More news from Baltimore about what may have caused Freddie Gray’s death

The New Neo Posted on by

The WaPo is reporting that a man who was being transported in the other side of the van that also was carrying Freddie Gray has told investigators he heard sounds that indicated Gray may have been trying to hurt himself while in custody:

…[The prisoner] told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.

I wouldn’t doubt it.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts has…said officers repeatedly ignored Gray’s pleas for medical help and failed to secure him with a safety belt or harness in the back of the transport van…

Batts has said officers violated policy by failing to properly restrain Gray. But the president of the Baltimore police union noted that the policy mandating seat belts took effect April 3 and was e-mailed to officers as part of a package of five policy changes on April 9, three days before Gray was arrested.

Gene Ryan, the police union president, said many officers aren’t reading the new policies ”“ updated to meet new national standards ”“ because they think they’re the same rules they already know, with only cosmetic changes. The updates are supposed to be read out during pre-shift meetings.

I wonder if what really happened will ever become clear. I’m fairly certain, however, that a lot of people will disbelieve the police no matter what they say. Once a meme gets going and people get fired up, nothing can undo it.

Perhaps we need to not only have cameras on the police, but cameras inside the vans too. Cameras, cameras everywhere And even then, people would still argue about what the cameras show and what it means.

There’s something tremendously sad about this:

The Baltimore neighborhood that saw the worst of the violence was already filled with many burned-out buildings and vacant lots that had not been rebuilt since the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

That’s almost 50 years ago.

[NOTE: See also this.]

Separated at birth?

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night I was watching a DVD of the movie “Black Orpheus,” and I noticed that Alexandro Constantino, who plays the role of the station master Hermes in the film, is a ringer for…well, first let’s look at the only photo I could find of Constantino as Hermes, the older man on the left here:

hermes

And here is his double, you-know-who:

freeman

Meet Eric O’Keefe, the man who challenged the John Doe investigations

The New Neo Posted on by

I was curious to learn more about Eric O’Keefe, the man who fought back by bringing suit against the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin. It seemed to me he must be a stalwart sort.

And then a few days later I saw him on one of the cable news stations and was even further impressed by his intelligence and ability to articulate his point of view, his courage, and the quiet and restrained manner in which he conveyed integrity:

We need more like him.

Here’s a bio of O’Keefe. Note that although he started out as an activist in the Libertarian Party, he came to the conclusion that third party was not the way to go.

The ladder of evil

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post. Unfortunately, it seems as though it’s always a timely subject.]

Commenter “Ymarsakar” once made an interesting observation:

When the world declares Jews, Republicans, and whites to be non humans that need to be exterminated to get rid of a threat to humanity, most people will Obey.

Most will. They have nothing in their spine that can resist the Power of the World and its numbers. Nothing.

I have a slightly different take on it. I’ve long conceptualized the whole thing as a hierarchy of evil and the resistance to it, a sort of ladder with many rungs. Here they are, in order from most evil to most dedicated to fighting evil:

Some people will conceptualize, plan, and implement it as leaders.

Some people will actively cooperate with vigor.

Some people will support it but not actively participate.

Some people will be indifferent unless it directly reaches them or their family.

Some people will be somewhat disturbed by it, but manage to put it out of their minds most of the time and go on with their lives.

Some people will be disturbed by it and contemplate various forms of resistance, but will be too frightened to act.

Some people will be disturbed by it and will decide to act in small ways to resist it, ways they consider lower risk.

Some people will be disturbed by it and will decide to take great risks in order to resist it, but could be stopped by threats (not necessarily threats to themselves, but threats to friends and family).

Some people will risk all to actively resist it in every way they can.

An example of the latter would be those Poles who continued their rescue efforts and resistance despite this type of retribution from the Nazis:

Poland was the only place where German law rendered any assistance to Jews punishable by death. That punishment was severe and collective: It was meted out not only to the rescuer but also to his entire family and to anyone else who knew about such activities and did not report them. Almost 1,000 Poles were killed this way, including entire families whose children were not spared.

