God’s Gunner’s, Booty Bandits, & Bad Boys
By R25288 ( c ) 2006-2007
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Violations Continue
“And said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in judgment.
“Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.”
II Chronicles 19: 6 & 7
“Security is mostly a superstitution. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it….Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure….Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
Helen Keller
I watched as he urinated upon himself. It is one of our last acts. It occurs simultaneously when the soul leaves our bodies. It is the end of earthly life. He was nineteen years old. His name was Ed. He had hung himself in the bathroom. It was during shift change, an opportune time that he had figured out. It was in a psychiatric facility. The code had been called, and I ran to his room, and assisted staff as we lifted him down, and administered CPR. I was a Supervisor. How had I missed the clues? The day before he began giving away his prized possessions. That was a clue.
In life, there are clues to systemic violence, and injustice, to those who are educated enough to know what, and how to look for them. If you can vote, as I no longer can, vote for those who oppose systemic violence, in all its forms.
My first street fighting occured on 28th St., just north of Ingersoll Ave., in Des Moines, when I was sixteen years old. My friend, Marc, and I were attacked by three other young men. Marc took on the biggest, and the other two came at me. I kicked one in the groin, which lifted him off the ground, and landed him on his back, in the street. The other one I managed to maneuver into a headlock, and proceeded to pound his head into the side of a car door. The sound of a siren ended the conflict. Later, we all became friends. Isn’t conflict strange, Virginia? Last week, I bought a pair of shorts from Targets, that were made in Vietnam. Yesterday’s enemy is today’s business partner.
I have received public and private training in self defense. I have been in riots in maximum security as law enforcement. I have disarmed assailants. I have triumphed in hand to hand combat. I abhor violence, and I know how to kill, but I refuse to do so.
I currently live in Clearwater, Florida, in a neighborhood that the St. Petersburg Times refers to as, “a blighted neighborhood”(3-19-07,page 4B). I’m glad they told me. I have lived here for over a year now, and I would never had known. I considered the projects of Lexington, Kentucky, as blighted, not here, but what do I know.
I watch daily as they walk by my second story apartment window. They have ragged, torn, and ripped faces, from years of alcoholism, drug abuse, poverty, mental illness, despair, and age. They carry their worldly possessions with them. Sometimes, they are young, with children. They come in all sizes, ages, and races. They are our homeless.
I have slept next to them, lived with them, walked among them day and night, and loved them. They have never harmed me. Some stop, drop their worldly treasures, point to the sky, and mutter to themselves.
FBI statistics will inform you that first floor apartments have more crime than second, or higher floor apartments. The criminal mind is usually a lazy mind. The first floor is more convenient.
It was Monday, March 19th, 2007, and I had been doing research and writing on my computer. It was approximately 8pm. I was home alone; the windows were closed and locked; the door was locked and bolted. I had done my normal security checks earlier, and I knew that I was safe, or so I thought.
All my years of training; all my education, and experience had not prepared me for what was about to happen. I had uncensored rap playing on my Bright House channel on the TV, in the living room. The lights were on; the temperature was perfect. I got up from my computer, stripped, and walked to the bathroom. I now was totally vulnerable. All the curtains were drawn. I opened the clear shower curtain, and stepped into the tub, drew the curtain closed, turned the shower on, let it warm up, and enjoyed my shower. I stepped out, and dried off with my blue towel. I placed the wet towel back on the towel rack, and walked back to my bedroom, totally naked.
I walked into my bedroom, and there he was. I froze in my tracks. Where had he come from? I never heard him. It is the nightmare, where you can’t scream, or move. You are paralized in fear. He moved faster than I had ever seen anyone move. The violation had occurred. He had entered the most private of sanctuaries, my home. He had come unannounced, or invited. He meant me ill will. As fast as he was moving, I was recording it all. That is what I do. The computer in my mind, better than any computer in the world was observing, analyzing, interpreting, and developing a survival strategy. He had invaded my home, my bedroom, and my life was in jeopardy. I grabbed the knife in his hand, and we struggled…”What the,” I said, as I felt his power. I knew then that he was stronger than I. I pushed the knife away from my body, and he pushed it closer to my heart. I could not believe what was was happening, but I saw it all, and I felt his force. He was cold, calulating, impersonal, and I knew he had a sociopathic mind. This was it, I had met my match, I had no choice, it was him or me, and I, well today, I decided was not my day to die. I did what came natural, I dropped down to pull his ankle away from his body, to gain the upper hand. I saw imminent danger; it was a real threat; my life was in danger; deadly force was justified, and I, I exercised it with extreme prejudice. I jerked the power cord out of the wall, and the cursor that was his knife died on the screen. I had killed the hacker.
