An Eye For An Eye....

The Bible reference, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” shows up several times in the Old Testament books of Exodus (21:24), Leviticus (24:20) and Deuteronomy (19:21). Most of us, even those of us who are not Biblical scholars, know this verse because it lays out some commonly held notions about justice for those who have wronged us. These verses are generally interpreted in the same way by most folks; and the message is fairly easy to comprehend. The basic message is that the punishment should fit the crime. In one way, it says that when we are wronged, injured, or damaged by a criminal or we are victimized, we are entitled to punish the wrongdoer to the same extent as the injured party. Many biblical scholars hold that these passages are also an admonition against over-punishing. I suppose that in the primitive days of the Old Testament, people of stature were prone to feel entitled to inflict the ultimate punishment on those who wronged them because the offense was also an insult to the status of the victim. For instance a slave (and slavery was very common) who stole a loaf of bread from the household of a nobleman might well face death for the offense.

I also found this passage in the New Testament. In Matthew 5:38-39 Jesus said, “you have heard it said, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This message is a departure from the old notions of justice, and instead suggests that not every offense needs to be met by equally severe punishment or punishment at all. Nonetheless the notion of punishment from the Old Testament isn’t that bad. At least it gives us a framework for modern day applications of fairness.

But this essay isn’t a Bible study. There was an incident in my community this week that brought all of this to mind for me. When I first heard what happened, my mind immediately thought of these old bible verses we are all so familiar with. Here are the facts we know so far. About 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning a man in my town went out to start his vehicle (a 16 year old Chevy Suburban) that was sitting in his driveway at his home. He went back into the house with the engine running in the driveway. A few moments later, from inside his house, the owner saw another man get into the vehicle and start to drive it away. The owner immediately called 911 to report his vehicle being stolen. As the young man (age 25) was driving away down the street in the stolen car the owner came out of his house with a gun and shot at the man stealing his vehicle. The thief was struck in the back of the head by the vehicle owner’s bullet and was killed instantly. The vehicle proceeded down the street with the driver dead in the seat until it slammed into and through a neighbor’s garage and stopped.

I thought for a short while that I might wait to comment on this incident because not all the facts are known to the public just yet. I thought there might some mitigating circumstances that could move me from my initial thoughts about this. Perhaps there was something that I didn’t know yet, that would suggest a whole different scenario than the one first reported in the news.  As I thought about it more I came to the conclusion that I wanted to share my thoughts in very simple terms. I wanted to say something about this incident that gets to the heart of this event. We have since learned that the car thief had a record of previous car thefts, but you see, that doesn’t matter to me. I want to comment on the pure act of what happened in real time, and why this can happen in a society like ours. In its purest form: a man took property that didn’t belong to him and the victim of the theft killed him in the act, for doing so.  

I know there will be those who believe this action was clearly justified. I've already heard the comments on local radio shows and I’ve seen the comments left on the websites of local TV news stations reporting the story. Some say “a person has a right to defend their property, even with lethal force”. Some say “that punk car thief had it coming”. Some say “we work hard for our things and anybody who wants to take my things better watch out”.   There will be those who hang on every piece of (after the fact) ancillary information about the incident that will surely  come out in the days ahead. They will try to use that information to justify what happened. They will cite the thief’s prior record, or they may hear that the man who shot the thief is normally a solid, law-biding citizen. But for me none of that matters. For me the question is how we can live in a society where our citizens believe that have the right to take a life over property. For me the further question is why; the fact that a person with a gun believes that lethal force is justified for property protection. I think it is proper to think that anytime a person is shot or shot at, we have to assume the shot will be deadly- and I think the shooter has to assume that too. Any sane gun owner should know that. 

So I look at this incident in very pure, simple terms. There are obviously two major issues: first, the law in this state does not allow its citizens to kill another citizen over property. The law here is clear; you may only justifiably kill another person if your life or the life of another is immediately threatened by that person. A car thief driving away from you (even in your car) doesn’t meet that test under any stretch of the circumstances. The second problem is a cultural one. We live in a society where many claim our society is based on Judeo-Christian values; but is also rooted in a gun culture that tells us we can use guns anytime we are threatened and individual citizens are free to make that judgment. This is a conflict! Please refer to the Bible passages above. I am not religious so I don’t believe our laws should come from religious scripture-but there are some notions in religion that make good sense on any level. “An eye for an eye” is one I agree with because it makes sense in any context to have the punishment fit the crime in a civilized society. Imagine what might have happened if the car owner didn’t have a gun. Imagine too that our system of laws worked as it should. The thief would have left with the car- the call to 911 would have resulted in the police apprehending the thief and he would have been convicted under the authority of our laws. The thief would be sent to prison for a maximum of five years. He would have probably served 2 ½ years and been released on parole. That is how our law works. Instead the victim of the original crime decided to give the thief the death penalty. I know there will be those who decry the current system and claim that because the laws and the courts don’t work like we think they should, citizens must take the law into their own hands. That is frustration and anarchy- not reason or justice. The unfortunate and inevitable bi-product of that thinking is what we saw this time. The punishment (death) did not fit the crime- under Biblical or secular standards. And although I don’t know for sure, I believe the car owner may well be charged with a crime himself because he intentioanlly killed someone who was not threatening his life.