When we talk about the prevalence of evil in humanity, and whether people are “good at heart,” this is what I think we’re actually discussing. What percentage of the population belongs to each group? I don’t know, but if I had to guess at the shape of a graph, it probably would be a normal distribution—that is, the biggest bump would be in the middle groups, with much smaller numbers for the beginning and ending rungs of the ladder of evil.

So what causes the difference among the groups? Why is a person in one rather than another? Darned if I know, but I have ideas. Some of it probably has to do with devotion to something beyond oneself, which could be religion (in certain circumstances it could even be Communism—in Poland, for example, many of the resisters to the Nazis were Communists). This can lead to good or to evil (such as the 9/11 terrorists). Many of the differences among groups almost certainly involve personal traits that are some combination of nature and nurture, such as the extent of the devotion to liberty. And although psychopaths/sociopaths (the ladder’s first couple of rungs) are often born, certain societies in certain times can be especially effective at fostering and encouraging and promoting them, and using them most fully to further goals of the group rather than just goals of the individual psychopath/sociopath.

In the end, though, there is something mysterious about it all: the problem of evil, with which humankind has been wrestling for aeons.

Boo hoo

The New Neo Posted on by

This article claims that women are “silenced” in online conversations. And yet, when you read it, you discover that what is meant is that women just don’t post as often as men in online forums. That somehow translates into “silenced”?

Because of course, if women aren’t participating with complete parity in a particular venue, it means that someone’s out to get them. Excuse me while a weep a few crocodile tears.

I am really heartily sick of this “I am woman, hear me roar, but if anyone hurts my feelings, hear me whine.”

As a female political blogger I’m somewhat of a rara avis. I haven’t done a study, but there’s little question in my mind that the ratio of male political bloggers to female ones is high. The blogosphere can be a rough and even intimidating place, as I well know after ten years of blogging. But I certainly wouldn’t think of blaming anyone for “silencing” me because they’re being verbally insulting or nasty.

Whatever happened to “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”?

SCOTUS will be ruling on same-sex marriage

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve learned that speculation on how SCOTUS will rule is pretty worthless. And yet we’re all tempted to do it.

But this one has me stumped, and I cannot even make a prediction except to say the liberals on the court will rule for it. I’m not sure about swing Justice Kennedy (see this), or Justice Roberts, but I’m pretty sure the others will rule against it.

There are really three main issues with same-sex marriage and they need to be distinguished from each other. The first is: is it a good thing? In other words, would you vote for it if the question of legalizing it came up in your state? This isn’t what the Supreme Court is deciding, but people sometimes get confused about that fact.

The second is: is prohibiting gay marriage unconstitutional? In other words, if a state wanted to ban it, does that violate the Equal Rights clause of Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution? That is really the main issue before the Supreme Court justices, not what their personal opinions on gay marriage might be.

The third issue is whether the rights of religious people can be protected if SCOTUS establishes a right to gay marriage. Will it be used to persecute religious people who provide services and don’t want to be part of a gay marriage? Freedom of religion is one of the bulwarks of our country, and it has become crystal clear in recent months that it’s being threatened by the forces who want gay marriage to be not only legal, but require that every person in the country must be willing to actively facilitate it.

The constitutional issue is stated here:

…[T]he Supreme Court has made it clear that the guarantee of equal treatment within the equal protection clause does not mean that governments cannot ever treat different people differently. States need not permit children to drive cars, for example, nor must they allow senior citizens to enroll in grammar school. As a basic rule, the Court has said that it is reasonable for states to build categories or classifications into the laws that they pass, and in fact, the “rational basis test” is one of the standards used by the courts to determine whether these classifications are fair. Also known as the Lindsley test, this standard says that if the reasons for treating people differently are reasonable and logically related to the law’s purpose, then they are constitutional. Opponents of gay marriage insist that there is a rational basis (usually, they argue, rooted in cultural or religious tradition) for restricting marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman.