He had managed to change some of my settings to allow him future access to my computer. I corrected the violations. He came back, but was not allowed entrance. Was it the FBI, Homeland Security, CIA, Army Intelligence, Russian Mafia, or a lone hacker? What was his purpose? Ah, Virginia, these are perilous and precious times in which we live. I’m glad to be here, how about you?
Dad wrote in his book, Compassion:
Compassion in Philosophy
From the point of view of the Western World, it is interesting to note that our major religion (Christianity) had its roots in the Middle East, but our philosophy originated in Greece. Although Greece was geographically close to the middle East, its major philosopher (Plato) seemed to be more influenced by the ideas in the Indian religion than by those in the Middle Eastern religion of Judaism. This may be at least partly a function of the fact that Plato was developing his philosophy (based on the teaching of Socrates) when the Jews were exiled in Babylon.
In Plato’s Lysis, Socrates defined friendship in terms of loving one’s enemies as well as one’s friends. Socrates was arrested by the authorities of his time for teaching treason, corrupting the youth, and disbelieving in gods. At his trial (as recorded in Plato’s Apology he pleaded: “I do nothing but go about persuading you all not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul…. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.” While waiting for his execution(as recorded in Plato’s Crito), he said to a friend: “Not life, but a good life is chiefly to be valued…. We must injure no one at all…. We ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.” The principle of coherence and its standards of judging authentic values (universality, eternity, unity, honesty, and freedom) were clearly implied throughout the Platonic dialogues.
Spinoza, the Jewish philosopher, believed that the resonable man would desire nothing for himself that he did not desire for others as well; he would love his neighbor as himself. The British Utilitarians defined value as pleasure, and proposed that the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people was the standard for judging authentic values. American Pragmatists defined morality in terms of the best results for mankind as a whole. Existentialists have emphasized the close relationship between individual freedom and social responsibility: although man is free to choose for himself alone, every choice involves all mankind, so that the individual is responsible for others as well as himself. Marx assumed that man was naturally good, but readily corrupted by a selfish society. There should be a harmony of interest between the individual and community, and a close relationship between theory and practice.
Like the great religious teachers, the great philosophers have generally found altruism to be a more authentic value than egoism, but some philosophers(like some prophets) have extolled the value of egoism and the virtue of selfishness. Nietzche, for example, glorified egoism in his “master morality” of might makes right in opposition to the “slave moralities” of Judaism, Christianity, and Democracy, which he found contemptible: “Egoism belongs to the essence of the noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as ‘we,’ other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves.” The virtue of selfishness has been extolled in modern times by Ayn Rand, who defines what is right in terms of using oneself and one’s own property to please oneself alone. She emphatically denies any responsibility for others, except to please oneself. Selfishness is not supposed to hurt others in this philosophy, but the political implications of laissez-faire capitalism which she has drawn from her philosophy of selfishness would enable a few “superior” individuals to enjoy themselves at the expense of others.
In philosophy, as in religion, the issues are clearly drawn: compassion vs. compulsion, altruism vs. egoism, the principle of coherence vs. the principle of authority, and faith in human nature vs. lack of such faith.
Altruistic philosophers and prophets generally assumed that human nature was basically good and that the human mind was able to choose between good and evil. Individual freedom was assumed to generate its own sense of social responsibility, so that relatively democratic and permissive methods of education and government were recommended.
Egoistic philosphers and prophets generally assumed that human nature was basically evil and determined to be selfish. Although individual freedom was emphasized as much in egoism as in altrism, egoism denied responsibility for others. The morality of egoism clearly explicated the need for relatively autocratic and punitive methods of education and government to train and to make “inferior” individuals or groups stay in their proper social positions. Consequently, freedom was for the few, but not for the many, from this point of view.
The altuistic principle of coherence included universality, eternity, unity, honesty, and freedom for all, as standards for judging the authenticity of values. The egoistic principle for determining authenticity was simply the doctrine that might makes right. These basic principles provide the most basic definitions of compassion and compulsion, respectively.
The age-old conflict between authority and freedom goes on, with authority (in the Western world, at least) on the side of compulsive egoism and freedom on the side of compassionate altruism. How to overcome compulsion with compassion? is a question crying for some answers. The world is dying from lack of compassion. Can we be saved in time from destroying ourselves by ourselves? If so, How? When and Where? And who will do it?
I don’t know, Virginia, I think my old man asks a lot of questions. What do you think? During the depression, he spent time in a Texas jail for stealing a quart of milk. I wonder if we might be considered an organized crime family. Just a thought.
“Mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it.”
Plato
