Impromptus

I'm sitting in the Chapman law library, avoiding what I'm supposed to be doing. I'll probably pick this topic up in more detail at a later date, but I had an interesting experience last week sitting in on a lecture last week for my program. Dr. Alan Keele (I think that's his name) came and spoke to us about LDS Germans that opposed Hitler and Naziism. What really disturbed me was how he began to talk about how important it is that we inform ourselves about politics and world events and become advocates for The Good, because sometimes we'll unwittingly support evil, as was the case with many Saints in Nazi Germany. What I found most disturbing was that he began to equate what happened with those members to citizens supporting President Bush in today's society. I couldn't believe my ears. He wasn't saying that they were exactly the same, but he wasn't far from making that point either. I was flabbergasted at how far left his comments were, and that other professors in my department seemed to nod in agreement.

I bring this up because there are certain opinion journalists that I love, love because of their transparent goodness. I've mentioned him many times, but I really believe Jay Nordlinger fits that bill. So just a couple of things that he has mentioned in the last week or so:

From a recent article citing 20 quick points about the Obama victory on November 4th:

I’m sorry, but the treatment of Bush — the demonization of Bush — is appalling. Absolutely appalling. And it says something rotten about our political culture. Think for a second about Katrina — the hurricane. I have no doubt that the federal government made mistakes, and no doubt that Bush fumbled the PR aspect. But this was a huge natural disaster — and people acted as though Bush had caused it.Crazy, crazy. Even some of my fellow conservatives have bought into the Katrina myth. I wish Bush would do more to defend himself, but he apparently thinks it’s not worth the bother. And don’t get me started on the treatment of Governor Palin after she debuted in Dayton . . .

And this chuckle-inducing missive from his most recent Impromptu's column:

Sometime in the late ’70s, Norman Mailer came to Zellerbach Hall at UC-Berkeley to give a talk. The place was sold out. This was during the period when he was writing pieces refuting Germaine Greer. He walked onstage wearing cowboy boots, Levis, and a shirt and jacket . . . and he had a rolling sort of John Wayne gait.As he stepped up to the microphone, he said approximately the following: “I know that about half of you here tonight hate my guts because of my stand on feminism. So let’s get that out of the way. I want you to hiss me. I want you to let all of your feelings toward me out. Come on, hiss me!”And the most spine-chilling hiss arose from the audience. It lasted ten seconds. I’d never heard anything like it before, and I haven’t since. It was authentic and deeply felt. And when it subsided, Mailer leaned into the microphone and said, softly, “Obedient bitches.”

And this letter from a reader that he cites:

I also went to that Palin rally, and it was truly eye-opening to see people from my office and community who I never knew shared a Republican point of view. Interestingly, I know who all the Democrats are. They don’t hesitate to speak their minds here — loudly and often.

You get the feeling that, if you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, you could be out of a friend, out of a job, or just subtly frozen out of opportunities to advance your career. So I try to keep things close to the vest, and I have even laughed along politely at more than a few Bush-as-idiot jokes.

And when I think I have it bad, I just have to listen to what my wife goes through as a public high school teacher. She has literally come home in tears on days when the vitriol from her fellow teachers has gone too far. All this in a part of the country that is supposedly the most tolerant of others’ viewpoints.

That particular letter felt poignant to with the recent backlash in events surround Prop 8. I don't doubt that many of you share similar feelings. I mean really...how is it that asserting your personal beliefs is something that becomes so villified? Here in the U.S.? And what's more, this is something that happens even though in 30 (maybe more?) states, whenever the issue has come up, the popular vote has been unanimously opposed. It just seems strange that the majority would get demonized in that way. Land of the free and somehow we lose friends because of dissenting opinions. This in a country that's the most "tolerant." Weird. That column can be found here.

From that same column comes this note from a reader and then his comments following:

Would you like to have an interesting morsel about China? A reader contributes the following:

I had an interesting conversation with my girlfriend a few days ago. She is Chinese and we were talking about the government there and we got on the topic of Tiananmen Square. I asked if the picture of the lone guy standing in front of the tanks had made its way around China at the time or if the government had suppressed it. She said that, in fact, the government had spread the image far and wide — as proof of how much they cared about the Chinese people, because the tanks had not just run him over! She said that the people have been propagandized for so long that they pretty much saw it that way. She never realized that the West viewed the man as a symbol of bravery and defiance until she came here about 15 years ago. Amazing, the interpretation of images.

Yes.

By the way, there was a famous poet in England — since reformed, I believe — who said that the Khmer Rouge were obviously compassionate, because they were killing people with bullets, when bullets were scarce and costly. True brutes would have beaten them to death with shovels and the like.

Seriously.

In that particular column he also makes mention of a Chief Justice Roberts dissension regarding a petition for a writ of certiorari (no, I don't know what that means, so I'll have to go to my resident law expert on that one, but I at least sound like I do, right?). I've never read much of these opinions by justices, but the few times I have, they're actually kind of interesting. What happened is that a narcotics officer spotted an exchange between two guys on a street corner, and arrested them. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in a divided decision that the police lacked probably cause for making the arrest. What I like is what he closes his opinion with:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court speculated that suchan exchange could have been perfectly innocent. But as Judge Friendly has pointed out, "[j]udges are not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free." United States v. Stanchich, 550 F. 2d 1294, 1300 (CA2 1977). Based not only on common sense but also his experience as a narcotics officer and his previous work in theneighborhood, Officer Devlin concluded that what happenedon that street corner was probably a drug transaction. That is by far the most reasonable conclusion, even though our cases only require it to be a reasonable conclusion.

I would grant certiorari and reverse the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Bold is mine, italics are his. I'm glad that guy is in charge over there. What will the Obama appointed Justices look and sound like? I hope they do not depart too much from the model of Chief Justice Roberts.

Anyway, I just thought those points were interesting, and I'm glad to hitch my wagon to a conservative like Jay Nordlinger. I think there is an incredible amount of Bush-derangement going on by lots of people, but I'm disappointed to find it on the BYU campus. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it can crop up there as well.

It's disconcerting, nonetheless, to know how vulnerable we all are to certain influences even when we think we're afforded greater light and knowledge than most populations, however true that may or may not be.