But the Court has also held that certain types of laws need to pass a tougher standard than the Lindsley test; certain types of classifications within the law are more suspicious and require closer scrutiny. In particular, the Court has said that America’s history of racial oppression requires that all laws employing racial classifications must be more rigorously examined by the courts. Consequently, it is far less likely that these sorts of laws will survive judicial scrutiny. On occasion, the Court has also applied this heightened level of scrutiny to state laws using classifications based not only on race but also on citizenship. And in recent decades, the Court has developed an intermediate standard for evaluating laws employing gender classifications. Statutes that treat men and women differently must be more than merely reasonable, they “must serve important governmental objectives,” and the differing treatments of men and women “must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.”

In terms of gay marriage, the critical issue thus becomes the level of scrutiny that laws affecting gays and lesbians should receive. Are gays, like racial minorities, considered a “suspect” class in terms of constitutional law? Does the court rigorously scrutinize laws impacting them? Or do laws that create classifications based on sexual orientation receive a lesser degree of vigilance, like those based on age? Should the courts then apply the lowest level of scrutiny, the rational basis test? Or do they impose an intermediate standard like the one used to examine laws incorporating gender classifications?

The short answer is that, thus far, gays and lesbians have not been considered a suspect class by the Supreme Court; laws impacting them are today subject only to the lowest level of scrutiny.

My own opinion, for what it’s worth, is that the Fourteenth Amendment does not cover this, and that it should be left up to the states. But the Supreme Court isn’t asking me.

How did Freddie Gray sustain a severe neck injury?

The New Neo Posted on by

Freddie Gray died of a very severe spinal cord injury. But how he sustained that injury is unknown, and that is an all-important question.

Like many of the men in recent incidents where police treatment of black men have gotten so much coverage and caused so much controversy, Gray had a rap sheet. But unlike some, he didn’t forcibly resist arrest nor did he attack an officer. He did run away and was chased and subdued. After that, the record is murky.

We have fragmentary videos. In one, as he is being dragged to the van, it looks like his legs are limp, but then he stands with his weight on his legs for a moment prior to being placed in the vehicle, so it appears he wasn’t badly injured at that point; certainly not the neck injury that would have made him not just a paraplegic but a quadriplegic.

His severe injury seems to have occurred in the van, where (contrary to police protocol) officers failed to buckle him in. It is also clear (and admitted by police) that they failed to get him medical attention in a timely fashion, even though he was asking for it and clearly needed it. But there is no report of the van having an accident or a rough stop. And although there are quite a few eyewitnesses to the earlier interaction between police and Gray, there is no coherent story and we know that witnesses are often incorrect or even lying, as in Ferguson.

One similarity to Ferguson is that, because there is an ongoing investigation of the police’s actions, not much information is being given out. Into the vacuum comes speculation of all kinds, although it’s not clear that any information the police might have offered would be believed anyway.

Gray’s injury was to the vertebrae at the neck:

Gray’s family has said he underwent surgery at Maryland Shock Trauma Center for three fractured neck vertebrae and a crushed voice box ”” injuries doctors said are more common among the elderly or victims of high-speed crashes.

Medical experts said it takes powerful blunt force, and often damage to the vertebrae that surround the spinal cord, to tear or sever it.

“You have to apply a significant amount of force in order to break somebody’s neck,” said Dr. Ali Bydon, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

In other words, with a neck injury of this magnitude, you ordinarily have to have more than ordinary police roughing up (or even a beating) or a minor car accident with some jostling. It is also clear that whatever police did before putting him in the van, the evidence is that he was not yet paralyzed from the neck down. So, what happened?

Baltimore ablaze

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s anarchy in Baltimore, and the leaders of the city don’t seem to have a clue what to do about it.

Many articles here. See also this.

The major had a message that sounded bizarre:

So, the city government “gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.” I guess that’s an excellent description of what actually happened; the missing piece is: why? Was it fear of cops hurting someone else and creating further disturbance and riots? Or was it some sort of misplaced respect for rioting criminals, and reluctance to impose any sort of order at all? Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s seeming lack of urgency or force in terms of her demeanor is extremely odd as well, given what’s going on in her city.

Fortunately, just a few hours ago the mayor said something quite different, and called out the National Guard, although her affect was still oddly passive:

What was the delay about? Did the authorities really think that giving people space to “destroy” would satisfy them? They certainly were given a great deal of space, and by now a great deal of destruction has already occurred.

