s largest ongoing
crime scene, as RL comes to realize. (p.160) Again, it seems to me, even as
adults have been officially pooh-poohed as sources of wisdom and authority, and
parents not only included in that but also rendered suspect in all manner of
victimizations of their own children, the government – like a poison tide – has
quickly flowed into the vast holes in society that it has itself created, using
its ever-engorging authority to compensate for what it has destroyed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How did it all come to this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In his seventh chapter, “Constructing Victimization”,
RL looks at “how Americans learned to love trauma”. (p.181)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Americans have long imagined themselves to be a
nation of innocents”. (p.181) This is true – and it has kept Americans from looking
carefully at some of the darker elements of their history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the presumption of their own innocence quickly
enables Americans to imagine themselves standing on the moral high ground as a
matter of definition (i.e. We are America and therefore we are innocent and
good). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It also justifies Americans’ easy leap to the
conclusion that if something has been done to us, and we are innocent, then
such outrageous evil must be eradicated and we are totally justified in doing
whatever it takes to do so. It is as lethal a conceptual ‘equation’ as the chemical
equation for an explosive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Victimism surely piggy-backed on this predisposition
in American culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Although to do so Victimism had to divide Americans
up: you still need an Evil Perp for the melodramatic Innocent-Good vs.
Guilty-Evil script that would appeal to the public’s TV and movie-trained tendency
to see human experience through the mental-lens of the standard melodramatic
scripting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So now Americans were divided up. No longer were
they essentially and ultimately a single Citizenry, The People, united around a
common faith-in and adherence-to the Framing Vision, the Constitution, and a
common culture built on them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rather: there were sheep and there were goats; there
were the (pure and innocent) Victims and there were the (evil and guilty)
Victimizers and Perps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">From
the get-go</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Victimism
required a lethal weakening of the American people’s sense of its own identity
and unity.</b> And this terrible requirement could not but have the most
baleful effects on the political stability of the country and on the legitimacy
of any government based on the authority and sovereignty of The People. From
Day One. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> there’s</i>
something to think about around 4<sup>th</sup> of July time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**And if the vast expansion of “non-violent” crimes
reflects a government need to substitute criminal-laws for the internalized
self-governance missing from so many children’s lives in today’s culture and
society, then you can see yet another powerful and deep force pushing the
country toward a police-state level of government intrusion and imposition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">***As this <a href="http://www.themediareport.com/2012/06/17/on-front-page-ny-times-trumpets-efforts-catholic-church/">article</a> demonstrates, the latest
scam – fomented by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i>,
as is so often the case – is to declare Statutes of Limitations
“predatory-friendly laws”. This is a clear effort to counter the awareness that
so many Mania Regime laws are actually part of the Constitutionally-toxic
‘victim-friendly’ movement. But it clearly reveals the lethal dangers at the
heart of Victimist law: “predator-friendly law” turn out to be the very laws
erected at the Founding to protect the rights of the accused (who, but of
course, has been re-painted and re-badged as the ‘perp’ and the “predator”). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">****And as I have pointed out before on this site,
this militarization has also begun to seep into prosecution and law, where the
far-more draconian sex-laws and jurisprudential procedures of the
military-justice system have already merged with Victimist tendencies driving
civilian law and jurisprudence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-75305793889789137592012-07-05T20:48:00.000-07:002012-07-06T19:58:18.418-07:00SANTA CLARA TRIAL 2You may recall my very recent <a href="http://senseoffenses.blogspot.com/2012/06/santa-clara-trial.html">Post</a> on the very signficant trial going on out in Santa Clara Country, CA. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today the jury in that trial nullified the Charges against him and he is thus let off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The judge in the case, Judge Cena, deserves tremendous
credit for his steadfast integrity in avoiding the victimist, show-trial antics displayed in the
Philadelphia trial (the outcome of which, those defense attorneys have
declared, will be appealed, and on some solid Ex Post Facto grounds). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the jury in Santa Clara somehow got nullification into
its mind and that opened up a last-ditch (but perhaps not unforeseen) gambit to
somehow steer things that way. Possibly, somebody coached in nullification (it’s
not a widely known option for juries) was among the jurors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Curiously, the jurors have requested anonymity (although now
that the trial is over, I can’t see the need for it … unless they figure that
they haven’t really done the right thing). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Apparently, the jurors presumed that Lynch’s testimony about
the alleged assaults in 1975 were credible (although his claims to have
duplicitously initiated the assault sequence without premeditation and the
intent of violence, and his claims of some even more whacky variant of
repressed-something-but-not-memory, hardly appeared credible). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The role of the prosecution in this case is most likely a strong
contributing factor that pushed the jury over this dangerous precipice of a
verdict. From the outset it was clear that the prosecutors – already schooled
in victim-friendly jurisprudence and clearly supportive of it – made their
distaste for the victim of the assault – the priest Lindner – evident. The case
may well have been fatally compromised from the moment when the female prosecutor,
in her opening statement, asserted that Lindner would lie on the stand and deny
he committed the 1975 abuse against Lindner. Why should the jury have hewed to
first-principles when the very prosecutors obviously found it distasteful to do
so?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The case is being billed as a victory for the victimists and
for SNAP specifically. I would say that it is legitimately a victory, but only
in the most narrow of perspectives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a larger sense, this trial is going to exercise a baleful
significance: the decision of this jury (which, again, now suddenly wishes to
remain permanently anonymous) creates both a) a legal precedent and b) the
grounds for any weak-minded, strong-willed self-convinced victim that s/he can
exercise vigilante justice ‘because the jury will understand’ or something to
that effect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nor are the pious but sly bleats of SNAP-types sufficient:
we deplore vigilante violence but consider this case a victory. This case is
not simply a defeat for the first-principles of modern Western Constitutional
justice; it is an indictment of victim-friendly law and the professional
formation most law schools have embraced for over 20 years now. And this
precedent, a demon summoned forth by the victimists on the witless assumption
it could be controlled, will not remain limited to sexual-abuse matters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And it has breached open a terrible Gate that once was
considered closed, and summoned back a violent past in the darker Ages of the
West that had been considered left behind with all the other primitive
practices that once passed for ‘justice’ among the tribes long, long ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Perhaps the jurors realized this. And wish now to wash their
hands of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But now that it has seen the light, this Thing will not so
easily be washed away. Or put back behind the Gate. Vigilante justice, if
pretexted <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as being in the service of
some fancied or even real victimization, again walks the land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Such progress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So much – even more than ever before – remains to be done. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ADDENDUM (July 6, 2012)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some further thoughts about this Lynch trial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I think that the former jurors owe the public some sort of
explanation. Since they chose to take so dangerous (though legal) a route, so
rife with potential and even probable consequences for the entire system of
justice in this country, then they owe the public some explanation as to just
how they came to open so lethal a cage, why they opened the Gate that kept Kong
on the other side. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And did anybody imagine that this frakkery would remain limited
to sex-cases? If in 1975 somebody you claim to have been drunk killed your
brother and injured you – not just metaphorically as the sex-victims love to
claim (‘my soul was killed’; ‘my spirit was murdered’; I was – like – a victim
of a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>holocaust’; I am dead as a human
being … and so on) – then are you justified 37 years later in perpetrating a
deliberate assault against that person? What about people who have been victimized
by bankers and stock-brokers who aren’t being prosecuted?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yes, Lynch apparently did little enough damage and claimed
large enough purposes (he did it for past and potential victims; he just wanted
to ‘publicize’ things) that a jury might feel that in this one case – just this
one – they could afford to be nice and cut some slack. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But surely at least a few of them must have been intelligent
enough (at least one of them seems to be an engineer, used to systems-thinking)
to realize that you can’t introduce such a lethal dynamic into a system and
then expect that you can control the consequences and that those consequences
will only be your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good-intentioned</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">best-case consequences</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> anything less or worse. (That was
the type of thinking that got this country into the Iraq war.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And such post-trial reflections by the jurors would also
give us some idea of how the verdict was finally decided and on what basis. Was
the case decided for Lynch or against Lindner? Meaning: was it that Lynch so
impressed them or that Lindner so repelled them? Were they primarily concerned
for this case? Or were they concerned to ‘send the right message’ more
generally? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Were they predominantly and/or immediately all in agreement?
If not, what elements initially created the questions that they then had to
thrash out? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And how did ‘jury nullification’ come up for them? And how
did they handle that possibility? And how did they reach the point where they
embraced it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It seems to me that the jury-deliberations would be as
useful to the public as the trial testimony and claims themselves. Perhaps even
more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The jurors owe Us. And that – I would say – will become even
more evident as the consequences of what they have now gone and done become
more obvious and clear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-71434677651082184092012-07-04T22:45:00.005-07:002012-07-04T22:45:44.226-07:00SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 4<br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue looking at Roger Lancaster’s (RL) book.*<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had left RL discussing the carceral state’s simultaneous
pandering-to and need-for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spectacle
of punishment</i>. (p.146) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Whereas the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knowledge</i>
that their criminal-justice system is working well is a necessary and vital
consequence if that system is to enjoy the credibility, legitimacy and
authority of the Citizenry, yet the use of criminal-justice system’s daily
workings as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">entertainment</i> in
something else altogether, and harks back regressively to a more primitive era
in society and in Western history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, while the entertainment element works its
seductive magic – engaging the more primal, limbic areas of the brain to take
spectatorial pleasure in the carrying-out of the Sovereign coercive authority,
it also evokes other primal emotions, such as vengeance: as in the old early
silent movie era when viewers actually got up in the theater and shook their
fists in anger at the Villain and occasionally threw objects at the Villain’s
image projected on the screen, and where film actors who portrayed Villains had
to take a care when walking the streets, lest they be recognized as ‘that
Villain’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nowadays, it’s the reality-TV police shows and the ‘sting’
shows such as the recent “To Catch A Predator”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As RL observes about that particular show: “NBC has
not blurred but erased distinctions between journalism, law enforcement, and
the gratuitous arousal of its audience’s baser instincts”. (p.146) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Exactly so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
let’s not forget that the ‘audience’ must also retain its capacity to function
as the Citizenry and as The People. Which is – I would strongly submit – an almost
impossible set of hats to wear all at once. What it takes to be a happy consumer
and audience-member is hell-and-gone from what it takes to be a competent
Citizen and for such an ‘audience’ to also remain The People. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">None of which can be surprising to the SO community,
that has seen and felt all the consequences latent in this hugely poisonous
gambit, in which – of course – the Beltway has colluded and conspired mightily,
before and during and after the fact. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, RL asserts – and rightly so – that “there
is no direct relationship between American’s fascination with the police
blotter and the real-world conditions of crime and depravity”. (p.146) Meaning,
he explains, that even though “crime rates have fallen dramatically since the
early 1990s, crime reportage has actually risen in inverse proportion”. (p.146)
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are several dynamics contributing to this.
First, the media are desperate to keep up viewership and consistently choose
the most vivid and attention-grabbing ‘stories’, regardless of how little those
particular incidents might reflect the overall state of affairs or of how
little relevance those incidents might bear to the general common-weal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, there are now hugely well-funded (by the
taxpayers, courtesy of the politicians) organized Advocacies. These are what I
classify as those Level-IV Advocacies which seek not only to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sidestep</i> public deliberation and work
directly if secretly with willing legislators but also to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manipulate</i> public opinion by selectively misinforming and inflaming
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Their agendas – meshing with the American
criminalization of world-Victimism’s insights – require not only the
designation of some Evil which ‘victimizes’ their particular group, but also
requires the designation (and even construction) of some Evil-Doer who
perpetrates such victimization. And as We have seen in the SO Mania Regime, not
simply an individual Evil-Doer or Villain, but an entire <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">group</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">class</i> of them.
(So for example, as radical-feminism synergized with Victimism, men – half the
population – became the proscribed class … or, not to put too fine a point on
it, the proscribed gender.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Third, there are the politicians, once the national
Parties in the Beltway decided to create political supporters for themselves by
embracing any and all new victim-groups that any Advocacies cared to push their
way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And by including in that support legislation and
public-funding to keep those Advocacies and those groups well-satisfied. Although
– and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> this</i> is the inherent lethal
danger to any constitutional Republic – once you start down this road, the
groups and Advocacies will never be satisfied; instead, the more they are given
the more they will discover they ‘need’ and the more they will and must demand in
order to keep the ball rolling. And thus the more the legislators must give
them, regardless of the consequences for the common-weal or to the integrity of
any genuine democratic politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The legislators are using the public monies to
create and sustain groups whose continued existence – regardless of whether
that existence is justified – greatly benefits the legislators’ themselves,
securing electoral viability for them. This is a kickback scheme from Hell. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(RL will discuss this at greater length further
on in the book.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, “the current zeal for punishment turns on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the perpetual cultivation of outsized fears</i>”.
(p.147) [italics mine] And once again, an ‘audience’ continuously and
habitually titillated by entertainments and agitated by the distracting and
deranging <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">frisson</i> of fear … is not
easily going to be able to put all that aside and suddenly turn with full and
practiced and emotionally sober competence to its task as Citizens and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>its role as The People. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The United States has become a measurably harsher,
more punitive place”, says RL, and he suggests the term <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">punitive governance</i> to convey this stunning and alarming reality.
(p.147) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s even more stunning that all this has happened
when – if you base your impressions on the media – the country has been doing
nothing but marching to ever-increasing and ever-intensifying levels of ‘liberation’
all this time, especially in the past quarter-century or so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Clearly, somebody’s ‘liberation’ requires somebody
else’s demonization and incarceration. This is a lethal as well as an almost fatally
ridiculous policy-path for any government to embrace, to initiate and to
sustain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But that’s what’s going on now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, this is not simply a form of punitive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">justice</i>, but a form of punitive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">governance</i>: many many groups are now
looking to the government primarily as an instrument of vengeance against
whatever ‘victimizers’ and ‘evil-doers’ their particular agenda has identified.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And</i> the government is now basking in
its role as Primary Avenger. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a recipe for constitutional and democratic
catastrophe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, as RL notes (p.147), in the good old American
spirit of efficiency, vital due-process protections enshrined in the Bill of
Rights and presumed by the Framing Vision are being ‘short-cut’ or sidestepped
in order to get the Avenging done more quickly by removing fuddy-duddy old
Constitutional ‘obstructions’. (The pretext might be the need and desire to
bring vaguely-defined ‘closure’, but the operational objective is to engorge
the government’s intrusive police power and weaken the boundaries that ‘obstruct’
such power.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which are also the boundaries that in the Framing
Vision give the American form of government its classic and unique Shape. (No
wonder the government now seems both more powerful and more Shape-less, like
Jabba the Hutt.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet, so very apropos, RL quotes Francis Bacon: “Revenge
is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more law
ought to weed it out”. (p.147) But instead, under victim-friendly ‘reforms’ to
jurisprudence and under the welter of Mania Regime laws, the government
perverts the law precisely to pander to that primal though popular wild-justice
of revenge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, RL notes, the perversion of “long standing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">liberal </i>ideas about the burden of proof”.
(p.147) [italics mine] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First, I would say that what has to be done here is
to make that Liberal with a capital-L, in order to distinguish it from what ‘liberal’
means nowadays, which is not genuinely Liberal at all, but rather is an
authoritarianism that differs from more familiar police-state authoritarianism
only in the fact that it is claimed to be done out of ‘sensitivity’ and in the
service of ‘liberation’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, the ‘burden of proof’, Constitutionally a burden
always laid upon the prosecution and the accuser, has now been perverted so that
for all practical purposes in the civilian arena it now burdens <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the accused. Thanks to the manipulation of
public opinion – with the full and robust cooperation of legislative ‘Findings’
and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>vividly selective ‘news stories’ –
far far too many people now presume that, say, in a sex-offense case, the
accused is always simply the Evil-doer Caught, and the role of a trial is
simply to put the official Vengeance into action. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which is precisely the role for courts in Lenin’s
concept of ‘revolutionary justice’: the courts don’t need to carefully establish
guilt because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> was done by the
government when it arrested the accused; instead, the role of the courts is
simply to do the administrative theater and paperwork necessary to deal with
the accused (who in Lenin’s system is by definition also guilty). In Lenin’s
system you’re innocent until arrested; and if you’re arrested, then you are by
definition guilty. Sound familiar? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(As I have mentioned in prior Posts on military
justice – far more vulnerable to Congressional skullduggery – this shift in the
burden of proof onto the accused was actually though quietly enacted into law,
although Congress – composed, weirdly, of so many lawyers itself – may change
that back in order to avoid a highly-public Constitutional challenge taken to
the Supreme Court. This is<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> not</b>
merely a matter of Congress making occasional mistakes while trying to ‘find a
balance’; rather, this is an example of Congress being caught trying to pander
to favored Advocacies with no regard for the Constitution or the integrity of
the Framing Vision.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The entrenchment of punitive practices at the
center of governance today poses a striking challenge to the progressive story
line”, RL notes. (p.148) And how! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The crime and sex panics that erode civil liberties
today have lasted far longer than any wars or crises in U.S. history”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(p.147) So far, yes indeed (although, by an
amazing coincidence, the ‘wars’ that the Beltway has now enmeshed the country
in overseas may well last even longer). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And those panics, I would add, are not simply
eroding civil liberties but – far worse – they are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eroding <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the foundational
elements of civil liberties</b></i>: laws and policies, jurisprudential
regulations and standards, the very Stance of the government toward the country’s
(and its own) Framing Vision, and – worst of all – the very Stance of the
Citizenry toward its own Framing Vision. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And additionally – and even more lethally poisonous –
to the Beltway and the assorted Advocacies all of this erosion is seen as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">both </i>a ‘success’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> as the first-steps in even larger ‘reforms’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On top of that, RL adds, through all the revisions
and redefinitions and expansions of ‘normal’ government police authority –
carried out by seemingly “democratic means” – what has happened is that “the
difference between democratic consent and rule by terror becomes increasingly
compromised”. (p.149) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would add that this is not simply ‘rule by terror’
in the sense that the government imposes itself upon a Citizenry that fears the
terror the government might turn on any or all of them if they object, but even
more so the ‘rule of terror’ by which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
Citizens themselves have been so terrified by false Findings and ‘facts’ and ‘reports’
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that they willingly embrace</b> the
government’s increasing and ever-engorging and perverted (in view of the
genuine American Vision) terrorization of the ‘evil’ ones. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">,
I would say, is the most vital and lethal perversion worked upon the country
and against The People in all of these Mania Regime laws and policies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But what RL then notes is even more alarming: “the
role played by liberals and progressives of various stripes in fostering a
consensus that government exists, essentially, to protect the innocent”.
