Dark Thoughts
Maybe it's just me. There's a new kerfluffle on the insta-net over the following fantasy post, of which I will now re-post the offending portion:
"WASHINGTON-January 6, 2004. A paramilitary organization calling itself the Christian Liberation Front changed the balance of power in Washington by a pair of brutal attacks this afternoon. A force estimated at about 200 CLF commandos stormed the Supreme Court building, killing 35 people, including five Supreme Court Justices. At the same time, a contingent of 1,000 CLF paramilitaries attacked the Hart Senate Office Building, where a Senate Democratic Caucus meeting was being held. Approximately 50 people were killed in the attack. Once the commandos had seized the building, they systematically killed Democratic senators from states with Republican governors. Here is a list of the 21 senators killed:
[If you want the list of Senators go to the original here.]
Joe Lieberman was campaigning in South Carolina, and missed the assassins. The attackers turned themselves in to police, and are proudly confessing their crimes, cooperating with authorities.
If the governors appoint Republican replacements, there will be 72 Republicans in the US Senate until replacement elections can be held. Even if a few Democrats are named, there will be likely at least 60 votes to vote for cloture and appoint replacements for the slain Supreme Court justices, changing the balance of power on the court."
Even Glenn Reynolds calls the offender Mark Byron drunk and says that he should be ashamed. The comments have gone kerflooey. People that should know better, including my favorite (no, really) professor, seem to be ignoring some basic tenets of writing, thinking, psychology, and criticism.
The poster says immediately before, and after the above, that he does not think the scenario is proper, correct, or even a good idea. He admits that he has dark thoughts. These dark thoughts, psychologically speaking, are a part of EVERYONE'S makeup. Jung refers to them as part of the Shadow. When one denies these thoughts or urges, they become repressed, and have a tendency to come out unwanted in certain unbidden actions. These form our collective neurosis. The way to deal with them is to recognize them, admit them, and denounce them. This is what the poster does. The reactions speak more to the commenter's repressed thoughts than they do to Byron's.
I'm especially confused by Glenn's comparison of Byron to Ted Rall. Mr. Rall doesn't qualify his rantings, nor invite criticism. In fact he seems to revel in his own dark thoughts and encourage others to think just like he does, and when criticism is leveled, gets pretty nasty. (Sorry, not gonna link to his stuff-Google "Free Dirty Danny" if you're interested). Mostly, as a college professor close up and personal with PC think, and popular campus attitudes toward conservative or religious exposition, methinks he came down hard on Mr. Byron.
I suppose the timing of this flap has something to do with my thoughts. Last night my roommate watched 'Enemy of the State,' a good film with Gene Hackman and Will Smith. This 'fantasy scenario' had a Republican Senator assassinated by the NSA because he broke with his party to vote against a Republican bill allowing Republicans to spy on ordinary American citizens. The whole premise of the film was 'Republicans want to spy on you and take away your privacy using war and terrorism as an excuse.' Enemy was chockablock full of anti-Replublican stuff, including a Larry King snippet.
I daresay that this 'fantasy scenario' is the common wisdom of way too many people, and, it seems, film makers. When a thoughtful blogger brings out into the open thoughts, which, to me, are an ordinary emotional response to the barrage of decades of cultural attacks, and then says that even though he has these thoughts, disavows them, they should be discussed, not dismissed as drunken rantings. No one is pure, and very few writers can express complicated emotions to the point of clarity to all (or even most) readers. Witness my convoluted prose herein.
As the culture wars heat to a rolling boil, I would encourage both sides to examine their inner dialogue. I have no doubt there are others that share the occasional dark thought about realigning the Senate during these filibustering times, or even the Court, with Justices citing precedent from European law instead of our own. After all, our country was founded by a bunch of lawyers that turned Continental law inside out and on its ear to form our own version of jurisprudence.
Plus, I gotta have a space to flesh out and publish my own inner demons.