NOTE: I just watched an interview with the mayor where she said she never indicated she would give people space to destroy, and that anyone who said so is twisting her words. This seemed very odd to me, as well, because I couldn’t see any other possible interpretation, of her words. But then suddenly I had a “Eureka!” moment. Here’s the full quote:

I’ve made it very clear that I work with the police, and instructed them to do everything that they could to make sure that the protesters could exercise their right to free speech. It’s a very delicate balancing act because while we tried to make sure they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that, as well. And we worked very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to deescalate. And that’s what you saw.

I think what she meant to say was something like this: “It’s a very delicate balancing act because while we tried to make sure [those peacefully exercising their rights of free speech protests] were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also [inadvertantly and unintentionally] gave those who wished to destroy space to do that, as well.”

The mayor was too passive in the face of riots and anarchy, and has shown impressively and remarkably poor judgment, but I do not think she knowingly stood back with the goal of allowing the city to be destroyed. However, no one’s twisting her words; she twisted them herself. A public official has to be very very careful to say what he/she means and to mean what he/she says.

Her words wouldn’t have mattered as much, though, if her actions had been the correct ones. It’s also not clear who is most responsible for the failure of the Baltimore police to act in a timely fashion, Rawlings-Blake or the police commissioner. Or both.

[ADDENDUM: I’m seeing footage of the National Guard arriving in the city. I also just heard an interview with Rawlings-Blake that basically agrees with what I wrote above about what she had actually been trying to say when she made the “space to destroy” remark. However, she is defending herself by saying she had made it completely clear in her original statement. About that, she is quite mistaken.]

A child but not a child

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a stirring story of another courageous rescuer during World War II and the Holocaust:

In an emotional ceremony on Tuesday, the Holocaust memorial Rabbi Lau now chairs posthumously granted Feodor Mikhailichenko Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews.

“This closes a circle of 64 years. You look for this person, to whom you owe your life, and you don’t know whom to thank,” said Rabbi Lau, 72. “He was my childhood hero. A man with a huge soul and a heart of gold.”

Rabbi Lau had previously identified a fellow inmate, a non-Jewish Russian named Feodor, as his savior in the Buchenwald concentration camp, but he never learned the 18-year-old’s full name. He said Feodor stole and cooked potatoes for him, knitted him wool earmuffs to protect him from the bitter cold and lay on top of him as gunfire erupted when the camp was liberated on Apr. 11, 1945. At the time, Lau was an 8-year-old boy nicknamed Lulek.

“Feodor, the Russian, looked after me in the daily life like a father would for a son. His concern and feeling of responsibility gave me a sense of security,” Lau wrote in his 2005 autobiography.

Mikhailichenko grew so close to Rabbi Lau that he wanted to adopt him as a son. But Rabbi Lau kept his word to his murdered family and emigrated to pre-state Israel on a ship of orphaned refugee children. He lost track of Mikhailichenko and despite many efforts could never trace him again.

Lau later became the chief rabbi of Israel.

I have noticed that in the case of Jewish children who were saved by the kindness of non-Jews, a number of factors often seemed to be present. The child was usually very bright, and had an especially winning and courageous personality. The protectors sometimes already had children and families themselves, but sometimes they were people such as Mikhailichenko who were alone (some had lost their own families), and the child came to symbolize family and love for them. Helping the child was one of the only ways they could assert some sort of control over their dreadful situation and maintain a sense of their own moral and spiritual integrity.

Israel Lau seems to have been a very unusual child, wise for his age. Some of that was due to the fact that he had experiences no child should ever have, experiences that—if survived—would make one grow up very quickly. However, they are so harrowing they could have caused permanent emotional and physical damage of a very severe sort.