(p.149)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now this requires a bit of thought, to fully
appreciate what RL has opened up here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, the first point is that he realizes – perhaps without
fully grasping what he has said, since he himself is inclined to be ‘liberal’ –
that modern ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ have somehow been vitally
instrumental in all of this fundamental perversion. There has always been an
ominous authoritarianism and anti-democratic elitism at the heart of liberal
and progressive thought: if you ‘get it’, and most of the Citizens ‘just don’t
get it’, then why listen to them? Why not instead just do what it takes once
you have got control of the levers of power, and lead the clueless herd toward
what you – as a liberal and progressive – just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> is good for them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this mistakes the profound insights of the
Framing Vision: the genius of the American way of government is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not </b>simply that it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">does the right thing</i> no matter how that right-thing is implemented.
Rather, that it first follows <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
democratic way and the democratic process</i> in pursuit of as much of that good
thing as The People will approve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor is it at all sufficient to brush off The People
with the old Marxist bits about The People simply being a cover for whatever
status quo those in power wish to sustain or that ‘the masses’ don’t really
know what’s good for them so they have to be led like cattle. (And let’s not
forget every old Western movie ever made, and the history of all totalitarian
governments: the cattle are always led to the slaughter-house. Or does anybody
think that those cattle-drives were headed toward some bovine version of Boca
for the summer?) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You reach a point where either you have faith in The
People or else you give up in democracy altogether. In which case, as Lincoln
once observed about Southerners trying to spin slavery as a Good Thing: he’d
rather go to Russia where autocracy and slavery can at least be taken straight,
and not mixed with hypocrisy and untruth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So it is with the SO Mania Regime laws: I expect
Lincoln’s formula would mean rejecting the hypocrisy and untruth and illogic by
which legislators and too many courts try to make the Regime seem a
constitutional and a Good Thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, there is this matter of whether government
primarily exists to “protect the innocent”. To which I can only respond that RL
is right, if you give it a little thought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Many may recall George W. Bush letting the cat out
of the bag by piously insisting that his job as President was to protect the
American people (by, as We soon found out, ‘any means necessary’). He didn’t
seem to recall that the oath he swore was actually “to preserve, protect, and
defend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the Constitution”. </i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is the Constitution that will protect
The People</b>, and the President’s (and Congress’s and the Supreme Court’s) job
is to protect the Constitution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Because, just like the generation of the Framers,
the American people – The People – have put their faith, hope, and trust in the
Constitution and the Framing Vision. And they are committed to following that
path wherever it may lead. Otherwise, why have a Constitution? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Let’s also not forget that by 2002 Bush and all the
Beltway would have been soused with the Victimist and ‘progressive’ disdain for
the Constitution and enthusiasm for the government’s perverted new role as
Avenger as all that played out in the 1990s’ development of the SO Mania
Regime.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For Americans, it comes down to the fact that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you
either put your faith in the Constitution as the instrument of your governance </i>or<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> you abandon it altogether and raise up
idols more to your preference</i></b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But if the latter course is your choice, then at
least – as Lincoln observed – have the decency to say it outright and don’t be
a hypocrite about it. And thus will end the Republic and the Constitution and
the Framing Vision and the Great Experiment that inspired 1776 and 1787. But <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> is a consequence that you will have
to face ineluctably whether you have the courage to admit your choice openly or
not. As We are now seeing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Protecting the innocent’ – which sounds very nice
and very good – can too easily become a cover and a pretext for government
doing whatever the hell it wants to do and calling that Good. Especially if
what the government chooses to do – at the behest of this or that Advocacy or ‘interest’
– erodes the Constitution and ignores the Framing Vision. And perverts them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is in this sense – as I have often said on this
site – that Victimism as it has mutated in this country has become a pretext
for and an instrument of a lethally poisonous perversion of the Constitution
and the Framing Vision and has opened the Awful Door caging Leviathan from the
Right and its new mate, Leviatha from the Left. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If the Constitution is insufficient to meet the
Victimist demands for vengeance (masquerading as ‘justice’) and for ‘protection’
(presuming that all alleged victims are innocent in the first place, which is
not a presumption that the American system of Constitutional justice can make),
then let those Advocacies say so outright, and let the government admit that it
also believes that to be true, and let The People realize that this country now
faces consciously and outright what it has actually been undergoing for several
Victimist decades now: a Constitutional crisis of the most profound type: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">whether the Constitution is considered any
longer to be a sufficient basis for American government and American politics
and American governance</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, there are a few thoughts for the Fourth of
July. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-48536851280874069082012-06-30T11:52:00.000-07:002012-07-06T19:58:56.583-07:00SANTA CLARA TRIAL<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">(I
will be putting up my next “Sex Panic and the Punitive State” Post in a day or
two.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">While
looking at the Philadelphia trial I came across a trial taking place currently
out in Santa Clara County (just south of San Francisco). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
trial contains some verrrry interesting elements that seem to me not only
interesting in themselves, but also indicate what may be disturbing new
developments in matters relevant to the SO community and SO matters generally. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
am going to borrow heavily from comments on other sites (especially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Media Report</i> <a href="http://www.themediareport.com/2012/06/22/is-snap-advocating-violence-against-elderly-accused-priests/">site</a>) and the
ongoing reports from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">San Jose Mercury
<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/circare/html/sca_template.jsp?runSearch=true&query=william+lynch+trial&view=entiresitesppublished">News</a></i> .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
trial is an Assault-and-Battery (A&B) trial, with the added Charge of A&B
on an Elderly Person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In
a curious coincidence, the trial deals with an incident that took place in May
of 2010, yet it comes to trial only in June 2012, almost simultaneously with
the Philadelphia clerical abuse trial. This is an odd delay for a case in bosky
Santa Clara County, where there isn’t the case-load of A&B and worse cases
that you might find in a major urban jurisdiction. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
In May of 2010, the priest, Jerold Lindner, now 68 – then 65, was tricked
into coming down to meet a 40-ish male visitor at his retirement home, a
religious facility in the hills above Los Gatos, CA. The priest had been sent
there after, among other accusations of abuse, his Order had paid a quarter of
a million or so to two brothers in 1998, as a settlement of their claims he
molested them both in 1975. At some point (whether immediately or after a
conversation of several minutes is in question) the visitor who had claimed to
be a relative coming to inform the priest of a death in the family attacked the
old man, punching him badly enough to require medical attention and stitches. <br />
<br />
<br />
It now turns out that the attacker, William Lynch, was one of the brothers
who had netted (after attorney fees) $187,000 each in 1998 in that settlement.
(Fees of 30 percent are standard – you can do the math, plus expenses.)<br />
<br />
<br />
The trial was derailed on opening day when the prosecutor told the jury in
her opening address that her star witness (Lindner, who had been assaulted)
would probably lie on the stand and say he didn’t abuse the two boys in 1975.
(How could she know that or claim it officially since the 1975 incident never
went to a trial and Lindner – as far as I can tell from the reports – has
always denied the incident?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he had
already formally admitted his guilt, why on earth would he deny it now with any
expectation he could get away with it?)<br />
<br />
<br />
At that juncture, the defense quickly filed a motion for mistrial on the
grounds that if the prosecution knowingly allowed perjurious testimony by one
of its witnesses (who is, formally, the ‘victim’ in this case) then their
client (the attacker, Lynch) is being denied due-process under the XIV
Amendment. <br />
<br />
<br />
And at this point today, then, the whole case may disappear in a puff of
smoke on the basis of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>truly weird
behavior by the prosecutor vis-à-vis the victim of the charged crime, and a
truly novel gambit by the defense to get their client off without a scratch (as
it were). And, to my mind, the mutually-supporting weirdnesses happened so
quickly that it almost seemed scripted.<br />
<br />
<br />
But it gets worse. <br />
<br />
<br />
The attacker gave a press conference at the ritzy Mark Hopkins hotel in San
Francisco. His photo shows a well-kempt, well-dressed, self-possessed and
well-nourished early-middle age Caucasian male; his remarks indicate an
impressive ability to express himself; and the press conference was called to
order, as noted, in the very posh surroundings of the 15<sup>th</sup> floor of
the Mark Hopkins. <br />
<br />
<br />
Yet the story he tells is that he was wrecked as a child and a human being
from the night of a camping trip where Lindner allegedly molested his younger
(age 4 at the time) brother and sodomized him (age 7 at the time): behavioral
problems, alcohol abuse or worse – and all of it developing so suddenly that
his parents couldn’t figure it out. “He totally broke me”, reports Lynch, and
“I can’t stand to be living as me”. <br />
<br />
<br />
Very much the Standard-Presentation. <br />
<br />
<br />
But he claims he did not go to the retirement facility that day with the
intention of beating the priest. (Left unasked, apparently, is why he chose to
go at all.) He claims he was enraged when, without identifying himself (the old
man had been told by the receptionist he was a relative), he asked the old man
if he recognized him (after 37 years?) and then, when the old man apparently
didn’t recognize him, Lynch – but of course – ‘lost it’. <br />
<br />
<br />
What is going on here? A couple of things seem relevant to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
Lynch claims that he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had to </i>take
action because the Statute of Limitations never allowed him to pursue legal
redress in the criminal justice system. And, he says, he couldn’t allow this
man to go on potentially molesting others (although the old man is almost 70,
overweight, and lives on a high hill outside of town). <br />
<br />
<br />
The newspaper reporter opines that Lynch is “trying [Lindner] in the court
of public opinion”. Which sounds very much like the gambit at Philadelphia: the
trial is used as a pretext for just getting inflammatory accusations ‘out
there’ in a free (except for the Philadelphia taxpayers) tsunami of publicity. <br />
<br />
<br />
But Lynch also says “Honestly, I could kill him with my bare hands, but I really
want the church to be accountable. We are coming into an era where these guys
are being prosecuted." Which a) supports the idea that he had a criminal
plan when he went alone to the retirement facility. And b) raises more
questions because in 2010 it wasn’t so true about the prosecutions, yet – in a
weird coincidence – it is true as the case (again, weirdly) comes to trial 2
entire years later, just about Philadelphia trial time. (Although I am guessing
that if there was a plan, it would have been that Philadelphia would have been
a slam-dunk, total success for the prosecution, and this case would have come
down the pike a week or so after Philly wrapped up in a blaze of – as it were -
glory.) <br />
<br />
<br />
Cadres of SNAP-types have showed up to support him, and no surprise there. <br />
<br />
<br />
This may well have to do with trying some agitprop to get the California
statutes-of-limitations changed and/or drumming up some public approval for a
wave of trials there. <br />
<br />
<br />
But there’s just too much weirdness about the whole thing. But also a method
in the madness. Lynch claimed he was willing to go to jail in order to protect
others who might be molested. And yet his defense counsel quickly introduced a
motion – after being given an amazing opening by the prosecutor who turned on
her own ‘victim’ – and Lynch may well get the desired publicity without the
conviction for an assault that surely seems no random event. <br />
<br />
<br />
Worse – and I saw approving comments to this effect here and there in
comments about the Philly trial – is this going to set off a wave of
not-quite-random attacks by alleged victims against priests who have never been
proven to have abused them? It will certainly garner publicity and ‘raise
consciousness’ – which seems to be the primary objective. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Questions
have been on my mind: why did Lynch go to Lindner's secluded residence at all?
And why, after 37 years, or 14 years if you count from the year of the cash
settlement. And how did Lynch track down Lindner in the first place?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<br />
And in another amazing coincidence: in mid-May, 2012, Santa Clara University
(run by Jesuits, in Santa Clara, which is in the same county that this attack
took place) held a victim-friendly clerical-abuse symposium. You can read it
about it <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/california-abuse-conference-focuses-bishops-accountability">here</a> .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<br />
<br />
The conference speakers included somebody from the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice as well as Fr. Richard Sipe and Barbara Blaine from SNAP. It was part
of a publicity project for a new book out about the Catholic Clerical Abuse
matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<br />
<br />
It's a curious coincidence: that an assault case takes 2 years to come to trial
in a venue like Santa Clara County, and that when it does it happens to be
almost contemporaneous with the Philly trial and a clerical-abuse conference
run just down the road from where the assault was carried out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<br />
<br />
The Conference, taking place in May 2012, clearly was not causally involved in
the assault, which was carried out in May, 2010. But the trial started up after
the Conference, and included in the trial is that odd prosecutorial maneuver
and the defense's immediate deployment of a novel theory as to how Lynch might
get out of any prosecution for his assault.<o:p></o:p></div>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
</div>
Here’s what I think happened in this case: from Day One two years ago it was
a clear, open-and-shut premeditated assault and battery, but since the ‘victim’
was so odious in the eyes of even the prosecutors, the case was allowed to
simply lie fallow as it were: nobody wanted to actually prosecute Lynch for the
crime that he had clearly and deliberately committed against Lindner. <br />
<br />
<br />
But along comes 2012 and there’s the Philly case and just down the road the
Santa Clara University conference, and so it offers the prosecutors and the
victim-advocacies a chance to make some hay while the sun was shining: bring
the case, let the prosecutor open with a questionable gambit, and then the
defense counsel can deploy a theory so legally remarkable that it’s hard to
believe they hadn’t given it a great deal of thought beforehand. The end result
is that a) the judge might toss out the case against Lynch or – failing that –
then b) the case is brought in an atmosphere of heightened local public
agitation about clerical abuse and Lynch will get a lot more traction from his
‘anger’ as a mitigating (or even justifying) element. <br />
<br />
<br />
David Brinkley, in his book “Washington Goes to War”, recounts the story of
an Army mule that fell down a ravine and was lost on field maneuvers in 1940 or
early 1941. When all the paperwork was done, official reports indicated that
the little beast had been carrying several tons of equipment: the regimental
supply sergeant had seen in the mule’s death a sudden opportunity to clear off
his books every piece of unexplained missing equipment the regiment had lost
since the end of World War 1. And given the excitements agitating the country
in 1940 and 1941, he got away with it. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
once again, it appears that no priest-abuse trial winds up being conducted
normally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
this <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/lynch/ci_20934002/san-jose-judge-rejects-motions-mistrial-priest-beating">link</a> shows, the trial judge threw out the defense (i.e. the attacker,
Lynch) Motion for a mistrial. That Motion was the result of a zig-zaggy gambit
whereby the prosecutor told the jury outright that Lindner (victim of the
assault and battery) would lie under oath on the witness stand and would claim
that he had never sexually molested Lynch 37 years ago. Although, as the
article points out, Lindner has never at any time confessed to those
accusations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
then the judge also threw out the 40-minutes worth of testimony the priest
(i.e. the victim, Lindner) had given last week as witness for the prosecution.
When, according to the article, the priest suddenly invoked his 5<sup>th</sup>
Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to answer more
questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
can’t see the legal relevance at this point in the trial of the whole
(standard-script for the ‘victim’ narrative) bit about the alleged molestation
in 1975. This is an assault-and-battery case and the only question is whether
the attacker did or did not do so. And as far as I can make out, there is no
doubt that the attacker committed the attack, since Lynch himself has admitted
it publicly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Stories
about 1975 would be relevant in the sentencing phase, as potential mitigating
(or justifying) factors that would reduce a sentence for the crime clearly
committed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
of course, all that has to do with conventional and upfront criminal process
and criminal trials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
this is a priest-abuse trial, which is something else altogether apparently.
