JailBreak

It seems 90% of the media and 50% of Americans agree that the assault on the Capitol was both terrible, and unique. Not so fast…

I offer up some counter examples, in escalating severity.

• In May, 1967 as reported by the Sacramento Bee, “armed Negroes entered the state Capitol at noon … and 10 made their way to the back of the Assembly Chamber before they were disarmed and marched away by the state police.”
• In November, 2018 a crowd of protesters stormed into and occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office in the Cannon House Office Building . “All were charged for crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.”
• In October 2018 a crowd of protesters disrupted the nomination hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. According to NBC News “protesters pushed past a police line, storming up steps to pound on the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court”. USA Today reported “Pro-Kavanaugh Senators now face unprecedented levels of threats. Colorado Senator Cory Gardner even said his family members’ names and addresses were shared online, and his wife was sent a graphic video of a beheading.”
• In the summer of 2020 riots, self-described as a “black insurrection”, convulsed American cities over a period of weeks. The riots included attacks on police, and attempts to burn or occupy police stations and courthouses.
• In 1965 the Watts Riots occurred in Los Angeles. The first sentence in the Wikipedia article says the riots are “sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising”. According to Wikipedia, the efforts of 14,000 National Guard personnel were required to end the riots, which resulted in 34 deaths and $40 million in property damage.
• Worst of all in my feeble and incomplete list were the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, also described in Wikipedia as an insurrection or uprising. In the Wikipedia summary the toll included 63 deaths and property damage over $1 billion.

So how do we compare this list of political violence by the left, with the recent right-wing mob assault on the Capitol? My opinion, the Capitol mob is nowhere near the most severe.

Clearly there’s some “group think” going on. For example Associated Press, formerly a news service, is now posting opinion articles, without labeling them as ‘opinion’: Race double standard clear in rioters’ Capitol insurrection. This piece is worth a blog post all on its own. Part of the problem seems to be the idea that violence in favor of left-wing causes is acceptable, or maybe even good. I’d prefer that we re-consecrate the idea that all political violence is bad. No exceptions. Clearly we’re not there today.

The Bottom Line
There’s been a fair amount of political violence in the course of US history. It may have begun in Washington’s administration with the Whiskey Rebellion. Maybe it began earlier – the American Revolution! (One of my favorite sayings is “This is not flipping Canada!”.) Two points:

• Let’s not suggest or believe that political violence is uniquely or mostly a right wing thing.
• Let’s all agree that political violence, left or right, is not acceptable. It should stop.

I’ll start by defining terms. By ‘life’ I mean “your existence as a living organism”. So if you choose to end your existence donating to an organ bank, that’s included in the discussion. With ‘meaning’ I did some research, looking into the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, 4th edition, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968 edition. The encyclopedia has a nice half-page article on meaning, the topic falling in sequence between ‘mean’ and ‘measles’. My sense for ‘meaning’ is “intent or purpose”.

Be Happy
You could choose your purpose in life as “to be happy”. Good luck with that. One problem I call ‘Ms. Wichowski’s Dilemma’, named for my 10th grade history teacher, who told us the story of the 3 Snickers bars. The first one is yummy and makes you lust after the second one, which isn’t quite as good. Eat the third one and it will be a while before you eat another; your taste for Snickers bars is sated. Ms. Wichowski was warning us that happiness is subject to a lot of constraints, including the limits and variability of appetite.

A life spent in pursuit of happiness seems risky and unwise. Socrates is quoted as saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. A life spent in pursuit of happiness would probably be an unexamined life. But that won’t stop us.

A Chance to Achieve
Pursue some goal. Travel. Be a great practitioner in some field – basketball, writing, or neurology. Climb Everest or go to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Be a great spouse or parent. This item on my list of purposes might be just a riff on “be happy”. Find a pursuit that justifies a life. What would that be? This seems to be a riskier and more disciplined version of “be happy”.

You want to achieve something transcendent? You can’t play it safe. See Joshua Slocum and Vincent van Gogh.

Be of Use
Credit this one to Joyce Carol Oates who has one of her characters say “we are here on earth to be of use”; to which the response is “what kind of use, for whose use, at what price to the user”?

We’re making progress. I like this purpose; but who gets to decide whether a specified purpose is good or bad, useful or destructive? Take three very different examples: Chief Joseph, Andrew Carnegie, and Adolf Hitler. I’m sure Hitler thought he was a savior of the German people. Andrew Carnegie had a distinguished record of good works, but imagine how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would describe the Scottish industrialist. Chief Joseph was thrust into a role he did not choose, and arguably led his people to disaster.

Relieve Suffering
Credit this purpose to a lecture by Prof. Patrick Grim recorded on a Great Courses DVD. I see ‘relieve suffering’ as a refinement of ‘be of use’. It’s hard to quarrel with this purpose. I think of Sister Theresa and Martin Luther King.

This purpose is a rabbit hole, as described below, because of its Christian resonance. How do other cultures look at relief of suffering as a mission? Good, bad, foolhardy? You might begin by looking at the Wikipedia article on ‘suffering’ and scrolling down in that article to the section headed ‘Religion’.