A few years ago Lau wrote a memoir. The following is an excerpt from it describing the liberation of Buchenwald, the camp where Lau was at the end of the war. Rabbi Schacter was an American rabbi who was with the forces liberating the camp, and he found Lau hiding behind a stack of dead bodies:

In full army uniform, Rabbi Schacter got down from his jeep and stood before the pile of bodies. Many of them were still bleeding. Suddenly he thought he saw a pair of eyes, wide open and alive. He panicked, and with a soldier’s instinct, he drew his pistol. Slowly, carefully, he began to circle the pile of bodies. Then””and this I recall clearly””he bumped into me, a little boy, staring at him from behind the mound of corpses, wide-eyed. His face revealed his astonishment: in the midst of the killing fields, from within that sea of blood””suddenly, a child appears! I did not move. But he knew that no child in this place could be anything but Jewish. He holstered his pistol, then grabbed me with both hands and caught me in a fatherly embrace, lifting me in his arms. In Yiddish, with a heavy American accent, he asked me: “Wie alt bist du, mein kindt? How old are you, my boy?”

I saw tears dripping from his eyes. Still, through force of habit, I answered cautiously, like someone perpetually on guard: “What difference does it make? At any rate, I’m older than you.” He smiled at me from behind his tears, and asked, “Why do you think that you’re older than I am?” Without hesitating, I replied, “Because you laugh and cry like a child, and I haven’t laughed for a long time. I can’t even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?”

I’ll tell one more story of Lau’s, this one describing something that occurred when he first arrived in a labor camp at Czestochowa when Lau was seven years old. Although the Nazis usually killed all children who arrived at the camps, Lau had survived due to the protection, courage, and quick-thinking of his older brother Naphtali (who also ended up surviving the war, although the rest of his family did not):

But, the trouble was far from over: “One day, the Gestapo camp commander bellowed out in anger, ”˜Wozu brauch ich diese dreckigen dicken Jungen, die sind nicht produktiv! (What do I need these filthy kids for, they are totally useless!) All they do is eat.’”

Listen to Rabbi Lau recount his first public speaking opportunity, the first in a long career but his most important, by far. “His words pounded in my head like hammers,” he writes. “I do not know what exactly came over me, who gave me the courage to open my mouth, or who put the words into it. I spoke up, ”˜Why does the commandant say such things about us? That we are useless? That we are incapable? For twelve hours a day in Hortensia, the glass factory in Piotrkow, I pushed a cart with sixty bottles of water and that was already a year ago. Now, I’m older and I can do more. We have a right to live, too.’

“Kiesling turned red with fury and ordered all eleven children to be brought immediately to Gestapo headquarters. In short order, the Nazi decided that each child could be redeemed for 1,000 marks and would remain alive for the time being. Where does one get so much money?”

Once again, his mother saved his life, although she was not there. She had equipped Naphtali with two diamonds and a gold watch. This time, he used the smaller diamond which was implanted in a hole in his back tooth and covered with a crown. “Rosensweig, the Jewish commandant, presented it to Kiesling, and, in exchange, I received my life.”

Ian Reisner learns what it means to step outside the strict boundaries of the new orthodoxy

The New Neo Posted on by

Ian Reisner, a New York hotelier who identifies as gay, is pro-gay marriage, and owns gay-friendly hotels with names like “OUT NYC,” has experienced the wrath of the gay marriage absolutists.

What on earth did Mr. Reisner do to cause the threat of a boycott of his properties? Nothing more or less than “hosting a non-fundraising ‘fireside chat’ with Ted Cruz.”

Perhaps I should have written “fire-breathing demon Ted Cruz,” whose besetting crime (at least as best I can tell) is that he opposes gay marriage but believes the issue should be left to the states, and has no problem with gay people whatsoever. I believe that leaving it to the states is at the moment the official law of the land, until the Supreme Court rules otherwise, which it may be about to do but perhaps not. And up until a very short while ago opposition to gay marriage was so common and so commonly accepted that even President Obama and Hillary Clinton had to at least pretend to hold that position.

A few days ago, Ted Cruz said this:

Speaking at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Summit, Cruz said that in the new Democratic Party, there would [not] be any room for Christians. It has “become so radicalized for legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states that there is no longer any room for religious liberty,” he argued.

Borrowing a concept from the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, Cruz said blamed an incipient “liberal fascism” for the increase in attacks on Christians in America today. “It is heartbreaking,” he said, “but it is so extreme.”

That does seem to be the way this is going—and I say this as a person who does not oppose gay marriage (but believes it should be left to the states) and as a non-Christian. The forces of political correctness are not benign.