The frame, the focus, the publicity, and the spin have to be kept on the poor
victim (of the abuse, not the assault and battery). Thus the abuse-allegation
story from 1975 has to be kept up front immediately and consistently. Lynch, in
this playbook, cannot be allowed to be seen as the criminal attacker; he must
be kept ‘in frame’ as the victim and that goal must be achieved and sustained
by whatever means necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps
Lindner realized that for priest-abuse trials there are different rules, and
that strong forces were working toward turning the trial of the most certain
assault-and-battery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on</i> him into a
trial <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of </i>him about allegations made
concerning alleged events in 1975. (To get a sense of the time-frames here:
1975 is now 37 years ago; if you transfer the timeframes, then bringing such a
gambit to court in 1975 would mean trying a man about an allegation that dealt
with events alleged to have happened back in 1938; thus, say, from Gerald
Ford’s administration back to FDR’s second term.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Weird
but also shrewd, I would say. The first legal mistake was in allowing (and
considering to be relevant) the allegations about 1975. The question for 2012
is whether Lynch did or did not commit the assault-and-battery (quite possibly
premeditated) in 2010. The trial of that charge need not be sidetracked by the
sideshow of the allegations about 1975. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Unless
somebody wants to argue that you can commit a criminal act<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> but</i> shouldn’t be held responsible and declared guilty for it if
you were in enough “pain” (as they like to say). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
that, I think, is exactly what the usual advocacy suspects are working towards
here. In addition, of course, to their abiding strategic objective of using any
criminal case they can induce any prosecutor to bring, merely as a pretext –
and as a ‘mule’ – to carry their various bits and stories<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>into the public eye. Such as happened in the
Philadelphia trial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
I would say that it is exactly this conflict between the actual requirements of
constitutionally-conducted criminal justice and the requirements of the
victim-advocate PR agenda that creates the abiding non-normality or abnormality
in the course of these priest-abuse trials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My
guess is that Lynch is expecting that once all the legal dust settles, he will
‘walk’ – perhaps without any conviction at all – while his allegations get wide
public airing and amplification in the media. Should the relevance of the 1975
allegations be put aside, and he is in danger of being convicted on two counts
of (possibly premeditated) assault-and-battery and assault and battery on an
elder, he might feel more open about discussing what party or parties might
have advised him or even talked him into committing this crime. And I think
that might make for very interesting courtroom drama indeed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
for the moment, the prosecution has to go forward without a victim-witness to
the assault and battery (although Lynch has already publicly said he did it in
his press conference at the Mark Hopkins). And Lindner now looks like somebody
who ‘took the Fifth’ – which in popular short-hand equates to being guilty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Nicely,
there is a photograph accompanying the article: it is of a youngish middle-aged
man in business suit coming down a set of marble-steps looking every inch the
successful, buff, healthy, and on-the-rise young gentleman of affairs; perhaps
a stockbroker leaving the Exchange or new lawyer at a major firm; like one of
the actors on “Mad Men’, maybe. You have to read the caption to be told that
this is Mr. Defendant Lynch, last seen reporting himself as having a wrecked
life and hating to be himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">All
in all, the judge took a stand for the integrity of the law: “Efficiency takes
a back seat to due process” in criminal cases”. Which is profoundly accurate
and true. But which has always stood in the way of the ‘efficiency’ of bringing
satisfaction to self-proclaimed victims and creating more numbers and
scare-headlines for their advocacies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
thought occurs – and certain advocacy-type comments mention it – that Lynch
shouldn’t be held responsible because he was dealing with ‘repressed’ material.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There are
several significant complexities in the psychological and emotional assertions
often made in connection with recovered memories of abuse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">First, it is
conceptually and clinically essential to establish a clear line of causality
between a causal experience that somebody undergoes and an action later taken
(or a behavior developed) by that person. It is not sufficient clinically (any
more than it is historically) to assert that since A happened and then B, then
A caused B (let alone that if B happened, there must have been A to cause it).
If a therapist is going to design a therapeutic regimen (especially if drugs
were going to be prescribed, as is often the case nowadays) then the cause of
the patient’s presenting problem has to be clearly determined. Otherwise one
might prescribe drugs merely to reduce the symptoms, but could not address the
actual experience that caused the presenting-problem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Second, the idea
of ‘recovered memory’ itself (for example: discovering only 40 or 50 years
later that one had been abused, as the comment mentions) suffers profound
problems as a clinical theory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For one thing,
the entire thrust of human information processing is that we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">remember</i> noxious things, so as to avoid
them. Thus, babies or toddlers do not forget what happens when they put their
hand on a hot stove. Indeed, researchers have not even been able to identify
any physical pathways in the architecture of the brain by which a vivid (or
‘traumatic’) memory can be forgotten, nor any neural repository in which such a
memory can be stored. Let alone be stored, to be somehow recovered years or
decades later, pristine and fresh and reliable as a current photograph. An
infant who kept touching a hot stove would definitely be a candidate for neural
examination and treatment because such a behavior would be a clear indication
that the memory was not developing properly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For another
thing, it is very difficult to distinguish between a memory that has been
stored and a suggestion that was – even unintentionally – received at some
later date. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The memory is
not a camera, but an active and constructive capability: meaning, it can put
things together that may or may not reflect the actuality of what happened. Not
long ago, for example, I arrived at a meeting without a thumb-drive I was
certain I had put in my briefcase: I had a perfectly clear picture of having
put it into my briefcase only an hour before. I searched the car, the
briefcase, and retraced my steps all the way from the car to the conference
room but it wasn’t there. When I got home that evening, there was the
thumb-drive sitting on the desk, and yet I had had a crystal clear picture in
my mind that morning of me putting the drive into the briefcase. Memory and
expectation and desire somehow get bunched up and influence each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And this is even
more true of ‘traumatic’ experiences. One of the most profound problems with
adapting the military PTSD experience to various other types of experience is
that the original diagnosticians, thirty and more years ago, encountered
soldiers who precisely had<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> intrusive </i>memories,
not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lack of</i> memories: the problem
wasn’t ‘forgetting’ combat experiences; it was precisely that they could <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> forget the experiences. This
signature presenting-problem of PTSD is 180 degrees opposite of what is
nowadays claimed by ‘recovered memory’ theorists; whatever is happening
nowadays should not properly be called ‘PTSD’ because the actual PTSD diagnosis
involved the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">opposite </i>dynamic, not
the same dynamic as is theorized in ‘recovered memory’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lastly, it is of
no small significance that we have not seen complaints of recovered-memory in
other areas of human experience. So, for example, we have never seen a
presenting-problem (or a lawsuit brought) because a person of any age (over 4
or 5) was a passenger in a motor vehicle in which the driver involved them both
in a crash that caused deep injury; then forgot that; and then (as has been
claimed in some abuse allegations) went back and rode as a passenger with the
same driver having completely ‘forgotten’ the first accident. And then (as also
has been claimed) repeated this sequence multiple times. And then finally,
having forgotten all the crashes, suddenly recalls them all clearly years or
decades later. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That being said,
repressed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">emotions</i> are indeed a
reality, and such repression can distort emotions and result in behaviors later
on. But again, unless one is under the age of 4 or 5 (before that the memory
capability is not well-formed in the still-underdeveloped human brain) there is
little chance of a traumatic experience being completely repressed. One might
forget what a grade-school classmate looked like years later, until something
brings that image back to mind; but it doesn’t work that way with memories of
genuinely traumatic experiences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I have seen it
asserted that Holocaust survivors years later claimed that they did not recall
their experiences of the camps, but those survivors interviewed were either
very young when they underwent that experience or very old when they were asked
to recall it, both extremes of the life-span where the brain’s abilities are
not well-functioning as a matter of course. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Of course, what
happens to a person in that first 4 or 5 years before the memory-capability has
achieved a working-level of efficacy is not included here. But in that case, if
the memory is thus at such an undeveloped level, it becomes a difficult
question to answer: how does the person recall anything at all about the
experience, and surely, the identity of somebody who caused the experience? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And to conclude,
Lynch in May 2010 clearly wasn’t working on a repressed-memory. He might have
had repressed emotions, for which he might well have sought therapy (I would be
surprised if nobody suggested that to him in 1998 at the latest, especially if
he attended victim-support groups). But in any circumstance, he is legally
responsible for his actions in 2010 as a 42-year old adult. Unless he wants to
mount an insanity (or ‘temporary insanity’) defense, but that would be a huge
legal stretch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems to me that once
a person is aware of having undergone a traumatizing experience, then s/ he is
under some responsibility to have at least a therapeutic check-up to see what’s
up inside him/herself. Not to do so would be to neglect oneself, it seems to
me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 0in 6pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But things have
continued to develop in a curiouser and curiouser way in this very very odd but
yet revealing case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">You
can take a look for yourself <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/lynch/ci_20972721/will-lynch-tria-takes-stand-admits-he-beat-priest-molest">here</a> . <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
had originally said that there aren’t too many options for the self-admitted
attacker (Lynch) who assaulted his alleged abuser-molester, Lindner, in May
2010 for an incident alleged to have happened 35 years before in 1975 (when the
attacker was 7). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lynch
was clearly guilty of the A&B – and quite probably a premeditated attack at
that – and in terms of his guilt there was no relevance to whatever he claims
and alleges happened 35 years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
now we see that there is another option that has been revealed: ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">jury nullification’</b>. This is a
rarely-mentioned common-law power held by juries: they can, if they decide to,
refuse to support the Charge(s) against a Defendant regardless of the evidence.
The jury can in effect say: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We don’t
think this Defendant should have to bear the legal consequences attached to the
Charge(s) and it doesn’t matter if there is evidence or even a confession
indicating that he did it. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There
is now talk that this is the gambit the defense is going to play: hoping that
the jury will ‘nullify’ the Charge(s) regardless of the evidence. Neat! Lynch
walks and Lindner is – as the reporter said early on – “convicted in the court
of public opinion”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
this you would need a particular type of jury. By amazing coincidence all of
this case takes place in bosky and Correct Santa Clara County, just south of
San Francisco. And by more amazing coincidence this case is suddenly brought to
trial (after an amazing two-year delay) just a month after a the local Jesuit
university ran a victim-friendly (and thus SNAP-friendly) symposium and almost
simultaneously with the tail-end of the Philadelphia trial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Additionally,
for that added dramatic oomph so helpful to the ‘script’, attacker-defendant
Lynch claims that once he got into a room (under false pretenses) with his
(intended?) victim Lindner, and had suddenly tossed out the Question (“Do you
recognize me?”), the old man first “sagged” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but
then</i> – and this is the pitch-perfect Hollywood bit – the old man suddenly “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">leered</b>” at Lynch. And – but of course –
it was exactly the same “leer” that Linder allegedly flashed that night 37
years ago (i.e. in the Administration of Gerald Ford). The only thing missing
here is that Lindner twirled his handle-bar mustache and intoned
“Bwa-ha-haaa!”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If
the powerful coincidences and the dredging up of the rarely-mentioned ‘jury
nullification’ power don’t get your whiskers twitching skeptically, then the script-perfect
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“leer” should help you realize that
something verrrrry premeditated and well-planned is going on in this case and this
trial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
trial is, from a legal point of view, as urgently important as the Philly
trial: if the jury ‘nullifies’ Lynch’s self-admitted (and quite possibly
premeditated) assault-and-battery, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then
the precedent is established and allegators everywhere can consider themselves
given a get-out-of-jail-free card: they can go and commit premeditated A&B
on any priest or former priest (or any other person) whom they consider guilty
of abusing them (in any way). <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Further,
in my view, it is impossible that these two trials (Santa Clara County and
Philly) – are mere coincidences. The timing, the location, and the legal moves
involved all combine toward the Objective of intensifying attacks (and now
literally physical attacks) on the Church and priests and former-priests. Even
as the actual numbers of formal allegations indicate that the reforms of the
past 10 years have had substantial good effect. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
if somebody can get away with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i>
against a priest, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then can’t anybody get
away with this against just about anybody else? And for whatever
‘victimization’ the ‘traumatized’ attacker feels justifies such an assault? <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So
I think what is going on in this case is tremendously significant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">First,
it indicates far too much ‘coincidence’, and all of that ‘coincidence’ works
toward reducing the rights of any accused SO (or – who knows? – any accused).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Thus
that these priest-abuse trials indicate a heightened level of serious ‘strategizing’
and scheming, increasing and intensifying the possibility that vigilante type
attacks can – with a delusional but putative legal legitimacy – be mounted on
unproven ‘perps’ even as the numbers of sex-offense type crimes falls off
noticeably (which is definitely indicated in the Catholic clerical abuse crisis
by any count of fresh and formally reported allegations). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Thus
the presumption that if you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feel</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">believe</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘just know’</i> you have been abused, then you have a clear path to
wreaking your own vengeance even if the ‘legal system’ is too fuddy-duddy to
buy your claims and your story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no
jury of your peers will allow you to be prosecuted for it. Your pain justifies all.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
for that matter, with a precedent like this, what substantial barrier is left
to deflect the delusional psychological belief that even if you bring a case
and it fails, you can go out and effect your own ‘justice’ anyway? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Or</i> that any other concerned-person,
deeply empathizing with your pain, might do the job for you? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Clearly,
we see revealed here <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the foundational
regression</b> that has been present from the get-go in all of this SO Mania
Regime agitation. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So-called ‘victim-friendly’
legal philosophy has from Day One contained the dynamics of an almost-Medieval
or Dark-Ages justice of vengeance that now may well not even respect the power
of the Sovereign police/coercive authority; but rather returns ‘vengeance’ to
those who feel they want to achieve it on their own. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Second,
if the jury does nullify, then it is of national significance to all
individuals accused formally of SO-related crimes, or – far more broadly – any individuals
‘A’ against whom any other individual(s) ‘B’ harbor(s) a belief (or fixed
delusion) that A has sexually (or in any other way) victimized B. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On
the basis of such a legal precedent as may well be the outcome of this trial in
Santa Clara County, we could see an outbreak of individuals B attacking
deliberately any person(s) A whom they believe has victimized them, even though
such an allegation (or delusion) has never been proven in a court of law. And
to commit such premeditated assaults <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">with
impunity</b>, secure in the knowledge that any jury might well nullify whatever
Charges might be brought against them as a consequence of their premeditated
attack. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So
very much remains to be done. </span></i></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p>
</o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">While
this Santa Clara County case is receiving more publicity (because it serves the
several agendas and purposes of the SNAP-types and their string-pulling
political puppeteers) and while the Lynch assault is ‘telegenic’ for PR
purposes because there is at least a material connection between the assaulter
and the alleged SO victim, there is this far more lethal report (posted on the
<em>RSOL Monthly</em> <em>Digest</em> <a href="http://reformsexoffenderlaws.org/murderresponse.php">here</a> ) from Clallum County, Washington, wherein two RSO’s
were simply ambushed and murdered by a ‘concerned citizen’ merely because their
names appear on that State’s Registry. The murderer claimed he had intended to
kill even more RSO’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In
this regard, I would also point out what I would call the <em>Metaphor Fallacy</em>: similar to the use of the ‘Holocaust’ metaphor I
mentioned in my Eichmann essay of last autumn, there is a standard tactic of
applying excessive and inaccurate metaphors to the experience of victimization
of any sort, but especially alleged sexual-victimization: <em>terms such as ‘soul-killing’ and ‘soul murder’ and such are applied to
the consequences of such alleged sexual-victimization, and applied to even the
least levels of such victimization. <o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Thus,
for example, in this Santa Clara case the self-confessed assaulter (Lynch)
claims that his life and personality were wrecked and ruined – psychologically and
emotionally – by the abuse he claims to have experienced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Even
if his allegations are correct, he stands before the world today a
well-nourished and nicely-clad adult, and if he is ‘dead’ it is surely only
metaphorically. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
yet – as the Washington State case clearly indicates – <em>the equation can be impressed on a suggestible mind <strong>that ‘death’ justifies death.</strong> </em>The
unjustified (although usefully exaggerative) use of ‘death’ metaphorically can
create in weaker minds the illusion of ‘logic’ and ‘rationality’: if SOs ‘kill’,
then it’s OK to kill SOs. If SOs have ‘killed’, then it’s only logical that
such ‘killers' must be either equally-punished or stopped from ‘killing’ again.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And,
as I said in the essay above, if now such a mind also realizes that
jury-nullification of any criminal Charges ‘proves’ that it’s really and truly
OK to kill SOs, then there is a profound pathway opened-up whereby more such
vigilante justice can be meted-out by anybody sufficiently courageous and
heroic and ‘concerned’, who also has access to a gun or any other weapon or
tool (or, for that matter, a rock or a can of gasoline and a match). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
lethal consequence resided in the entire Registration scheme from Day One
(recall my mini-series of essays from autumn 2009 on the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1995 New Jersey <em>Poritz</em> decision whereby that State’s Supreme Court justified the
Megan’s Law ‘registry’ concept while piously (and treacherously and witlessly) pooh-poohing
the possibility of vigilante justice). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 1em 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Despite
what might be the honest response of law-enforcement to such vigilante justice
(we will apprehend and prosecute such vigilante murderers), the Santa Clara
case is clearly heading toward the public deployment of ‘jury nullification’,
which would greatly undercut any such honest and necessary efforts by
law-enforcement and prosecutors. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ADDENDUM
2</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have come across articles on the Huffington Post and ABC
that indicate a heartening development in this case: the judge is refusing to
take the Philly-trial route and allow the admission of a phalanx of allegations
and claims by others as to Linder’s abuses. Nor will he allow a Motion for a
mistrial (the defense has made the Motion several times). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This puts the defendant (i.e. the attacker in this case,
Lynch) in a tight spot. By refusing to allow the parade of stories from a