Rabbit Holes
In determining the meaning of life there are rabbit holes, as in sources of unresolvable circular discussion that you never emerge from…

Determinism versus Free Will
How does the debate between determinism and free will affect your opinion on the meaning of life?
Determinism says that everything we do is determined by a. our biochemical makeup and b. our environment. We’re not responsible for either of those, so all of our actions are completely determined by previously existing or external causes. Free will, on the other hand says we are free to direct our own actions independently of necessity or fate.

It seems that if you’re a determinist, then the question of “the meaning of life” is illogical – there is no meaning, it’s all chemistry and physics. Pondering the meaning of life only applies if you believe in free will?

‘Meaning’ in Different Cultures
Is ‘the meaning of life’ a question for Muslims or Buddhists? If you’re a devout Catholic or an evangelical Protestant, does the Bible provide a ready-made definition for the meaning of life?

Does life have Meaning for a Rabbit or Chimp?
If one can ask whether “meaning of life” is an issue for a Buddhist, imagine my confusion when wondering about higher mammals. There were press reports recently about killer whales attacking sailboats in the Pacific near South America. Does this imply that killer whales hold humans guilty for the decline of their environment, and consequently feel anger? If so, what does that imply about other thoughts killer whales might harbor?

Personally, I feel life has meaning for domesticated dogs and cats. What does that imply? Feel free to discuss among yourselves.

The Bottom Line
My own personal purpose for life at this moment is a combination of the first three “meanings” described above.

The fourth one, which I can’t buy into is “relieve suffering”. I’m confident I could relieve suffering by providing pain killers to the terminally ill, but we’re not allowed to do that. I can only hope someone will do it for me, legal or not. Outside of that narrow case I’m so weary and cynical that I have no confidence in my ability to relieve anyone’s suffering without making things worse in the end.

Regarding “relieve suffering”, see the case of Chief Joseph. He tried to help, but couldn’t. Was it worth it for the Nez Perce and Chief Joseph?

Here’s a question: if someone deliberately infects you with a “universally fatal illness”, albeit an illness that is treatable and where treatment might allow you to “survive many years” – is that properly a misdemeanor or a felony?

I don’t know about tuberculosis or Ebola, but if the disease is AIDS, in Washington state it is now a misdemeanor. Previously it was a felony but HB1551, signed by Gov. Inslee on 3/21/20, downgraded it to a misdemeanor. Why was the law changed in Washington? Two reasons were cited:

1. Broadly reduce the stigma associated with AIDS.
2. A sense that the old law was counter-productive in that a. it actually increased the rate of HIV transmission, and b. it discouraged people from getting tested and into treatment.

Still, reducing the severity of the crime seems to ignore the impact of the crime on the victim. Intentionally risking someone’s life is worthy of a felony charge.

“I’m of the mind that if you purposefully inflict another with a disease that alters their lifestyle the rest of their life, puts them on a regimen of medications to maintain any kind of normalcy, it should be a felony. It’s absolutely crazy to me that we should go light on this.”
—Is California Governor Jerry Brown Allowing HIV-Positive People to Donate Blood?

What do we call the people that commit these assaults? They’re not rapists or murderers. I’ll call them “AIDS assailants”. There have been a couple of notorious incidents of serial ‘AIDS assailants’, documented below by bbc.com, washingtonpost.com, and nydailynews.com.

–Daryll Rowe: “Maybe you have the fever. I came inside you and I have HIV LOL. Oops!” Rowe texted to one partner, while he reportedly said to another in a phone call, “I ripped the condom. You’re so stupid. You didn’t even know.”
–Thomas Miguel Guerra: “has been accused of intentionally exposing dozens of other men to the deadly disease.”
–David Dean Smith: “admitted he had unprotected sex with “thousands” of partners with the intention of killing them by infecting them with the virus.”

Apparently, part of the motivation for the downgrade from felony to misdemeanor was a desire to benefit AIDS sufferers and the LGBTQ community, which are priorities in the progressive playbook. There are also movements to reduce prison populations, and for sentencing reform (IOW – reducing sentences across the board). For progressives, both fit neatly with making sex crimes a lower priority for law enforcement:

“one of the fastest growing groups of American prisoners [is] those convicted of sex crimes. “A sex offense can be flashing, or raping and murdering a child,” Gottschalk said. “We’re having a quiet war on sex offenders now, and very few people are saying we have to stop that war.”
—How to Cut the Prison Population by 50 Percent

If someone deliberately infects you or me with Ebola, they should be fitted with concrete overshoes and tossed off a pier.
If someone deliberately infects you or me with TB, they should be tossed into a pit of vipers.
If someone infects you or me with AIDS, it’s a misdemeanor?

What are courts going to do when confronted by serial ‘AIDS assailants’, as documented earlier in this post? In my reading of the bill there is no provision for second or third offenses.

The Bottom Line
I’m completely in favor of improving treatment for AIDS victims, but downgrading AIDS assault to misdemeanor status devalues victims and benefits assailants. That’s wrong.