But Cruz did not go far enough when he said the attacks were on Christians. They are on anyone who would dare oppose gay marriage, or who fails to spout the leftist political orthodoxy of the day. In fact, they fall on someone such as Reisner, who is in favor of gay marriage and completely PC, and yet who dares to host a chat with someone who differs from that opinion. A person like Reisner must have his livelihood destroyed as punishment.

But first he must be humbled and made an example of, and maybe, just maybe, the PC forces will relent. Reisner has issued an abject apology in hopes of fending off the wolves:

I am shaken to my bones by the e-mails, texts, postings and phone calls of the past few days. I made a terrible mistake. I was ignorant, naive and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruz at my home without taking the time to completely understand all of his positions on gay rights. I’ve spent the past 24 hours reviewing videos of Cruz’ statements on gay marriage and I am shocked and angry. I sincerely apologize for hurting the gay community and so many of our friends, family, allies, customers and employees. I will try my best to make up for my poor judgement. Again, I am deeply sorry.

This article makes it clear that many will never forgive Reisner for his transgression. He has fraternized with the enemy. The Purge continues.

I have a dream. It’s a small one, but it’s mine. I dream that, after reasserting his own pro-gay-marriage position, and describing his support for gays in his business and his personal life, Reisner had stood up for liberty and said something like this:

But do you understand what you are doing when, instead of just disagreeing with people like Cruz, you demonize them and also demonize and persecute anyone who would give them a forum in which to speak? You are marching down a road that others before you have trod, and it ends in the killing fields where you murder those with whom you disagree.

You think I exaggerate? Perhaps. But if you study history you will see that most of the movements that end in gulags began in idealism. There are not as many steps along the way from one to the other as you might think. Beware of taking them.

It is a profound shock to a person who knows/believes he/she is on the side of right (in this case, Reisner’s history as a proponent of gay marriage), and who thinks that will protect him, to find out otherwise. But once “liberal fascism” is unleashed it’s hard to stop it. Reisner is probably learning that now, perhaps for the very first time.

Reisner isn’t the only one, either. His partner Mati Weiderpass said his own mea culpa. In a way, Weiderpass’ statement was even more revealing than Reisner’s:

“I share in Ian’s remorse. I, too, lay humbled with what has happened in the last week,” he wrote on Facebook. “I made a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, I cannot undo this. You taught me a painful but important lesson. The people that know me know the work that I have done over the last 20 years for the advancement of gay rights. Today, I came to realize that I might have nullified my past efforts and accomplishments in just one week. On the eve of this momentous legal occasion at the Supreme Court, I dedicate myself to work even harder to advance our cause that I share with the LGBT community; our community. Again, to all that I have hurt, please accept my sincerest apologies.”

In other words, he had thought that twenty years of pro-gay activism was enough to shield him from the suspicion that he had betrayed the cause merely by hosting a discussion with someone who holds a different view. He has since discovered how wrong he was, and he promises to toe the line from now on.

Looking at the comments to that article I just quoted, the very first one I see (I can’t find a way to link to it) says this, which gives you an idea of the flavor of what’s happening:

Let’s face it. You screwed up big time. You made the worst mistake you could have possibly made. You showed your true colors. We ALL now know that you love only yourselves and your money.

You are true wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Your involvement in the gay community is nothing more than a tax write off, done for publicity to further your financial gain and not to truly help, assist, promote or support any gay causes.

You could care less that the gay community is oppressed, discriminated against, harassed, or even if they have equal rights under the constitution.

You BIT OFF the hand that feeds you!

It will be a cold day in hell before you ever see a dime of my money and I believe now that the rest of our community sees you for what you really are, you won’t see any more of their money, either.

I think all Log Cabin Republicans should be burned at the stake. They love only their money, first and foremost and any one that loves their money so much they would sell their own community down the road to keep it cannot possibly know a love of humanity.

Money is a cold bed fellow. Good luck making any more of it from us.

Your apology is to little, to late. We’ve seen your snarl and felt the bite of your fangs, we won’t make the same mistake again by taking you at your false face value. You’ll have to do a hell of a lot better than an apology.