passel of other allegants, the judge has “gutted” the defense attorneys’
strategy, say the attorneys themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Which indicates – I would say – that all along this trial
(like the Philly trial) was merely a pretext, constructed precisely and
deliberately to somehow keep the ball rolling in the Catholic clerical abuse
crisis by finding some way of getting old ‘stories’ publicized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That SNAP filing of a lawsuit with the International
Criminal Court at The Hague (remember that?) was, I would say, much the same
thing: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the accusations of Vatican
‘torture’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ merely being the theatrical ‘hooks’
upon which to hang more ‘stories’ and the scientific ‘evidence’ from ‘surveys’
of Europeans who might well look forward to the Catholic-Clerical-Abuse
litigation piñata setting up shop in their countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The judge – and this is a ray of sunlight indeed, speaking
from a legal-principle and constitutional point of view even more than from a
Catholic point of view – is having none of it. He is keeping this trial focused
tightly and simply on the actual Charged crime itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The objections are very much Standard-Script: the judge is
“silencing” the “voices” of the ‘victimized’ (although as always this requires
you to presume without question that their stories are true, much as Lynch no
doubt expected would happen in this case). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But there is a vital distinction between getting your voice
‘heard’ in the therapeutic forum and getting your voice ‘heard’ in the legal
forum (especially in the criminal-legal forum). In the therapeutic forum, you
are listened to empathetically with an eye toward the ultimate purpose of
helping you process your experience and gain inner mastery of it. (Which, to a
competent clinician, does not require ‘totally believing’ the presenting-story
but rather working toward a better comprehension of how the presenting-story related
to your interior state of psychic and emotional integrity.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Whereas in the juridical or judicial or legal forum, your
being ‘heard’ will require the deployment of the court’s authority against
another Citizen, perhaps leading to some officially-mandated loss of liberty,
property, or even life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus in the
legal forum you must present credible evidence of the ‘story’ that you are
‘voicing’. There is no other way to base the action of the court and the
Sovereign authority of coercion. To do otherwise will not only open the door to
misapplication or mis-deployment of that awesome and awful Sovereign authority,
but will also undermine the legitimacy of the court and the Sovereign authority
itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is precisely here, I would say, that contemporary
American ‘victim’ practice fundamentally confuses not only the issues but
confuses itself. As you can see in the emotional tone of many comments on
various sites, many folks cannot understand why courts don’t respond to their
‘stories’ as helpfully and with as warm an embrace as do members of a
support-group or whatever ‘therapists’ or ‘experts’ might assure them that
their ‘stories’ are true and thus good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The courts cannot (or should not): the legal forum is not
the therapeutic forum. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Vigilante justice – where persons who don’t feel they have
been ‘heard’ decide to take matters into their own hands, such as was done in
the Dark Ages – is a logical consequence of this confusion of the therapeutic
and the juridical-legal forums. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And that is what Lynch – as best I can see – did. (He even
wore gloves to this encounter he had deceitfully gained with Lindner; and
admits that he lied with a cover story to get to Lindner, because otherwise he
knew he could not gain “access” to him.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But Lynch did more than confuse issues and exercise this new
SNAP-related vigilante ‘justice’. He very much seems to have deliberately
conceived and executed this planned assault that merges so neatly with what
appears to be the new Phase of SNAP’s increasingly desperate attempt to keep
the ball rolling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the whole scheme requires the collusion of the legal
system. And while that happened to great extent in Philadelphia, it appears
that it is not happening in Santa Clara. The judge is keeping the focus tightly
on the Charges against the accused and the evidence that is directly relevant
to those Charges. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is how the legal forum is supposed to work. And despite
several decades’ worth of ‘reforms’ that have worked toward diluting those
first-principles of law, this judge is hewing to those principles and working
to conduct constitutional (and evidence-based) justice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 1em 11.25pt 6pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In what may be a sublime irony, perhaps this judge found his
own integrity reinforced by observing the shenanigans of the Philadelphia trial
and deciding that such a ‘show-trial’ was not going to take place on his watch.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-24089834726927259622012-06-26T06:14:00.001-07:002012-06-27T15:02:35.365-07:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I continue my look at Roger Lancaster’s (henceforth
“RL”) book*.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL considers one of the most significant social
trends of the post-1960s era to be the “rise of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">carceral state</i>”, the
government that imprisons its Citizens almost as a matter of policy. (p.141)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are, he says, three conditions required for
such a state: First, incarceration “becomes the preferred sanction for a
growing number of infractions”. (p.141) There had been a growing tendency to
create more felony-level crimes, or to felonize more activity throughout the
post-1960s era, I would say. This shouldn’t have been too surprising and should
have been seen as ominous: there was all the personal and internal ‘liberation’
and ‘freedom’ and ‘empowerment’ going on, aided by a general philosophical and
politically-abetted trend not to be ‘judgmental’ (in the 1970s) that then
morphed into the much more toxic assertions in the 1980s and 1990s that there was
no ‘objective reality’ (or ‘God’) upon the authority of which personal
liberation could be interfered with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet – at the same time – more and more activity
was made felonious, and – especially under the pressure of the assorted
victimist and radical-feminist advocacies – more and more activity was claimed
to be ‘oppressive, dominant, violent, and hegemonic’. The working-definitions
of ‘violence’ and ‘victimization’ were increasingly expanded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There was only one direction this mix of stuff could
go, and increasing incarceration rates – and an increasingly ‘carceral
government’ - was going to have to be a result and a consequence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, “official bureaucracies and civil society
collude to intensify enforcement, enhance penalties, and keep the prison system
growing”. (p.141) Two powerful dynamics merged here: a) the unsleeping tendency
of Leviathan to expand and engorge its power over its Citizens, which is an
eternal threat posed by governments, as even Hobbes saw and that the continually
haunted the Framers in 1787. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And b) the post-1972 Beltway strategy of solving the
increasingly dangerous and profound economic challenges the country faced
(competitor nations and their economies were now out-producing us, goods and
capital could now travel the world more quickly and cheaply, the Dollar was
becoming increasingly unstable) by employing more Citizens itself and using the
federal budget to create Leviathan-useful ‘business’ (military production,
prisons) while also keeping business and corporate and investment-capital interests
happy by letting them pursue cheaper labor costs overseas. (And if the
well-remunerated unionized American labor force of the 1950s was a substantial
expense against profitable production, then government-required regulations
that went supernova in the 1970s and 1980s with hiring and anti-discriminatory and
affirmative-action practices expanding like Topsy simply intensified that
difficult reality hugely.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But also: a Citizenry many of whom now relied on
government as their employer or major source of salary or entitlements was not
going to be in any position to stand in judgment over that government: it was a
practical and psychological impossibility. The consequences for the most
essential requirements of the Framing Vision (a Citizenry that supported itself
financially and was thus independent of the government) were ominous and lethal
and should have been recognized as such even thirty or forty years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Civil society “colludes” in that by demanding more
government employment and entitlements financially (to compensate for the
failing ability of the private business sector to keep them reliably and
gainfully employed). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But also: the various Identity-advocacies, now
spear-headed by radical feminist concerns and agendas, become mainstream
political ‘players’ in the new Beltway operating philosophy. And they thus
start to rely on criminalization of their ‘victimizers’' actions and the
criminal prosecution of those ‘victimizers’. Thus, as we have seen for so long
now, victimism and radical-feminism become allies of Leviathan, demanding
intensifying levels of police and prosecutorial authority and scope in order to
more quickly rid the country and the society of what they consider their ‘oppressors’
and ‘victimizers’. And thus, from the sensitive and liberal and progressive
Left, a Leviatha is created to be the mate for Leviathan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This, precisely, fed the Beltway collusion – against
all reliable facts and figures – in the SO Mania Regime: it kept the new
victimist and radical-feminist political ‘bases’ happy, while creating jobs in
prison and law enforcement, while also engorging the scope and depth of the government’s
intrusive and coercive authority. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have seen (in essays about Victimism on this site
from a couple of years back) that the original world-victimist insight that
placed it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">against</i> governments’ own
victimizing tendencies against their Citizenries, morphed in this country into
an unholy alliance <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">with</b> government,
using the expanding criminal-law to sweep away this and that ‘victimizing’
activity. Which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then</i>, given the
requirements of a media-friendly and emotionally-gripping ‘scripting’ of the
overall plight of this or that type of ‘victim’, resulted in a melodramatic
Good-vs-Evil script that itself required – of course – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">somebody to get stuck with playing the role of the Evil</i> one(s). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Radical-feminism, politically embraced whole-hog by
the Beltway, had a ready-made candidate for that role: men. And thus the DoVi
and then the SO Mania Regimes were pretty much guaranteed to take the course
they have taken and continue to take. Nor can it be fig-leafed by the pious
claim that the Regimes are not designed to be gender-specific: a comparison of
the numbers of males as opposed to females caught up in the snares of these
laws quickly reveals that ‘men’ are the targets.** <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Third, “a bloated prison system begins to supply
norms for other institutions of government: surveillance becomes routine and a
crime-centered approach shapes the activities of functionaries working in
offices unrelated to the penitentiary”. (p.141)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here, RL grasps the lethal reality of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">paradigm</i> that simultaneously <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">migrates</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mutates</i> as it spreads into a general social and political way of
framing reality. Once this ‘frame’ or this ‘narrative’ are generally accepted <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>
Frame and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> Narrative, then nobody
looks twice at them and most people accepts them as pretty much <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normal</i>. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And good</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, RL’s
research leads him to note that in the 1960s, incarceration rates in Western
democracies were in the 60-120 per 100,000-inhabitant range. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Until the 1990s</i>, when they began to
climb. This, I would say, is no coincidence: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the 1990s ascendancy of radical-feminism
(re-branded as ‘governance feminism’) in the era of the Clintons coincided not
only with the DoVi and SO Mania Regimes but also with increasing (and
increasingly increasing) rates of Citizens (now re-branded as ‘perps’ and ‘victimzers’)
being imprisoned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Until at this point, “in less than thirty years the
United States has more than quadrupled its total prison population”, reaching
in 2010 753 per 100,000 of populations. (p.142) And thus this country now
imprisons its Citizens (mostly male) at a rate “five to ten times” greater than
other developed democracies (one in every 99 adult Citizens are now behind
bars, he observes), reaching a total of 2.3 million. Which, he continues, is
higher than China (Communist or Red China, although that point is politely
disregarded in public discourse these days) and Russia (still staggering under
the totalitarian legacy of the USSR). Thus, “with only 5 percent of the world’s
population, the United States claims about 25 percent of the world’s prisoners”.
(p.142)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And it all got rolling in the 1990s, which can be no
coincidence. This is a lethal consequence of the unholy alliance of
victimism/radical feminism and the Beltway that has resulted in
Leviatha-Leviathan being raised up as the new iron (rather than golden) idol in
this country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I had mentioned some of the hidden ‘advantages’ (and
RL will also discuss thus further on): males are removed from voting-lists and
unemployment rolls and no longer compete for ‘jobs’ (such as that term has been
re-defined nowadays), while the prison and ancillary ‘industries’ are engorged
(with tax-dollars) as ‘decent’ Citizens are employed to profit from the
incarceration of all the ‘perps’ and ‘victimizers’. And then there are all the
cottage industries of ‘experts’ and ‘therapists’ who are also living off it.
And the now-highly organized ‘advocacies’ that are doing their best to keep the
ball rolling, continually discovering fresh victimizations or creating
deceptive new re-definitions of terms in order to keep up ‘the numbers’ and the
government cash that has been pouring into their agendas and activities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This has been, in RL’s almost too-polite
description, a “remarkable social transition”; and if you are old enough to be
reading this essay and his book then you are probably old enough to have seen
it rise and develop ‘on your watch’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, he rightly observes, this development is “inimical
to the spirit of a free society” and “occurred under <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">formally</i> democratic conditions”. (p.142) [italics mine] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I italicized ‘formally’ in order to reinforce the
gist of RL’s insight: as the SO community knows, the laws grounding this “transition”
were passed on the basis of grossly inaccurate legislative ‘Findings’, under
legislative rubrics that derail or utterly avoid public and even legislative debate
and publicly-recorded legislative votes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this type of lethally ominous dynamic was
built-into the awful synergy of victimism and radical-feminism from the get-go:
if you already ‘just know’ that your agenda is right, then facts don’t matter
and since most folks ‘just don’t get it’ (or can’t ‘get it’ because they have
never been victimized like you have been) then why bother wasting precious time
persuading them or letting them deliberate about what you want? Strike your
deals with the (too-willing) pols, get the laws passed, and keep the media
happy with an unending supply of ‘scare stories’ about the ‘horrific’ things
that must be erased immediately by any means necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And RL rightly notes that this started on the Right
with a “get tough on crime” approach. (p.142) But of course, the Question never
asked but lying at the heart of that urge was: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what kind of government</i> will it take to do that? Which is also the
Question that has always lain at the heart of the Left’s insistence that
victimization of this or that type is soooo horrific that you can’t let ‘law’
stand in the way; to be concerned for law (or the Framing Vision or the
Constitution) in such an emergency is merely to ‘fetishize’ law and
Constitution. Yah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL recalls both Sartre and Merleau-Ponty – no enemies
of Stalin’s USSR back in the day – observing ruefully that “there is no
socialism when one out of every twenty citizens is in a camp”. (p.143)
(Although Sartre, certainly, had been exuberant in his support of the Communist
project, and also in support of the fact that eggs would have to be broken to
make Lenin’s marvelous omlette.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL then does the math and points out that “if recent
incarceration rates remain unchanged, 1 in every 15 Americans will serve time
in a prison during his or her lifetime”. (p.143) Statistically, that’s true –
but again, the vast vast majority of incarcerees are male and I don’t see that proportion
changing. This is a country whose government has declared war on its own males
(in a far more fundamental and ominous way than any currently popular
assertions about the ‘war on women’). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And RL does recognize that reality immediately thereafter:
“for men the rate is more than1 in 9”. (p.143) (Nor does this figure include
all those – close to a million now, not counting the results of AWA’s huge
changes – on SO registries.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have recreated a form of the Soviet Gulag. And we
have done it in the past two or three decades of ‘progressive liberation’ under
the auspices of victimism and radical-feminism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor does the system let go of you once you have
served the time. There are 5 million Citizens on probation or parole; added to
the 2.3 million behind bars, that comes out to one in every 32 adult Americans.
(p.144) And he even here recognizes that this doesn’t include the registered
sex-offenders (he uses the number of 705,000 – but that doesn’t include the AWA
additions which, if I read AWA’s definitions rightly, would at least double
that number). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, that extended periods of parole “virtually
assure future infractions of the reporting conditions”. (p.144) And the SO
community has seen more than enough of that type of thing, where many ‘re-arrested’
(and thus technically ‘recidivist’) SOs were re-imprisoned merely for
violations – not always deliberate, by any means – of the increasingly (and
quietly) intensified residency and other conditions added onto probationary and/or
Registration requirements. A truly self-licking ice-cream cone for
Leviatha/Leviathan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Such numbers have stark implications for the integrity
of the political process.” (p.144) Especially, I would add, in the matter of
the SO Mania Regime laws and their effects and consequences. And while he
specifically notes Republican efforts at ‘felon disenfranchisement’, that
result in “a considerable portion of the public” being “excluded from democracy”
(p.145), yet I would point out that the DoVi and SO Mania Regime laws also
result in a very very large number of men being thus excluded. Which, from the
point of view of certain radical advocacies, is probably seen as a good thing
and as exactly what they were aiming for when they got their
politically-indentured pols to vote these laws in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, Americans are becoming not only tolerant of
punishment but actually are coming to “adore it”. (p.145) It seems to many like
a good thing, giving people a sense that at least <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i> is working right in this country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And – I would add – provides a type of ‘entertainment”;
perp walks, photos, lurid stories plastered around the news. And who can forget
the various crime and cop ‘reality’ shows and the Court-TV shows? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here and there I have run across this observation in
regard to the now-standard reports of ‘terrorists’ being killed by military
action in the several unhappy venues of current American military misadventure,
although such ‘terrorists’ and ‘insurgents’ include women and children and in
some cases it seems like the standard of judgment has been lethally reversed:
if you are killed, then you must have been a terrorist. A migration/mutation
from the SO and crime-fighting arena: if you were arrested, then you must have
been guilty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And that intensifies as you reach the ‘spectacle’ of
the old public-shaming rituals: having to wear signs, or post a sign in front
of your house, or put special warning plates on your vehicle, or have a license
or ID-card stamped with a special signifier (who knows what happens on no-fly
lists and passport lists?). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Many Americans are lulled by the pious assertion
that all this is simply for ‘public protection’ and not intended as a
regressive and hoary throw-back to medieval social and legal practice, but that’s
a smokescreen; just as SO jurisprudence is nothing less than a functional
regression to medieval witch-craft jurisprudence, so too ‘marking’ the
convicted is a regression to very undemocratic, totalitarian government praxis.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We’ll continue looking at RL’s book in the next Post.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**Curiously, if the now-established principles of
anti-discrimination law were to be applied to all this, then the simple reality
of such hugely disproportionate numbers would be considered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prima-facie</i> evidence of ‘gender
discrimination’, wouldn’t they? And yet, they are not looked-at in such a way;
instead, the Regime laws are seen as ‘progressive’ and ‘liberating’ and the
entire gender of Citizens thus discriminated-against are considered merely Evil
eggs to be legitimately broken if the omlette of liberation is to be perfected.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-2469496396459721592012-06-24T13:23:00.001-07:002012-06-27T16:47:40.117-07:00PHILADELPHIA PRIEST ABUSE TRIAL 3<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I want to take a short Post to bring the
Philadelphia Catholic clerical-abuse trial up to date. (Very early in the week
I will put up my next installment on Roger Lancaster’s book.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After a months-long presentation of evidence (most
of which were stories about priests going back before the tenure of either of
the accused (Fr. Brennan, charged with one count of attempted-rape; and Msgr.