Well, during the Great Purges many people actually were executed. I wonder whether that would be enough for the commenter I just quoted?

purge

[NOTE: The above cartoon is a contemporaneous British commentary on the purges.]

[ADDENDUM: See also this.]

The first hippies: Fruitlands

The New Neo Posted on by

I was on a road trip a little while ago and passed the site of Fruitlands, which I recalled as the failed Utopian community the Transcendentalists began in the mid-1800s. The setting is lovely, overlooking a panoramic view of the hills beyond. Here it is in fall:

frutilands

The founders of Fruitlands weren’t a practical sort, but you can’t say they didn’t have ideals:

Their goal was to regain access to Eden by finding the correct formula for perfect living, following specific rules governing agriculture, diet, and reproduction…Calling themselves a “consociate family”, they agreed to follow a strict vegetarian diet and to till the land without the use of animal labor. After some difficulty, they relented and allowed some cattle to be “enslaved”. They also banned coffee, tea, alcoholic drinks, milk, and warm bathwater. They only ate “aspiring vegetables” ”” those which grew upward ”” and refused those that grew downward like potatoes. As Alcott had published earlier, “Our wine is water, ”” flesh, bread; ”” drugs, fruits.” For clothing, they prohibited leather because animals were killed for it, as well as cotton, silk, and wool, because they were products of slave labor. Alcott had high expectations but was often away when the community most needed him as he attempted to recruit more members.

The experimental community was never successful, partly because most of the land was not arable. Alcott lamented, “None of us were prepared to actualize practically the ideal life of which we dreamed. So we fell apart.”

Intellectuals.

Egad.

The group at Fruitlands also didn’t believe in purchasing property and in fact wanted to eliminate economic activity in general. Their vegetarianism was extreme enough to have extended to a refusal to eat honey. This shows more of the sort of idealistic thinking that was incompatible with the self-sufficient survival of which the founders dreamed [emphasis mine]:

Fruitlands members wore only linen clothes and canvas shoes; cotton fabric was forbidden because it exploited slave labor and wool was banned because it came from sheep. Bronson Alcott and [co-founder] Lane believed that animals should not be exploited for their meat or their labor, so they used no animals for farming. This arose out of two beliefs: that animals were less intelligent than humans and that, therefore, it was the duty of humans to protect them; and that using animals “tainted” their work and food, since animals were not enlightened and therefore unclean. Eventually, as the winter was coming, Alcott and Lane compromised and allowed an ox and a cow.

The Fruitlands experiment lasted seven miserable months. Alcott’s daughter Louisa May, who was ten at the time, got a bit of revenge for having been forced to endure that experience by writing a satire about Fruitlands and its denizens, titled Transcendental Wild Oats.

[NOTE: When I looked up Bronson Alcott’s Wiki entry, I found the following interesting bit of information about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s funeral: among the pallbearers were Alcott, Louis Agassiz, James Thomas Fields, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. That’s quite a group.]

[NOTE II: The Fruitlands philosophy regarding animals and other living creatures reminds me a bit of the Jains of India. However, the Jains seem less strict; they allow self-defense in some cases, for example, and they usually will eat dairy products:

In addition to other humans, Jains extend the practice of nonviolence towards all living beings. As this ideal cannot be completely implemented in practice, Jains recognize a hierarchy of life, which gives more protection to humans followed by animals followed by insects followed by plants.

For this reason, vegetarianism is a hallmark of Jain practice with the majority of Jains practicing lacto-vegetarianism. If there is violence against animals during the production of dairy products, veganism is also encouraged. After humans and animals, insects are the next living being offered protection in Jain practice with avoidance of intentional harm to insects emphasized. For example, insects in the home are often escorted out instead of killed.

After nonviolence towards humans, animals and insects, Jains make efforts not to injure plants any more than necessary. Although they admit that plants must be destroyed for the sake of food, they accept such violence only inasmuch as it is indispensable for human survival. Strict Jains, including Jain monks and nuns, do not eat root vegetables such as potatoes, onions and garlic, because tiny organisms are injured when the plant is pulled up, and also because a bulb or tuber’s ability to sprout is seen as characteristic of a living being.]