Lynn, charged with several counts of conspiracy to endanger a child and
endangering the welfare of a child) the jury – after a very long two-week
deliberation – returned a Guilty finding on only one charge (endangering a
child). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You can look at an overview of the findings <a href="http://www.themediareport.com/2012/06/23/philadelphia-catholic-trial-verdicts-msgr-lynn-rev-brennan/">here</a>
and review a professional reporter’s assessment of the whole thing <a href="http://www.priestabusetrial.com/2012/06/father-brennan-walks-out-in-sunshine.html#more">here</a>
. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I won’t rehash the case here, since the links I have
provided lead you to the two sites that have followed it most closely all
along.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there are
a couple of points that I think are very important to mention. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First is that from the beginning there was clearly a
great deal of powerful political pressure hovering all around this case. The
current Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is a former Philly
mayor and PA governor (and attorney who still retains membership in a Philly
law firm). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My own take on it is that the egregious behavior of
the judge and prosecutors and even the weird cobbled-together nature of the
case were not simply the result of incompetence or the type of arrogance often
seen in SO-Mania cases. Rather, the official participants – from the DA’s
Office and on the bench – were aware that they had a great deal of political
power supporting them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That political power had as its objective the familiar
playing-to-the-bases: the bases in this case being progressives and
secular-minded ‘liberals’ (vital in a state that has now according to the polls
switched from a reliable Democratic state to a ‘swing state’), while also
attracting perhaps some law-and-order votes from persons who might otherwise
vote Republican in the upcoming national elections. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sex-offenses are here revealed – as they have always
been, really – as politically useful ‘issues’ in domestic politics. *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the ‘victims’ and their advocacies turn out – if
my scenario is anywhere near accurate – to be pawns in a much larger political
Game, even though the media attention remains riveted to them and the ongoing
melodrama of Heroic Innocence vs. Evil. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This has been true since the Republican’s first
embraced ‘victimism’ as a counter to the accused’s rights in criminal trials 30
years ago (around the same time as the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Day-Care trials
of the early 1980s) and then as the politically-minded radical-feminist advocacies
saw how they too might surf that wave to advantage, leading to the DoVi Regime
of the very late 1980s and then, of course, the SO Mania Regime as it blossomed
so poisonously starting in the very-early 1990s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Second is that it becomes clear both from statements
made (see the linked articles) by officials after the verdict was returned and
by comments made on the various sites, that the trial was envisaged truly as a ‘show-trial’
in the baaad sense of the term: the Charges against the accused were merely
pretexts for going-after a larger target.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is hugely toxic to the integrity and legitimacy
of any Western legal system,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 6pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The primary and inalienable purpose of a
criminal trial is to determine – as best as possibly can be done through
presentation, analysis-of, and deliberation-upon evidence – whether the Charges
brought by the government against a specific accused are sufficiently grounded
so as to justify the deployment of the Sovereign authority against the accused.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 6pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To the extent that in the process of
achieving this profoundly serious task the public might be educated into the
working of the law (wielded in its name and on its authority), then a trial is
an educational instrument and in this sense all trials are – in the good sense
– ‘show trials’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 6pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If, however, the purpose of the trial is
deranged such that the Charges and even the trial are intended to be merely
pretexts for some achieving some other objective or other agenda, then the
trial is very literally perverted and the integrity and legitimacy of the legal
system is weakened. And any such trial becomes a ‘show trial’ in the bad sense
of the term. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The third point I would make is to look at the
comments people make on these sites. (The Catholic abuse sites such as the ones
I’ve linked to above or the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National
Catholic Reporter</i> <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/people/guilty-verdict-philadelphia-first-sex-abuse-cases">site</a> (very ‘liberal’ in its leanings) are useful for
SO matters generally because they provide a focused and generally accessible
set of sites and comments. I have not gone trolling general victim-specific
sites or listservs to observe goings-on there.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What you see is an awful lot of emotion. And it is
emotion driven by an awful lot of wrong-information (but who can forget the
hugely wrong information in the legislative Findings that were supposed to
justify so many of the SO-Mania laws?). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet it is wrong in a very specific way: it supports
what they want to believe in the first place anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And they don’t take time to corroborate the
information, let alone examine or reason out the implications of their
presumptions. Instead, they ‘know what they know’, what they ‘know’ is True,
and they don’t want to be confused with facts. Indeed, persons who bring
unpleasant or inconvenient facts to the discussion must be ‘defenders’ of ‘pedophiles’
and probably are pedophiles (or some such) themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When you see so much of this stuff in the comments,
you realize – I would say – that you are seeing not simply the tics of
individual commenters but rather you are seeing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>- as if in a brain scan – the mentality that has driven so much of the
SO-Mania Regime. These are the folks upon whose numbers and ‘thoughts’ the
organized advocacies rely when they sit down with congressional staffers and
pols to hammer out their demands for this and that new law or policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have mentioned Theodore Lowi’s seminal March, 1967
article tracing the postwar development of what he called “interest group
liberalism”: Washington hit upon the idea of letting various interest-groups
(farmers, labor and business were the groups of the day) write the laws, regulations
and policies <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that Congress would then
simply enact. That scheme had the delicious benefits of the government not
appearing to ‘impose’ or ‘coerce’ changes, but merely ‘respond to’ the
expressed wishes of The People (actually, the expressed agendas of the
interest-groups). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He saw huge and fundamental problems inherent in the
scheme: pols would no longer have to accept responsibility of passing the
coercive impositions; pols would not even have to accept responsibility (their sworn
Constitutional responsibility, that is to say) for examining and assessing the
value of these laws, policies, and regulations for the general American common-weal;
nor would pols have to accept responsibility for enacting all these agendas.
And the assorted Beltway interest-groups would be happy (and grateful,
politically and monetarily). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The People could be left out of the equation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What I would say is that this ‘public philosophy’
went supernova starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s when ‘interest group
liberalism’ became <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">advocacy-group
liberalism</b> (my term for it). Thus, now, so many of the DoVi and SO Mania
laws have been written not by sober and detached legislators, but rather have
been put together by advocacy-groups to fulfill their particular agendas and
dreams, and then simply passed (so often, without public deliberation or even a
recorded individual vote) by legislative bodies that anyone who had read even a
basic civics-textbook would imagine had done their job and seriously analyzed
the stuff before letting it become public law or policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, of course, once the pols started down this
road, it became not only addictive but became an iron-trap for the pols: they
couldn’t go back and admit (after no matter how many frakkulent toxic consequences)
that they were wrong, because actually it would then become public knowledge
that they hadn’t even bothered to think about the consequences at all in the
first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And so they simply pass even more laws, at best
trying to ‘refine’ or ‘tweak’ their originally egregious laws (AWA is a perfect
example of this). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the pols are supported in so many cases by
courts at all levels that go-along-with and enable these laws by finding them
unobjectionable and ‘constitutional’ through the most repugnant and
extraordinary contortions of judicial analysis (the Megan’s Law Registry cases
are a clear and early example of this). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And among the pols there is no concern for possible
or probable ill-consequences, but merely a delusionally-rigid focus on the
best-case outcomes abiding in the dreams of the organized-advocacies who worked
out the ‘deals’ to begin with. (A habit of mind that migrated to other areas of
national concern, such as ‘planning’ the Iraq War.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The emotions you see in these comments, unchecked by
any sustained thoughtful analysis, run the gamut from the snarky to the nasty
to the frothy to the outright vicious. And from the ill-informed to the
outright primitive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The webverse is many things to many different types
of people. Some use it to think and share thoughts and argue and deliberate;
others merely to blow off steam (and garner ‘Likes’ at the bottom of the
entry). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t think the former type of comments count for
much in ‘advocacy-group liberalism’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the latter comments are cat-nip to too much of
the media, always looking for the quick-burning and the vivid and the ‘pain’
and the ‘outrage’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So in this Catholic clerical abuse trial – as so
often – the huge and frightening image of some evil Oz wreathed in the smoke of
power and cover-up turns out to be something far less, worked with smoke and
mirrors and clanking machinery behind the curtain and beneath the stage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is not to deny that some genuine cases of abuse
happened. But it is to assert that, as so often in the SO Mania Regime, there
has been a great deal of manipulative hype designed precisely to delude and
stampede the public into overriding common-sense and the prudent assessment and
deliberation of wide and well-informed public discourse, in order to accept
lethally toxic ‘solutions’ of the most extreme sort to this and that huge ‘crisis’
that is really more of an inflated balloon than it is an actual avalanche of
evil and crime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor is it enough to simply forget about it as media
interest wanes, as it does from time to time. Because the laws are still on the
books and the consequences are still spinning away, eating into the heart of
the nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So much remains to be done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*As the ongoing saga of Wikileaks founder Julian
Assange reveals, sex-offense charges (or even suspicions) also turn out now to
be very useful to the government in silencing critics. Assange’s case against
being extradited to (hugely victim-friendly and radical-feminist ) Sweden has
now been rejected by (American faithful junior-ally) Britain’s highest court:
he must return to Sweden to face ‘questioning’ in highly-dubious sex-offense
charges – and there remains every possibility that once in Swedish custody for
mere ‘questioning’ he will be extradited to the US, where he may well have been
secretly indicted for some form of national-security violations (although he is
a Citizen of a foreign country … which happens to be America’s most useful ally
in the far Pacific, Australia, whose government has done little to help him). Presently,
he has applied to Ecuador for <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/ecuador-mulls-giving-julian-assange-asylum/1246597.html">asylum</a> and has been at their London embassy
awaiting that government’s decision. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ADDENDUM<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(JUNE 27)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further information comes out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The extraordinarily abusive and nastily flamboyant
lead-prosecutor, Patrick Blessington, is not actually on the staff of the
Philly DA’s Office but rather of the PA A-G’s Office. He was invited by the
Philly DA to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lead</i> a Philly DA
task-force on corruption in that city in the Spring of 2011 because of what the
DA called a long-standing “culture of corruption” in that city. Although his
outbursts and his outright abusive remarks to defendants in this case would
suggest perhaps a young and brash attorney only recently out of law school (and
perhaps trained in a victim-friendly in-your-face courtroom manner against any
accused), he was admitted to the Bar in 1983, almost 30 years ago. (And it
would be interesting to know what other ‘corruption’ cases Blessington’s
task-force has identified.) See article <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/06/02/philadelphia-da-creates-new-public-corruption-task-force/">here</a> .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which supports, I would say, my suspicion that he
deliberately indulged in his almost-vicious courtroom histrionics because he
knew there was political power (from the AG but also higher-up) behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In another glaring oddity, it appears that Msgr.
Lynn was prosecuted under a version of the child-endangerment law passed in
2007, although the actions for which Lynn was charged took place years before
that, under a much more restrictive version of that state law. This instantly
raises an issue of Ex Post Facto and it is impossible to conceive that the any
prosecutor would not have realized that at the outset. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Additionally, the Philly DA, whose Office had been
unavailable for comment when the verdict (one finding of Guilty out of a total
of seven Charges brought against two defendants; and the single Guilty finding
is on the Charge that may well be liable to an Ex Post Facto reversal on appeal)
was delivered has now admitted that in his view the trial was all about “giving
voice to the victims” and he’s therefore pleased with the outcome. See the
article <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-06-26/news/32409785_1_abraham-priests-guilty-verdict">here</a> .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But “giving voice” to anybody is not the purpose of
a criminal-trial, especially since one cannot know if a person is legally a
‘victim’ until <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i> a trial and a
Guilty verdict. Somebody can get to be DA of a major American city and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> know this? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which reinforces my suspicion that all along this
trial has been merely a pretext for putting all manner of ‘stories’ into the
public arena. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And that on a larger and political level, this trial
has indeed been a ‘show-trial’, meant to play to ‘bases’ (victimist,
radical-feminist, ‘liberal’) in a dubious electoral swing-state, while perhaps
garnering some law-and-order votes that might have gone to the Republicans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After what the Philly DA recounts as a years-long
preparation of this case, and untold amounts of taxpayer money sunk into its preparation
and prosecution, all they have to show for it is a single – and hugely dubious
and tenuous – Guilty finding that may well be reversed on appeal, and for what
may well turn out to be an incredibly obvious prosecutorial ‘error’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is of interest to the wider SO community
because it indicates just how cavalier prosecutors can be in SO cases, and
especially when it appears that there is political benefit to be gained. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</span><div style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-24081292953455466042012-06-16T09:19:00.001-07:002012-06-17T08:12:52.838-07:00“SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE” 2<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I want to continue my look at Roger Lancaster’s
(henceforth “RL”) book*.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Part II of his book offers even more insight and
information. So instead of doing it all in one longish Post, I will try to
limit each Post to five or six pages and continue with this mini-series of
Posts until I have looked at all of Part II.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It occurs to me that I did not include
page-references in the last Post (in Part I) and I will change that and use
them in this and subsequent Posts on this book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And I remind readers again that in the Notes at the
back, this book contains valuable information and excellent lists of books and
articles for further reading.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL opens Part II with a quotation from Justice
William O. Douglas: “As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does
oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly
unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change
in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness”.
(p.137)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Douglas had seen the rise of Communism and Fascism
and Nazism; and how they seduced their target-citizenries while simultaneously
undermining the first-principles of the rule of law and of Western
democracy – all in the name of Great Good and on the pretext of this and that ‘emergency’
that required strong and immediate government power un-limited by any concerns
for ‘democracy’ and ‘law’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Douglas – who served for almost 37 years as an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court – has left a fine little collection of
quotable observations, and you can get a sampling of them <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas">here</a> .)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL follows that quote quickly with the observation
that it was “in the last years of the Bush-Cheney administration” that a number
of observers noted that “something had gone terribly wrong in the U.S.”. Again,
he remains a ‘good liberal’ (although that term means something far different in
the post-1972 era in this country than it does in its ‘classical’ sense) and unless
he watches himself carefully he starts to slide into blaming it all on the
Republicans and the Right. In this he resembles Al Gore, whose 2007 book “Assault
on Reason” also makes acute and incisive comments about the frighteningly
irrational quality of American political discourse nowadays, and assesses the
role of the Right in all of this sharply and clearly, but does almost nothing
to examine the role of the Left in the past forty years or so, especially in
the many years before G.W. Bush came to the Presidency. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Among those observations he includes “the subversion
of democracy”. But I have to add that since subverting democracy was precisely
the objective of the gameplan of 1920’s Italian Communist thinker Antonio
Gramsci and of the Eurocommunists of the 1960s and 1970s – all of whom were ‘valorized’
by Radical-Feminist thinkers here after 1972 and embraced whole-hog by the
Democrats in 1972 and later by the Republicans – then this genuinely lethal
development should be coming as no surprise to any informed observer of
American politics and democracy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ditto the thought that ‘it all began’ with the shock
of 9/11: as the SO community may well realize, a great deal of
subversion-of-democracy had taken place before 2001 in this country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Part II RL wants to look at the connections
between “sex, crime, and terror”. (p.138) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He gives an overview of what he will be arguing in
Part II: “Fear of Crime”, which spiked in the later 1960s and 1970s, predated the
most recent (and still kicking) American “sex panic”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This most recent bout of sex-panic developed in the
later 1970s, concomitant with a “period of waxing nervousness about the fate of
the white, heterosexual nuclear family and its attendant moral hierarchies”.
(p.138) I would add that it was precisely the agenda of Radical-Feminism to ‘deconstruct’
each element of that phrase and force the country, the culture, and the society
to abandon them (even if by ‘expanding’ the definitions of those elements beyond
any workable meaning at all). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He notes the concerns and the parallel timing of many developments
(the increasing wobbliness of the economy is one he notes especially – but I
would add a social-psychological anxiety, deeply repressed, about the effect
not only on sexual-morals but also on the consequences for children of ungrounded
‘family’ arrangements, abortion, and a general emphasis on the happiness of the
adult rather than on the needs of the children) helped to make this nation “a
more conservative” one “than it had been previously”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t want to get into political theory too deeply
here, but I add here that RL’s simple liberal-conservative axis of analysis is
not sufficient to plumb the actual complexity of what was happening in the
country. The ‘liberals’ after 1972 were not really Liberals and the ‘conservatives’
after 1980 were not really Conservatives – and all of them were working toward
an un-democratic, even anti-democratic, polity, using Leftist or Rightist
arguments to get there and to make it all seem like a Good Thing, or at least a
Necessary Thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(The SO Mania Regime and its sibling, the Domestic
Violence Regime, were the first large-scale bipartisan thrusts toward that dark
future.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His second argument is that everything converges on “the
valorization of the victim, who is seen as wholly innocent and whose interests
are understood to be wholly antithetical to those of the criminal wrongdoers;
the stigmatization of the offender, whose guilt becomes a permanent,
irremediable condition of his being and who must therefore be marked or set
apart from the rest of society; the application of criminal sanctions to growing
numbers of behaviors (defining criminality ‘up’); and the elaboration of laws
and surveillance practices designed to anticipate, preempt, detect and punish
lawbreakers”. (p.138) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which as you can see is a pretty good opening sketch
of the SO Mania Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His third argument embraces the insights of such
writers as David Garland in 2001 that this country is evolving a “culture of
control” in order to preserve “social order”. I would add that this was always
the danger in the later 1960s ‘liberation’ of both the sex-drugs-free-love
Flower Children and the ‘revolutionary’ social-changers: it was going to take a
police-state level of government to keep any sort of Shape and social order in
the country, once generations of citizens had been raised with the idea that
for every individual ‘liberation’ meant ‘total freedom’ for fun and pleasure or
that ‘liberation’ meant doing-away with the ‘oppressive’ and ‘dominant’ ‘hierarchies’
that merely served to ‘marginalize’ most people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If so many people – especially youth – were trying
to live their lives internally ‘free’ from any sense of order or hierarchy,
then what happens to the Shape of the culture and the society and the Order
that helps define culture, society, and person? The only possible outcomes
would be a) the whole shebang would dissolve and fracture or else b) that Shape
and Order rejected by individuals would have to be provided by Government and
imposed on everybody ‘from the outside’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, as RL rightly reads Garland, “crime control
has become the central ‘pivot for governance’”. This is a government, now, that
is bigtime into the business of ‘control’. And if you want to get into ‘1984’
or Kafka territory: the government will control everybody in order to liberate
everybody. And an even more toxic variant of that is what we have seen in the
SO Mania Regime: the government will do ‘whatever it takes’ to ‘control’ one
half the population (male) in order to ‘liberate’ the other half. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL calls the emerging system “punitive governance”
in order to “emphasize its connection to perpetual punishment, a presumption of
guilt, unending vigilance, and modes of citizenship that would have been
understood as premodern forty years ago”. (p.138) (What he means by that last
bit is that for Americans before 1972, no American citizen would have accepted
such a role for government; it would have seemed to an American of forty years
ago some sort of throwback to monarchy or communism or Nazism … which is an
insight that offers an awful lot of food for thought about the past forty years
around here.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL will “stress the role of fear in organizing power
and regulating social relations under this regime”. (p.138) ‘Fear’, I would
add, is the great lubricator of all such ‘emergencies’ that are specifically designed
by governments to stampede their citizenries into becoming cattle, with the
government being the Trail Boss (alternately singing to them or whipping them
along to keep them moving – if you recall your old Western movies). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also</i>
notes, most insightfully, that this type of regime is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">inherently unstable</b>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This</i>
is a level of political analysis you aren’t often going to see in general
public discourse about the SO Mania Regime. In his view, governments operating
on this gameplan are sooner or later going to be pushed “to the point of excess
or breakdown, giving rise to abuse, overreach, and other illicit form of power”.
(pp.138-139) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would say that the government went over the line
in its very first attempt – the DoVi and SO Mania Regimes. No, I am not denying
the ‘victimization’ (where it is genuine) and not defending ‘victimizers’ (if
they are genuine) and not denying the good intentions of various advocates and
advocacies. But I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">am</i> pointing out
that no matter how good the intentions, these schemes have consequences that –
this has to be a matter of wide public deliberation – are so very dangerous for
the legitimacy and robustness of democratic governance that you have to
consider whether the ‘cure’ is more lethal than the ‘disease’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And I would add another factor to RL’s causes for
inherent-instability: once a government has kicked-free from the limiting
requirements of solid evidence and even from fact-based, rational, careful
analysis, then there is no limit to who can set themselves up as needing the
government to ‘control’ some other group of Citizens. And there is no limit on
the government deciding that it is both authorized to and competent to expand
and impose its controls even more widely and deeply. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And I would also add that to some advocacies and
politicians nowadays this type of government abuse and overreach and expansion
is precisely <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not illicit</b>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">either</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">because</i> from the Left they can’t imagine that the government helping
to bring ‘closure’ or ‘justice’ can possibly result in anything dangerous and
because the Constitution is fundamentally flawed in not being concerned for ‘victims’
in the first place <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or because</i> from
the Right there has to be law-and-order and the government can and must do ‘whatever
it takes’.** And both buy into a government that can and must ‘protect’ from
pain and ‘prevent’ it by whatever means necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL’s last point here is that it “may seem that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the culture of fear</i> is in retreat today”
(p.139) [italics mine] But, he continues, “the authoritarian political culture
that I am tracing is no simple or unitary phenomenon”. This “increasingly
repressive political culture” has become attractive to persons concerned for a
broad range of public issues: he names urban unrest, street crime, drug uses,
gang activities, and pedophiles as well as terrorism (since 9/11). There has
been an intensifying “erosion of rights and liberties” but he then goes on to
say that this development has been going on “over the past forty years” – and in
that observation I completely concur. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The system of panic, punishment, and preemption”
has become part of legal practices across the board at this point, and spans
not only ‘conservative’ and Rightist administrations but also “center-left”
presidencies such as Carter’s and Clinton’s.*** (p.139)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As RL concludes in this Introduction to Part II, “This
decades-long reconstruction of U.S. society has been advanced by Democrats no
less than Republicans, by liberals almost as often as conservatives”. (p.139)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would only disagree with him about that “almost as
often as”: the agendas and gameplans of Radical Feminism were dangerously authoritarian
from the get-go, long before Reagan’s first administration and the first
full-blown governmental embrace of Victimism by the Right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, that’s RL’s Introduction to Part II. In my
next Post I’ll move into that Part. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**It should be no consolation (or surprise) whatsoever
that Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a staunch and vigorous supporter of SO Mania
controls, is now Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">***Although this is a very recent (2011) book, he
omits reference to Obama’s presidency here. I would say that this omission is
itself worthy of note: Obama’s presidency has turned out to be as ‘controlling’
and ‘authoritarian’ as the prior presidency of G.W. Bush. And – although I don’t
want to politicize these essays – I would say that this is not only because
Obama has found himself being carried along by an already well-established and
strong and dangerous political riptide, but because in the essential
Left-philosophy in which he was politically raised there has always been an
inherent authoritarianism that sought control of the levers of government in
order to impose and bring about its desired ‘new model’ American society and
culture. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 15;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 15;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 15;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 15;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 15;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 14;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-36272537044020234282012-06-10T16:21:00.000-07:002012-06-10T16:21:07.383-07:00JUDGE JOHN CLELAND AND VICTIM ANONYMITY<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Pennsylvania, in the lead-up to the Jerry
Sandusky trial, the judge – Senior Judge John Cleland – has <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/04/151129/judge-rules-against-pseudonyms.html">ordered</a> that
the young men who as minors were allegedly abused by Sandusky will not be
allowed to testify anonymously, identified merely by some form of pseudonym. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The judge wrote that while his decision might be
“controversial”, yet “there was no legal basis to justify an adult witness” in
a sex-crime trial to testify about the alleged crime using a pseudonym. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The judge went further and stated what in the not so
recent past in this country would have been so obvious as to seem a witless
truism, but now seems the height of courageous insight: “Courts are not
customarily in the business of withholding information. Secrecy is thought to
be inconsistent with the openness required to assure the public that the law is
being administered fairly and applied faithfully.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It has been one of the more characteristic gambits
of the SO Mania, this victim-anonymity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It stemmed originally from the Domestic Violence
sub-realm: that complaining persons needed to be protected from the violent
retribution of their partners. But while that was occasionally true, it was
never really applicable to the trial-stage of any case, since clearly your
accused partner knew very well who you were, sitting across the court-room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But there were other uses as things developed. To
insist that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i> victims had to be
‘protected’ from their partners subtly insinuated that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all </i>instances of domestic violence were – indeed – physically and
premeditatedly violent at such a level to require official protection at all
levels. It wasn’t anywhere near true, but it sounded great (if you were looking
to build the case and the numbers for DoVi laws in the public mind).*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">From there it expanded in an even more sinister and
insidious way: anybody making an accusation ‘deserved privacy’ so that s/he
wouldn’t be embarrassed and ‘re-victimized by the system’ by having his/her
name associated with the experience of being sexually assaulted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the face of it, the preference (it can’t be
called a ‘need’) to avoid having one’s name publicized was understandable.
Surely, when somebody enters therapy, for example, that fact – as well as the
matters considered in therapy - is
private and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>protected. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But there is the therapeutic forum and there is the
legal forum – and the two are very very different. Once you are involved in the
demand for the public application of the Sovereign coercive power to be
deployed against another Citizen then you are far beyond the therapeutic arena.
(Which is a reality victimist law would rather not have anybody realize.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The public must be informed as fully as possible
about the processes by which the Sovereign punitive/coercive authority is
deployed. The public – as The People – after all is the ultimate Sovereign in
the American political and legal Universe and that punitive/coercive authority
is wielded by the state and the courts in the name of The People (it says so in
black and white on the first page of all the criminal complaint forms submitted
to a court). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the courts – as well as the public – have not
only a right but a need to determine or elicit whatever information might be
gleaned from the publicization of any participant’s name. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And this bit has especially been the target of
victimist ‘reforms’: the effort to ‘shield’ the accuser (so slyly spun as
merely ‘the victim’, as if that fact had already been demonstrated). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It has always seemed odd to me: that somehow being
(allegedly) the target of a sexual assault is somehow more embarrassing or ‘traumatizing’
or ‘humiliating’ than – say – admitting to others that one was an alcoholic or a
drug addict. At least as the target of a sexual assault, one is not responsible
in the way that an addict is responsible for his/her actions. And in all
those TV shows that traffic in this sort of public venting of one’s pains, don’t
people almost gladly recount their stories of victimization (including sexual)?
Think of all those shows back in the not-so-distant day: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geraldo’s, Jerry Springer’s, and surely Oprah’s.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But, of course, this ‘shielding’ prevents – slyly – the
emergence of any information that might break the spell and aura of the script
that requires <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a ‘pure and innocent’ Good Victim,
against whom the Evil and monstrous ‘perp’ committed outrageous crimes</i>.
That core melodramatic scripting and its spell must be preserved if the game is
to continue. **<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But there are very high stakes in the legal – and especially
the criminal – forum: if found Guilty, the accused Citizen can lose liberty,
property, even life. No considerations such as ‘embarrassment’ and ‘privacy’
and ‘preference for anonymity’ must be allowed to take precedence over the
utterly essential requirement for as full and open a trial-process as possible.
Prosecutors shedding crocodile ( or even genuine) tears for any potential “humiliation”
or “pain” are not a sufficient justification for the element of “secrecy” that
Judge Cleland has so acutely put his finger on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a vital first-principle of the entire
American legal Universe. And – as I have often said on this site – Victimism as
it has evolved in this country is most certainly not of the American legal Universe,
never has been, never can be, and never should have been introduced into
jurisprudence and jurispraxis in the first place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The fact that the law-and-order Right first ‘valorized’
victimhood in the formal legal forum (it had previously been kicking around in
Lefty-liberal academia and consciousness-raising and self-help groups, such as
the 1971 publication by a psychology prof of the ‘blame the victim’ dynamic) simply
adds a deeper level of clarity to what has been a sly but treacherous
anti-Constitutional gambit, soon embraced bipartisanly by the law-and-order
Right <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> the anti-male,
radical-feminist Left (that had committed itself to an all-out and thorough Marxist-type
assault on all of ‘patriarchal, macho’ male culture and the ‘rule of law’ and
Constitution that enshrined and enabled and continued it all). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The judge, Senior Judge John Cleland, deserves a
great deal of respect for what he has done here. Victimism – bipartisanly supported
by Right and Left – has made lethal inroads into the most vital foundations of
law and jurisprudence in the past few decades, and has been largely spun as a ‘good’
thing. And for almost as long they have been teaching it in the law schools as
if it were good and gospel as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Behind the image of the Victim and especially the
Child-Victim, and especially in sexual matters, large and well-organized
interests have been allowed to congeal: in civil cases, tort attorneys who have
been handed a ‘reformed’ legal system now heavily weighted in their favor; in
criminal cases, a fatal <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>combo of ‘sensitive’
Leviatha from the Left and stern law-and-order Leviathan from the Right; in
both instances, a pandemonium of for-profit ‘experts’ and ‘therapists’ and ‘advocacy
groups’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And a mainstream media greedily voracious for the
ready-made melodrama that requires nothing more than a stenographic – indeed I
would say pornographic – recounting of the Script as it plays out on this far-from-
level playing field where life, liberty and property hang in the balance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And Judge Cleland has drawn clear attention to the
fact that if victim’s demand ‘justice’, then it’s going to have to be ‘justice’
as defined and understood according to the first principles of the Framing
Universe, or else whatever outcome a trial produces will be no legitimate
American justice at all. Rather, it will be some vindictive and crooked game
played with loaded dice, dragging in its wake a lethal and fatal anti-American
legal Universe and culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Indeed, it will be nothing less than a game of
Russian roulette, with this nation – through the treacherous deals enabled by
far too many elected representatives – holding the gun of totalitarian and
police-state justice to its own head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that</b>
is a game no sane government – especially a constitutional and democratic government
grounded in the Framing Vision – should ever be allowed to play. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Another classic Mania irony: the effort to insist
that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all instances of the targeted issue
were lethally violent </i>intensified at the same time as the definitions of
the issue were being expanded to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reach
down to the most mild and even unconnected events</i>, simply to expand the
‘crisis’ and keep the numbers up and the ball rolling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**You don’t have to go too far back to see how this
lethally toxic gambit created catastrophic and reprehensible consequences when
it migrated to matters of war and invasion in the matter of post-9/11 military
action against Iraq. (Al Gore exposes it all cogently in his 2007 book “Assault
on Reason”.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-76957140259155126052012-05-29T22:45:00.000-07:002012-06-03T13:11:49.812-07:00“SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE” 1<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I want to spend a couple of Posts looking at this
recent book*. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The author is a professor of Anthropology and
Cultural Studies at George Mason University. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One evening he discovered on the news that a friend
had been arrested for an alleged sex crime. And as things turned out, that got
him looking carefully at what he came to see – as neatly put in his book’s
title – as Sex Panic and its relationship to an emerging Punitive State in this
country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I want to trace some of his major points in this and
a subsequent Post. This won’t be a comprehensive or formal ‘review’, but rather
I will follow his thought and comment as I go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I will say this at the outset: if you read this
book, and follow up on the book and article references he makes in the text,
you are going to have a solid grounding in basic SO Mania matters. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And don’t skip the Notes, since there is
informative commentary and discussion there as well as in the text itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lancaster’s (henceforth: “RL”) concern is that this
country has developed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a politics and
government based on panic and fear. </i>And while he notes one strain of
thought that says this development only began with 9/11, RL has come to realize
that there were things going on long before 9/11. And by that he means what I
would call the SO Mania and its Regime of laws, tactics, presumptions,
objectives, targets, and all the pandemonium of ‘allies and alliances’ that
have come to provide the matrix from with this Mania draws its strength. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I would add that the Question that was never asked,
of course, several decades ago was: <strong>What</strong> sort of government will it take to
operate a politics and governance based on panic and fear? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, more specifically: <strong>how</strong> will the American
government have to change in order to become a government based on panic and
fear? <strong>What</strong> will such a change do to the government established by the Framers
and to their Vision which the Constitution was intended to sustain? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And – even more ominously: <strong>What</strong> will have to be done
to the American public – to The People – in order to get them to accept such a
change in governance? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course part of the scam all along has been to
sidestep those Questions – and the Consequences implicit in the ‘changes’
(neatly spun as ‘liberating reforms’) by stoking as much ‘outrage’ as
possible, as well as the panic and the fear. There’s no easier way to break
down fences that are in your way than to get the herd to stampede; anybody
who’s ever watched an old Western movie knows that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That much of that fencing was put up by the Framers and
contained in classical Western principles of reason and law was yet another
vital reality that was sidestepped or overrun by the Stampede and by the Mania.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The result being that now this government is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">punitive</i> government: it sees itself as
acting as an agent of vengeance (or – if you want to put it in nicer,
therapeutic terms – ‘closure’) for all manner of self-declared or presumed
‘victims’ who are in this scripting the only real Citizens. Other Citizens –
the ones who are claimed to be their oppressors or the perpetrators of their
pains – have quietly but surely become not Citizens but ‘perps’, ‘offenders’,
and other types of a life-form that enjoys no Constitutional status, but rather
exist – in the script – as the Necessary Evil Bad Guy (so often a ‘guy’) whose
only role in the nation’s life is to be eradicated by the Good Guys wielding
the Sovereign police and coercive authority. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Worse, this government is now a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">carceral </i>government: all that punitive convicting has resulted in
the fact that this country incarcerates a larger proportion of its Citizens
than any other nation since Stalin ran the Gulag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If you think about that for a moment, you may well
be struck by what appears to be a vicious irony: after several decades of
‘responsive’ government seeking to ‘liberate’ so many of its Citizens from this
or that ‘oppression’, the country is now the largest imprisoner of its Citizens
on the planet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, there are all sorts of tactical ‘bennies’
to this plan. Large numbers of males are – by virtue of now being felons –
removed from the voter rolls. Large numbers of jobs are created in the
burgeoning prison-industry and the fresh ‘business’ created in the localities where
these prisons are built (by local contractors, of course). And all of those
prisoners are also removed from the unemployment figures. Something for
everyone! And this doesn’t even include the 700-plus thousand on the SO
registries (and who knows how many others who were automatically ‘created’ as
registerable SO’s by the workings of AWA when Bush signed it into law). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But RL is going for the point – and I support it
fully – that this is no unintended and tragic ‘irony’. This was built into the
program from the get-go, from the moment when the Beltway decided (with the
help of Radical Feminist ‘philosophy’ lifted whole-hog from Marxist-Leninist
theory as adapted for use against Western democratic polities by Antonio
Gramsci and assorted ‘Eurocommunists’ of the 1960s and 1970s) to treat the
Constitution as merely a ‘text’ that is ‘living’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Living’ in the sense that it is plastic, malleable,
and probably outmoded and inadequate to modern ‘needs’ as well. A ‘text’ in the
sense that whatever the ‘reader’ wants to draw from it is equally as important
as, if not more important than, whatever the author(s) intended. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL raises the incisive point made by Gayle Rubin
years ago: at what point do all these ‘reforms’ reach such a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quantitative </i>tipping point that they
result in profound <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">qualitative</i>
changes? Because, as well, these changes – one after another after another –
are<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> cumulative</i>: each change builds on
and intensifies the effects of the previous change(s). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At what point does such a momentum become
irreversible? At what point is such momentum no longer stoppable by normal
political processes (such as they have become)? This is not a book for the
faint of heart. And it is not a book for folks content to simply watch the
playing-out of the melodrama of Good vs. Evil, Innocence Rescued by Brute Force.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And – I would say – for folks who think
that you can have a government living out this old film script and still
sustain and maintain and keep the democracy and the Constitutional Republic of
the Framing Vision. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Even worse, RL notes that according to a Gallup poll
in 2005 (just a year before AWA was passed by a small Beltway cabal in an
unrecorded vote) two-thirds of Americans don’t worry about the threat to civil
liberties posed by the robust ‘war’ against SO’s, whether accused or convicted.
So the Citizenry’s own grasp on the fundaments of the Framing Vision and the
Constitution has also been weakened, and lethally so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this was also part of the game-plan laid out in
that Gramscian playbook borrowed by Radical Feminism and bought and paid for with
public monies and authority by the Beltway. Potential opponents (male voters)
had to be neutralized or eliminated, and the general Citizenry’s very faith in
the democratic government had to be somehow subverted or at least corrupted
such that the Citizenry would accept the ‘reforms’ as good or at least harmless
and wouldn’t oppose the scheme and the agenda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL is a little stumped by the fact that ‘liberalism’
could have led to all this. But I think here he – a good ‘liberal’ himself, I
would say – is tripped up by the huge gravitational pull that few ‘liberals’
have ever wanted to acknowledge in the past 40 years or so here: post-1972
American ‘liberalism’ is not <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>so much
grounded in traditional American reformist and progressive roots. Rather, it is
lethally and toxically contaminated by that importation of early 20<sup>th</sup>-century
Marxist-Leninist theory and praxis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He is right to note that ‘victim-friendly’ ‘reforms’
were first embraced by the law-and-order Right in the early 1980s – under
Reagan – in order to combat what the Right saw as the overly indulgent,
accused-friendly thrust of Supreme Court rulings in the 1950s and 1960s; it was
a way to ‘get tough’ on crime (“take a bite outta crime”, as MacGruff the
crime-fighting pooch put it – if you recall the cartoon figure). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But he spends less time – although he does eventually
get around to acknowledging it directly – on Radical-Feminism’s embrace of
‘victimist’ dynamics from the get-go. (More on this when I get to Part 2 of his
book.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And, of course, the Radical Feminism that embraced
‘victimist’ approaches to criminal law was already bloody-minded in its
commitment <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to the Gramscian assault on
the ‘oppressive, hegemonic, marginalizing’ (and ‘patriarchal’ – which the
Radical Feminists added to the Gramscian mix) political and cultural status-quo.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And while it took until the Clinton 90’s for Radical
Feminist Victimism to truly explode into the Beltway with ‘governance feminism’
(and the Domestic Violence and SO Mania Regimes), its effects were being felt
as early as Reagan’s first administration (not coincidentally, also the era of
the truly weird and disturbing phenomenon of the Satanic Ritual Child Sex-Abuse
Day Care cases of the early 1980s). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the Beltway had been funding a lot of this
dynamic as early as the mid-1970s. And making the first tentative stabs at
creating legislation that would embody ‘victim-friendly’ jurispraxis (to
counter the ‘soft on criminals’ momentum of the 1950s and 1960s, but also –
unwittingly or deliberately – serving the agenda of the Gramscian,
Marxist-Leninist assault on ‘patriarchal democracy’ that the Radical Feminists
had been working on since the late 1960s and very early 1970s). And all under
the banner of a ‘liberalism’ that was hell-and-gone from the classical
Liberalism of the 19<sup>th</sup> century and was – indeed – fundamentally
opposed to that Liberalism and to the political embodiment of it in the
American political system and the American cultural, political, and legal Universe.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL offers some very interesting insights into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moral panic</i>. There is a great danger in
mass societies (using the sociological and anthropological term for highly
complex modern societies): they can be set off like – to use my image – tuning forks
all crammed into the same room. And if a bad vibration gets started, then it
can set all the others off. Stability and balance and ‘good vibes’ are very
very fragile achievements in any human society, and especially so in modern
mass societies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The development of cultural traditions and
structures help support the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">genius</i>
(in the Latin) of the society; that is to say, the enlivening fundamental
wisdom and insight(s) on which the culture and the society are founded and
built. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Naturally, in the Gramscian plan of assault on the
status-quo, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">genius</i> is attacked
and every effort is made to undermine it (since it is ‘oppressive, hegemonic,
marginalizing’ and – as we’ve seen – ‘patriarchal’). <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And</b> when the government itself aids and widely abets and deeply embraces
this assaultive Stance against its own culture … well, you can imagine where
something like that is likely to go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL also looks at Baudrillard’s thought that human societies
are particularly susceptible to a certain seductive mix of fear and ecstasy. There
is something in humans that renders them open to the excitements and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">frisson </i>(in the French) of the heady
cocktail that results from that combination of emotions. Perhaps humans are
always somewhat bored with stability and order, and often with the seemingly
humdrum quality of day-to-day life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If you mix that in with a natural primitiveness that
always remains with our species – residing especially in the limbic-emotional
system of that part of the brain that existed before the specifically human
prefrontal cortex developed, with its capacity for abstraction,
self-examination, postponement of immediate gratification and reaction, and thought – then perhaps there is indeed the ‘animal’ in us
all, lurking in deep in the more primitive or primal parts of the brain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Witch-hunts and burnings, and wars and all manner of
violent but exciting outbursts, fortified by the exhilarating consolations of
being part of a group (or a stampeding herd) … these remain perennial
potentials of the species, and most often dangerously so. Such potentials are
not easily toyed-with, either in individuals or the societies they form – or in
the governments they create. The Framers knew that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Civilization is a fragile thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, crime is a form of violence. But the legal
system was created precisely to deal with that in such a way – especially in
the Western tradition – that the Sovereign power acted rationally and
carefully, first making careful determination as to guilt and only then
exercising formally its coercive violence in punishment. Otherwise you wind up
with witch-hunts and lynch mobs. Or the even more frightening prospect of the
Sovereign power itself acting with non-rational violence – think of the Salem
Witch Trials of 1692. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the Framing Vision the Sovereign government power
is accurately and complexly envisioned as being both potentially dangerous and as
being a necessary brake upon individual or even public violence and
non-rationality. It’s a difficult balancing act, but the machinery of the
Constitution and the judicial system as the Framers set it up was specifically
(and I would say ingeniously) designed to handle those pressures and conflicting
dynamics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup>
centuries saw the development of mass societies. And of the ability to
manipulate the ‘public opinion’ of those mass societies, through advertising (to
sell the products of the Industrial Revolution) and through revolutionary
agitprop (think of Lenin and the revolutionaries) and then through government
propaganda (think of the Soviet and Fascist and Nazi governments, especially as
channeled through the dark genius of Goebbels). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the ‘free press’ of the Framers’ Vision became a
mass media as well as a media for the ‘masses’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– first in print, and then later in the far
more potentially inflammatory forms of radio and television (to say nothing of
the Web and the internet). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The means came into existence by which governments
could govern not necessarily by appealing to reason but simply by manipulating
the primal (and primitive) limbic emotional reactions of their citizens. And
before long that slippery slope could lead to governments’ not governing by
reason at all, but simply imposing their will, surfing the waves of public
emotion they purposely churned up to help float the boat of whatever policy the
government decided to pursue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of this served to amplify two particularly
darkish potentials in the human psyche of the citizenry: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">displacemen</i>t and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reaction-formation</i>.
Displacement is the psychic gambit by which unpleasant emotions are simply
loaded upon some target that is not necessarily the cause of the unpleasant
emotions. Reaction-formation is the psychic gambit by which the revulsion at
one’s own psychic darknesses is projected upon some other – or Other – human being
or group of humans; you may not be able to beat yourself up without unhappy consequence
but you can sure as hell beat somebody else up and get rid of your revulsions
that way (although, alas, so very often it becomes a habit and then an
addiction). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Humans have been doing this sort of thing since the
beginning of recorded history and probably long before. But in mass-societies,
with everything amplified by government pressure and the media, things can
really get out of hand. And yet seem so very very ‘normal’ and ‘right’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">RL looks at the history of ‘panics’ in this country
in the 20<sup>th</sup> century, with especial attention to ‘sex panics’: following
Fritz Lang’s 1931 film “M” – in which a young Peter Lorre played a murderous
but self-tortured child-molester – there was a sex-panic that led in a few years
to the first concern for ‘sex offenders’ (abetted, with savage irony, by J.
Edgar Hoover’s organizationally self-serving amplification of such ‘pervert’ crimes
as worthy of the attentions of his nascent FBI); California and other
jurisdictions began to look at the first police-registries (think: 3x5 file
cards) of ‘perverts’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The postwar 1940s saw the anti-Communist hunts, which
blended with concerns over the sexual looseness induced by the massive
dislocations of the war experience (especially on generations that had been
young during the Roaring Twenties when ‘morality’ was first considered ‘Victorian’
and outmoded). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The 1950s and early 1960s saw both an effort by
psychology to rehabilitate criminals and a corresponding judicial effort to
ensure the rights of the accused (after the shocking examples of Jim Crow
Southern law deployed against civil-rights demonstrators). But the later 1960s
saw a shocking uptick in violent crime and sexual looseness as both the
flower-child free-love-and-drugs Boomers and the inner-city populations began
to flout all established law and ignited the concerns of the law-and-order
Right. Congress got into the act against the federal courts’ lenience with the
Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968 and kept on along those lines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The 1970s saw the continued efforts to control
violent street crime and drugs now blending with a growing feminist concern
over rape and domestic violence and ‘victimization’. The Carter Administration
began to pump even more funds into the feminist agenda. ‘Children’ began to
appear as the archetypal victim of violence, with Ethan Patz (upon whom be
peace) the first missing child whose photo appeared on milk cartons in 1977. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But – as mentioned earlier in this Post – the first Reagan
administration really saw the ‘victim’ movement move into the big-time with the
valorization of victimhood through overt federal recognition, in the form of
both funding and government pressure to enact the victimist agenda, as well as
the erection of special bureaucratic authorities and Offices specifically
designed to ‘assist’ victims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The image of the archetypal ‘criminal’ shifted from
the violent ‘inner city’ type (now politically inconvenient) to the most-often
white male ‘pervert’ (now politically convenient). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Sex’ now replaced street-violence as the most
odious of crimes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Satanic Ritual Day Care Child Sex Abuse mini-mania
of the early 1980s demonstrated the developing ‘bipartisan’ alliance of
anti-male Radical Feminism and law-and-order (and fundamentalist ‘Christian’)
concerns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ominously, the mantra of eager prosecutors and ‘therapists’
was that the Citizenry should “suspend disbelief” at some of the fantastical
stories the children had been helped to tell; “believe the children” became the
slogan. To be skeptical of the stories (of dragons and other mythical creatures
and sex and vast networks of underground tunnels and sex-rooms beneath the
schools) was to be ‘insensitive’ and to ‘re-victimize’ the children; concern
for evidence was considered proof of “legal fetishism” – being far too
concerned for the law and not concerned enough about the outrage and the pain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then came the 1990s, when under the Clintons
Radical Feminism, now deeply enmeshed with Victimism, became a major influence
in the Beltway. And we all know what resulted from that. The Monster Stranger
Predator, incorrigibly recidivist, simultaneously an out-of-control monster and
a preternaturally shrewd seducer, was nowhere and everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What sort of a government it would take to deal with
these imagined Monsters … well, as we now know 20 years and more down the road,
it would take a police state. But that seemed the thing to do at the time. And
still does, to far too many. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Radical Feminists – as even RL admits – quickly
provided a voluminous ‘philosophy’ to justify it all. Although – and RL doesn’t
reach this reality – that hefty corpus of ‘thought’ was not the result of some
marvelous Radical Feminist and Victimist renaissance or enlightenment burst of
creativity; it was the result of scarfing the ready-made tomes of old
Marxist-Leninist thought and Gramsci’s playbook, making the appropriate substitutions
in terms (‘women’ for ‘proletariat’; sex for labor, patriarchy for capitalism)
and waving the ‘numbers’ they got from ‘surveys’ and ‘extrapolations’ that
indicated astronomical numbers of offenses and offenders and victims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Though, as one advocate unintentionally revealed,
some outrageous victimization was yet so subtle that it was invisible even to
its victims – and victims would have to be educated into realizing they had
indeed been victimized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But then if a police state is going to go after allegedly
felonious victimizations this subtle and invisible … well, that was going to
take even more intrusion and government coercion than the Soviets took on when
they went after ‘counter-revolutionary’ activity with the Cheka, the OGPU, the
NKVD and the KGB. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But Americans are a can-do kind of people, so why
not try? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The propagandistic narrative – reflecting the film
scripts of a medium that pretty much grew alongside the development of mass
societies – called for a Pure and Innocent Victim, a leering and utterly
debased Villain, and a Heroic Rescuer who would do ‘whatever it takes’ to see
the Good rescued and the Evil eliminated. The ancient Manichean either/or
set-up: you’re either totally Good or you’re totally Evil (more recently
phrased as being “you’re either with us or for the terrorists” so let’s invade
Iraq).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Beltway would be the Guardian and the Rescuer
and the Avenger – all rolled into one. And it would do whatever it took to do
all that, and if the Constitution got in the way … well, real men don’t fuss
over legal niceties and – marvelously – real Radical Feminists don’t believe in
Western and Constitutional ‘patriarchal’ law anyway. Bipartisan agreement! (Or,
as the French would put it: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">folie a deux</i>.)
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The more Players you can field then the better your
chances of taking the trophy. And in the SO Mania game, there is quite a
roster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are ‘advocates’. But – as I have noted in
prior Posts – these are not Level 1 or Level 2 advocates, who are simply
Citizens with an idea who get together to persuade their fellow/sister
Citizens. Rather, these are Level 3 advocates who sidestep Citizens and move to
pressure legislators directly (and secretly) and Level 4 advocates who function
pretty much as any other Beltway lobbyists and don’t care whether their cause
is good or bad, true or imagined, so long as they can continue to rake in
public funding and status. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is a mainstream media that began its long
slide by abandoning ‘objective reporting’ for telling stories and helping ‘shape’
public opinion, and then – in order to keep up circulation and viewership –
began to go for the gut-wrenching and the sensational (“if it bleeds, it leads”)
regardless of any other considerations (such as asking the utterly vital question: is this a rare and atypical event or is it a major
ongoing matter of public significance?). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are what Gramsci called “organic intellectuals”:
those thinkers who will commit to ‘the revolution’ and ‘the cause’ and will make
sure that all of their ‘thought’ marvelously results in support for the cause. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are ‘scientists’ who will do the same, if for
no other reason than to keep their eligibility for public funding for their ‘research’.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are “moral entrepreneurs” who will surf the
waves of public excitement to play up the outrage and the ‘moral’ need to do
what has to be done with no regard for consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is an entire pandemonium of
semi-and-para-professional ‘therapists’ and ‘experts’ who will come up with all
sorts of ‘therapy’ and ‘research’ to show that the whole thing is vitally
necessary and very very real and that just about everybody is a victim of it
(except, of course, for the perps who by definition cannot be victims). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One thinks here – and RL will mention it – of ‘repressed
memory’: I have written about it at length on this site, so I will only add
here that it is still an under-appreciated fact that in no other area of
experience do humans apparently experience ‘repressed memory’ except sexual experience.
Nobody has yet appeared before a court to claim that they were in a lethal auto
accident umpty years ago and they just now ‘remembered’ it or that they were
held up at gunpoint and ditto. Or that they were in a series of auto accidents
as a passenger of the same bad driver, and each time they had forgotten the
previous accident and gone along for the ride again, and then on top of that had
forgotten the whole series of accidents from years ago until just yesterday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And there is the new ‘heroic’ role and status of the
now iconic American figure of the Victim. But I will leave that for the next
Post, where RL shares a 1997 statement by Janet Reno (herself an
underappreciated icon – or warning flag – of the whole shebang) that deserves
more attention than it will get at the bottom of an already-longish Post. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In my next Post I will consider Part 2 of RL’s book,
entitled “The Punitive State”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*Lancaster, Roger. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sex Panic and the Punitive State</i>. Berkeley: U/Cal Press (2011).
ISBN: 978-0-520-26206-5 (pb). 246pp plus Appendices, Notes, and Index. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-44565640708168304792012-05-21T15:05:00.002-07:002012-06-04T13:36:22.540-07:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">SURVEYS AREN’T SCIENCE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A recent mention of the ‘survey’ method of ‘research’
is worth a brief look here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The ‘New York Times’ published an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/health/dr-robert-l-spitzer-noted-psychiatrist-apologizes-for-study-on-gay-cure.html">article</a> * a few days
ago, on Page One. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The piece talks about noted psychiatrist Robert Spitzer,
prime mover behind the now-indispensable (if highly-debated) ‘Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual’ (“DSM”) now in its 4<sup>th</sup>-Revised Edition and soon
to be replaced by a 5<sup>th</sup>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The particular point of the piece is to discuss
Spitzer’s now-public and formal apology for embracing – some years ago – ‘reparative
therapy’ for gay persons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is not my purpose here to get into the
complexities of ‘reparative therapy’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But as so often happens in conceptual matters, an
amazing bit was revealed almost inadvertently, that bears far more widely and
yet also directly on matters of SO concern (and should also be of concern to
the entire Citizenry, to the public). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Spitzer had, some years ago, gotten somehow involved
with some pro-‘reparative therapy’ professionals and decided to join in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He did some ‘research’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He did this ‘research’ by conducting a ‘study’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He conducted this ‘study’ by doing a ‘survey’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His research Question was: Did this ‘reparative
therapy’ approach really work on people?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And he ‘surveyed’ them. That is to say (p.A3) he
collected a list of 200 people who had had the therapy (comprised of folks who
had gone through this therapy and were in the database of the pro-therapy
organizations). He then called each of them on the phone. And he asked them a
list of questions he had devised, about their sexual urges and thoughts and
experiences before and after they had participated in the therapy (the article
says he “interviewed them in depth”). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And they answered his questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Spitzer then took his collection of answers and
compared the before and after descriptions he had been given. “The majority” of
them “gave reports” indicating that they had gone from a predominantly or
exclusively homosexual orientation to a predominantly or exclusively
heterosexual orientation in the past year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the basis of this ‘study’, he delivered a paper
to a major psychiatric conference in 2001, reflecting his conclusion that ‘reparative
therapy’ worked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, there was a political uproar from the gay
community immediately. But that’s not my point or subject here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Spitzer was quickly taken to task <em>by scientific and
professional colleagues</em> for the grossly flawed methodology of his ‘study’; many
of the criticisms were “merciless”. People had been asked about their memory /
of feelings / that they had had years before. Some of the people were ‘activists’
(who might presumably be perhaps motivated to give answers that served the
purposes of their cause). Some had undergone professionally-provided therapy
but many had simply undergone ‘counseling’ or discussion with some
paraprofessional provider or had simply done some “independent Bible study”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There were many non-professionals who objected
simply because of how his study might be ‘interpreted’ by politically
unfriendly (in this case ‘conservative’) elements; in other words, they merely
objected to the possible <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">consequences</i>
of this particular study, especially in light of their political agendas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the key problem – as many of the professional
researchers pointed out ‘mercilessly’ – was the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">integrity </i>of the study itself: you can’t simply ask people
questions over the phone – especially if they can assume that their answers won’t
ever be checked or independently evaluated and corroborated – and expect
thereby to get ‘facts’. At best, you get opinions or vague memories or – far more
ominously – ‘motivated’ responses specifically tailored by the respondent to
support some ulterior motive or agenda.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(And all of this presumes that you as the ‘researcher’
haven’t already figured all that out, and specifically construct your questions
or your call-list or both precisely to tap into all of this in order to make
sure you get the biggest ‘numbers’ you possibly can.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But in any case, you can’t consider your ‘results’
to be scientifically definitive or reliable on their face; you have to then go
and corroborate independently each and all of the responses. Otherwise, you
have nothing more than an ‘opinion survey’ and what you most certainly do <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not </b>have is a scientifically credibly
and legitimately characterized ‘study’ or ‘research’ or ‘scholarship’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As the article puts it: “Simply asking people whether
they have changed is no evidence at all of real change”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, the article continues: “People lie,
to themselves and others. They continually change their stories, to suit their
needs and moods.” To say nothing of any more specific ulterior motives and
objectives and agendas they might quietly have embraced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You can’t simply take respondents’ word for it when
you ask them your questions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But now, moving on from this article, I point out
that such ‘survey science’ is precisely what has fuelled so many elements of
the ‘facts’ that drive the SO Mania Regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How much of the ‘scholarship’ and ‘science’ that
advocates have pushed toward the media and the legislators has been the result
of nothing more than ‘surveys’? Surveys whose ‘answers’ not only create ‘numbers’
but also – if the survey-derived ‘numbers’ are far greater than the actual
numbers of reported cases – create the ‘justification’ for claims that for
every single reported case there are 10 (or 100 or 1000 or 10,000) ‘unreported’
cases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Further – and this also demonstrates a certain
political bias in the media and among legislators – what happens when you apply
this to a phenomenon such as ‘sex offenses’ or ‘rape ’or ‘sexual abuse’ (however
your questionnaire might define those elastic terms)? Suddenly there are untold
hundreds of thousands or millions of ‘unreported’ cases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And does not the same reality hold for respondents
of sex-abuse surveys as holds true for the respondents of the reparative-therapy
survey: you can’t trust the answers you get because you can’t simply ‘trust’
and ‘believe’ the persons making those answers … ? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">,
of course, in the SO Mania Regime, Correct victimist dogma insists that you
precisely <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">can’t </b>question the answers
you get – and so you can neatly accept as gospel truth the astronomical ‘numbers’
you wind up with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So scientific integrity is all well and good if you
are going to be stopping something you don’t want to see (e.g., the acceptance of ‘reparative
therapy’, which is anathema to a politically powerful advocacy). <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But</b> scientific integrity is absolutely
an obstruction and some form of evil collusion if it gets in the way of ‘believing
victims’, which is the primary goal of a politically powerful advocacy or –
more accurately – a combination of assorted allied advocacies and lobbies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a gross and reprehensible double-standard
that has derailed and deranged the integrity of scholarship and research and ‘science’,
of legislative and jurisprudential praxis, of media assessment and coverage,
and – worst of all by far – the integrity of the public’s competence to make
informed judgments based on accurate information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Surveys’ are not scientific nor are they science
nor scholarship nor research. Uncorroborated, they are nothing more than a
focused form of hear-say. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have seen it asserted that sometimes you simply
can’t do the field-research and so you “have to” rely on surveys – as if
somehow the fact that you can’t (or won’t, or don’t want to) do scientific work
means that whatever you do manage to do is thereby legitimately characterizable
as ‘science’ and ‘research’ and ‘scholarship’ and your results are ‘facts’. As
if ‘surveys’ can become justifiable as science ‘by default’: I can’t or don’t
want to risk doing actual research and evaluation, but I think I can get what I
want with a ‘survey’ and so the survey I conduct is ‘science’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Imagine a fire department that somehow runs out of
water at a fire, commandeers a nearby gas tanker truck, and starts pumping
gasoline on the fire: yes, all the usual actions are being taken (firemen
spraying hoses, fire engines pumping out streams of liquid into hoses) but in
reality you most certainly are only mimicking fire-fighting operations and you
most certainly are not putting out the fire. Just the opposite, in fact. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is a scam that has served the purposes of
many ulterior interests and continues to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And thus, the SO Mania continues its curious life as
a fire that just doesn’t seem to go out – and indeed seems to only get worse,
no matter how much money and ‘science’ the government sprays onto it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*The story is entitled ‘Psychiatry Giant Sorry for
Backing Gay ‘Cure’’; in the print edition it appeared on Saturday, May 19,
2012, on page A1 and continued on page A3. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As an example of research skewed for the purpose of
reaching a particular desired conclusion (and no other), you can examine <a href="http://www.ethicalpsychology.org/Eidelson-&-Soldz-CSF_Research_Fails_the_Test.pdf">this</a>
new 14-page formal critique of a recent Army effort to wish away the
lethal difficulties of stress among troops.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8582682613894384165.post-47804054937484879142012-05-14T13:28:00.003-07:002012-05-15T19:39:50.089-07:00DEFINITIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: MONTANA PROBE<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A while back I <a href="http://senseoffenses.blogspot.com/2011/10/as-cream-runs-out.html">Posted</a> on an initiative (now
implemented) to have all sexual-assaults redefined as ‘rape’ for reporting
purposes in the FBI crime statistics. Slyly, this would not (at least in
civilian law; the military justice system if becoming far more thoroughly
deranged) affect the actual elements of the crime for the purposes of
trial-process and Charges, but it would – I said – serve the purpose of ‘keeping
the numbers up’ and ‘keeping the ball rolling’ for the assorted sex-offense
advocacies that now constitute a ‘base’ for both ‘liberal’ liberationist and ‘conservative’
law-and-order politicians, especially now that it appears that genuine ‘rapes’
are declining (of course, one can always claim the ever-invisible ‘unreported
rapes’ are 10 or 100 or 1000 times the number of actual reported rapes). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just recently the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post</i> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/feds-investigating-response-by-montana-city-college-to-reports-of-sexual-assault/2012/05/01/gIQAxguIvT_story.html">reported</a> that the feds are now going after the
Missoula, Montana police department, the local prosecutors, and the local
University officials for apparent or alleged or possible improprieties in how
those authorities handled complaints of “sexual assault and harassment”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Having perhaps learned a thing or two from the
hard-won example of Soviet ‘readers’ of their available media back in the day,
the SO community might quickly note that there is no actual mention of ‘rape’,
but rather the two hugely elastic terms “sexual assault” and (sexual) “harassment”.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s hard to imagine that in the Year of Grace Two Thousand
and Twelve – after at least two decades of the full-court press in the service
of sex-offense legislation, jurisprudence, and law enforcement praxis – there are
still officials holding police, prosecution, or university authority who haven’t
swung into the Correct line. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it is, after all, an election year and from the
looks of it the pols are going to need every bit of oomph they can entice out
of their bases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The DOJ’s civil-rights division is going to be
handling the “probe”. Apparently, despite all the handy vagueness and overbroad
definitions now erected into SO Mania laws and jurisprudence, whatever has
allegedly been going on in Missoula is actually going to be further subjected
to the even more elastic requirements of the even more elastic ‘civil rights’
approach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it does sort of give the hasty and unreflective
reader a sense that the great Civil Rights Movement of Dr. King is alive and
well and now operating in the SO arena. You wouldn’t want to vote against
Martin Luther King, would you? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The conceptual hook is that perhaps the Missoula
authorities engaged in "gender discrimination" by not doing whatever it was
they were desired to do in their investigations. That might include giving up
too easily simply because there wasn’t enough evidence to bring a formal Charge
– as if evidence should be allowed to stand in the way. Nowadays you are supposed to focus on 'the story', not the evidence. Such progress. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Clearly, if there were enough credible evidence and
the authorities willfully engaged in collective non-feasance by refusing to
enforce the law, then you have grounds for a criminal prosecution of the
non-feasant authorities. But for some reason – one can only wonder – the whole
matter is not being taken down the criminal-Charge route, but rather down the
civil-rights route. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently, the DOJ suspects that the Missoula
authorities “don’t have a system in place” to handle rape charges and such.
Does that mean they have no law enforcement, no criminal legal system, and no
judicial authority in Missoula or in that great State? Or does it imply perhaps
that the hardy Montana authorities refuse to be stampeded into spending what
resources they still have on the Correct (but so very iffy) panoply of SO Mania
process? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This will not be a “pleasant experience, but it will
be a necessary experience” said the DOJ honcho at the inevitable
press-conference. He didn’t say necessary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for
whom</i> – and thereby, I bet, hangs a tale. I suspect that in the absence of a
sufficient number of Correct show-trials, the government will now conduct a ‘show-probe’
to demonstrate to every police official, prosecutor, and university administrator
in the viewing audience that they’d better not let still-kicking but oh-so- obstructionist
concerns for genuine legal investigation and first principles get in the way of
keeping the ball rolling and the numbers up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The allegedly guilty public officials – all dragooned
into standing behind the DOJ honcho (no doubt there was a flag or two in the
background for the desired wallpaper effect) – all pledged their undying
support. Viewers of a certain age will recall local officialdom dragooned in
front of the official cameras during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, that (alas)
unhappy world-class historical experiment that – who knew? – wound up going so very
badly wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Is it because Montana is somehow a vital state
politically?* Or because it is somehow a marginal place that the feds can afford
to use as a chewtoy? Or is it because Montana is one of those places where
officials who have sworn an oath to the Constitution still seem to think that
the first principles underlying that sore-bethump’t document deserve their
loyalty and unflagging exertions?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps the latter. The County Attorney – one Fred Van
Valkenburg – refused to wear the Maoist dunce-hat (remember those?) and
candidly said that he didn’t know and hasn’t been told just what it was that
his Office was supposed to have been doing wrongly, and that he considered the
whole thing an “overreach of the federal government”. The man is setting
himself up for trip to a re-education camp (although perhaps the SO Maniacs
haven’t actually gotten around to getting a couple-three dozen of those set up
yet). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or possibly Homeland Security has
something set up for ‘terrorists’ that might fit the bill: I know I’ve seen
this and that advocate and cutting-edge thinker claim that patriarchy and
sexual-assault (broadly defined) is a species of terrorism and – neatly – such monstrous
types of perps don’t deserve any rights at all, civil or constitutional or
whaevvvvverrrrrrrr. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently, the County Attorney has had the temerity
to opine that if there is insufficient evidence then he can’t very well proceed
to prosecution. This is grossly not-Correct in SO Mania Regime theology and the
man is clearly a heretic, and perhaps a patriarchal jihadist heretic to boot,
slyly hiding behind the Constitution (which, as Catharine MacKinnon – herself a
law professor and radical feminist thinker – insists is nothing more than a ‘pact with
patriarchy’ anyway). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In what is perhaps the most revealing evidence of
the type of dynamics that drive these types of things, the accused officials
can’t figure out what they’ve done wrong (and they do have more than a nodding
acquaintance with applicable law and praxis). But then, as the DOJ honcho
agrees, he doesn’t really know either. You can’t make this stuff up.
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it all does bring you into that Looking-Glass
world so eerily reminiscent of Marxism (whence – through radical feminism – so much
of today’s American stance to law and Constitution derives): Preservation is
Destruction, Destruction is Creative. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But there is some question of at least a few sexual
assaults (however defined) not having been properly investigated – whatever that
might be code for – or having been “improperly reported” (and whatever that may
mean and by whom: did the allegant not report it properly or did the police not
file it in their database as a ‘rape’ according to the new (and possibly
voluntary) guidelines?). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As always in matter SO-Maniacal, you are confronted
by more questions than answers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently one Saudi Arabian student had been
notified by police that he was under investigation (although not Charged) and
he left the country (as Saudi Arabians have a tendency to do: one thinks of
that oh-so-speshull airline flight out of the US the day after 9/11, and one
imagines that the gentleman figured that American ‘justice’ in these matters
was pretty much akin to the type of ‘justice’ established in non-Constitutionally
shaped legal systems prevalent in his original part of the world). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But what then were the Montana authorities supposed
to do? Send a secret Montana state sex-offense hit squad to get him back like
the Israelis did when they spirited Eichmann out of South America? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple of matters involved football players (but
no coaches): one was allowed to continue playing football after court-process
issued an Order, and the other was allowed to continue playing after pleading
Not Guilty and is now awaiting a September trial date. This somehow is
indicative of either gender-discrimination or a civil-rights violation – go figure.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Behind all of this, I bet, lies the infamous ‘Dear
Colleague’ Letter sent a year or so ago by a bureaucrat in the Department of
Education to all college administrative heads, in which she asks them to voluntarily
embrace a lower thresh-hold of evidence in collegiate sex-offense cases
(despite the fact that the accused might, through the college-run ‘trial
process’, be expelled and – one never knows – considered ‘guilty’ enough to be
put on a Registry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But such legal ‘technicalities’ are merely the
dodges used by patriarchal officials to hide from the righteous sword of the SO
Mania Regime. (As is, of course, the aforementioned and utterly tainted
Constitution). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Can anybody really be surprised at how thoroughly
the Constitutional foundational first principles are becoming so ruinously
debased in this country nowadays? </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTES</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*A day after putting up this Post I can report that
Montana is indeed the scene of a hotly contested US Senate race and that since the
State is so sparsely populated (comparatively speaking) any money or resources
expended there to woo voters will be tremendously well spent. So you can see how
the SO Mania can be useful for political strategy, even if there really isn’t
anything substantial to justify its use. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the matter of the Philadelphia clerical abuse
<a href="http://www.priestabusetrial.com/">trial</a>, matters have moved into live testimony and cross-examination (after
almost two months of trial) and – as one might have expected – there is now a
great deal of complication in light of evidence given as to whether the
defendants are guilty of the Charges brought against them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You can follow the trial at the link immediately
above, but I will publish here the text of the Comment I put up summarizing my
thoughts on the week’s process:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“I have been reading
along for the past week as the live testimony proceeds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First, I want to
congratulate Mr. Cipriano for his reporting and I like his vivid imagery, which
yet doesn’t become disconnected from the flow of actual events unfolding in the
courtroom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Several points strike
me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From the technical
point of view, it is not clear from the report of the trial session (and this
perhaps reflects accurately the situation as it unfolded under the aegis of the
prosecutors and defense counsel) how the evidentiary-grade factuality of the
nun-witness’s rape was established. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This point may seem
irrelevant or worse to those used to dealing with the therapeutic forum, but it
remains a vitally necessary point that has to be covered, a ‘base’ that has to
be covered – if you wish – in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
juridical or jurisprudential forum. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That being said, it
certainly seems that this Cudemo was grossly unsuited for priesthood and if
even one of the allegations against him is factual then he committed criminal
acts and his conduct was reprehensible from any point of view. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I would add also however,
that in light of some of the commentary some incarcerated prisoners – through
the curious but very lethally real workings of ‘prison psychology’ – certainly
do consider themselves ‘justified’ in taking lethal – and in at least one case
that is publicly known<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– fatally direct
action against inmates bearing a child-sex-offense conviction. Which is
precisely one of the reasons why I am very very concerned that convictions in
cases such as these be sound: a death sentence, however informally it may be
carried out, is indeed hovering over all such cases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And while I am
becoming increasingly accustomed to the reality that some folks comment out of
their heart, rather than their head (if I may put it that way and respectfully
so), yet the literally death-dealing possibilities that can be set in train by
the outcome of this type of trial must never be lost sight of, especially from
a professional legal point of view. But also from the point of view of any
Citizen concerned for the integrity of the justicial process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is rather easy to
slide into the more limbic processing of support-group or advocacy-group
discussion, but neither attorneys (defense and prosecution) nor Citizens can
lose sight of the fact that in every trial – and especially criminal trials – we
approach the cage of Leviathan (as indeed, given the crooked timber of
humanity, we sometimes must). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is first semester
of Law 101 stuff, but it remains a vital reality. As I have mentioned in prior
comments on this site, the tendency in American jurisprudence (and its shaping
legislation) in the past few decades has been to envision the Sovereign
authority (and its potential toward behaving as Leviathan) as a more ‘friendly’
and ‘efficient’ bringer of closure and satisfaction, dispensing along the way
with the vital protections the Framers very wisely put into the Constitution
and the Bill of Rights. But the tiger, once loosed from its cage, will be no respecter
of persons or facts, and it can turn on anybody once it has been released to
run (and hunt) freely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In that regard, and in
light of the Nuremberg references that have surfaced in some commentary, I
would submit that the most relevant lesson to be drawn from those trials is
that the entire Nazi regime established itself precisely by undermining the
vital foundational concepts and first principles of Western law that had been
in place in both the Wilhelmine and Weimar governments’ legal systems. It was
precisely by making the anti-legal legal that the Nazi regime smoothed its path
toward the monstrous history that it then ‘legally’ created. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I would also point out
that from the point of view of legal positivism – very much in vogue now in
this country – there would be no substantive way of objecting to that
development: the regime was properly brought into power (Hitler was formally invited
to be Chancellor and duly appointed by the elected President, Hindenburg) and
hence – from the positivist perspective – its legislation was inarguably the
law of the land. From the positivist perspective there is no Higher Law to
judge what that government enacted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I also note that in
the Nuremberg trials the monstrous doings of various honchos of the Third Reich
were inarguably demonstrated simply from the history of the prior decade or
more, including what was discovered upon the liberation of the camps in 1945. But
as even this trial in Philadelphia indicates, such easily-established inarguable
demonstration of sustained and premeditated monstrousness rising to a
justification of the Charges brought by the prosecution is not so easily
available; hence the need for careful and full examination of all evidence
relevant to the Charges brought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Such complications may
seem merely obstructionist outside the legal and jurisprudential forum, but I
would remind one and all that these ‘complications’ are vital and very real. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For those same
reasons, both Nuremberg and Stalin’s trials of the mid-late 1930s were ‘show
trials’, although in the former there was more than a sufficiency of relevant
and credible evidence, whereas in the latter ‘evidence’ was not even considered
a necessary formality. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the extent
that the case at bar is a ‘show trial’ – meaning that it is intended to ‘send a
message’ to those who see it or hear about it – it remains to be seen whether
the case at bar resembles more the former or the latter type of show-trial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The criminal justice
system or even the civil legal system is not easily or harmlessly envisioned as
merely the administrative agent for ‘striking’ (to use Dzherzinsky’s brutally
vivid image) those persons who are accused and charged by the Sovereign
authority. That is the difference between ‘revolutionary’ law and Western,
constitutional law – nor are these two legal universes and systems easily
blended.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Pertinaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15407357930254142688noreply@blogger.com0