Our social media is alive with examples of this troubling side of our culture. Sometime ago a relative of mine had a purse stolen from a car while it was parked at a sporting event. That event was promptly posted on Facebook with a proper amount of indignation over the loss. It’s no small thing to have your purse, money, credit cards, and ID stolen. I sympathized. But then came the inevitable torrent of comments about how the thief should be killed if it was found out who did it. There must have been twenty similar sentiments expressed, promising deadly violence to anyone who do such a thing. It’s only conjecture on my part, but that type of crime is usually committed by kids- and it made me think about the idea that someone would actually kill a kid for such a crime- something the legal system would never do. Would they really? I know it’s mostly just “big talk”, but that kind of macho big talk  combined with gun ownership only adds to a culture that turns good people into a person who would take a life to save a wallet or an old Chevy. That seems very out of balance to me. Perhaps it is the gun itself. Guns are potentially lethal in every use against another person. They are inherently designed to kill and any training on the use of guns against another person says that if you shoot- you shoot to kill. The idea of just “winging” someone went out with Marshal Dillon. Perhaps these deadly instruments instill in us a sense of entitlement, invincibility, and power that we should not have. Clearly there are cases where the presence of a gun led to a death that need not happen. The Travon Martin case is one that need not have ended in death- just like the car thief death in my town. But for the presence of a gun- no life would have been lost.

I have great sympathy for all involved in the situation in my home town. I have sympathy for the family that lost a son- even though he was a car thief. I have equal sympathy for the man who shot him.  Although I believe he was quite wrong to do what he did, I cannot imagine myself going through life knowing I took a life over such a trivial thing- not to mention the consequences he and his family may yet face under the law. I don’t know what will happen on that matter- but like I said it doesn’t matter for my purposes. What does matter to me is how we can use this incident to rethink some of our cultural characteristics and beliefs about violence, guns, and our most deeply held moral values. We all have some work to do on that.

Thanks for looking in.

Chicken Dinners and Good Causes

For our family, it’s that time of year again. Three of the four of us in our little nuclear family are what you might call “agency people”. That is, we work for non-profit agencies. I’m a Regional Manager at Goodwill Industries, my wife is a Program Director for Catholic Charities-directing a large child care center, and our oldest daughter is a service Director at Lutheran Community Services- directing a large program that provides services to sexual assault victims and their families. Only our youngest daughter is not an agency person. She’s a sales Director for a large national food distribution corporation. (Perhaps she’s the smart one.) In truth, we’re all very happy with our career choices. But amongst we agency people, this is the season when we’re attending a series of fund-raising dinners. Because we work at non-profit agencies, the process of fund-raising is very important for our employers and the programs we work in- and we support the effort and each other as we sign up for chicken dinners in hotel ballrooms where people from the community are urged to open their hearts and their wallets in support of important services for people in our community.

As I was looking over my chicken dinner schedule I noticed that it just so happened we’re attending three of these events in a row, one-a-month in March, April, and May. The first of these events was mine. My wife and I attended my first Goodwill Industries Awards Dinner. It was a great event attended by about 500 folks, all there to celebrate work done by Goodwill. Our President was the MC and through the course of the night he spoke of the thousands of local people Goodwill had served since the dinner last year. It was a real showcase for the great work Goodwill does and a chance to honor some very special employees, local businesses, and Goodwill clients who distinguished themselves in the last year.

In April we’ll head to the Lutheran Community Services Chocolate and Champagne Gala. Not an actual chicken dinner- but you get my point. Those in attendance will be plied with delicious drinks and treats while they contribute their money in the form of silent auction bids and outright donations to support programs that  serve and protect the most vulnerable and needy victims in our midst. What their clients experience is the among most horrifying and devastating events one can imagine, and Lutheran Community Services is the only organization dedicated to serving them. A good (no- GREAT) cause.

Our third event in roughly 60 days will be the Catholic Charities Gala. This one is time-tested and traditional in every sense. It takes place at the venerable Davenport Hotel in an ornate grand ballroom. The price of admission is high but, for this dinner, that’s the point. The meal is usually quite good and the speakers are generally well-established community and church leaders who tell compelling stories about the good done by Catholic Charities. And the stories are true. Catholic Charities is the largest non-profit social service agency in the region. They have a myriad of programs that serve the poor and the disadvantaged from so many different backgrounds. They provide housing, counseling, refugee and elderly services, early childhood education, services to young parents and variety of small services that effect thousands of people in positive ways. Fund-raisers are important because Catholic Charities' money doesn’t come from the church- they are a separate legal entity as a non-profit corporation. At the end of the dinner, distinguished guests will be asked to contribute even more, and they do.

I think it’s important to show our support for these fine agencies by attending these dinners, but I always leave these events with mixed feelings. As glad as I am to see an outpouring of support and generosity, I’m concerned that agencies with such important missions and programs, serving so many, (and not serving so many more in need) must go to these measures just to survive. Being agency people, we know that fund-raisers supply only a small fraction of the money needed to support the work of the organizations. Don’t get me wrong- these are fine events and they serve another purpose besides fund-raising- they help create community awareness of the incredible needs in the community and promote appreciation of the work staff perform to aid those who need their help. But that too raises a question in my mind.

The question I sometimes ponder is why it is necessary to make the case, and raise money this way for needs that are so clearly evident and universally recognized as important. If the mission is so important (and it is!), why isn’t it everyone’s mission? So I turn my thoughts to the question of public policy when I see these agencies needing to woo donors with fancy dinners and galas to support the work these good people do. For instance, I might ask why it is not good public policy for the government to fully support the work of Lutheran Community Services when they provide advocates and social and psychological services to rape victims and child victims of sexual abuse. Is there a reason why we would not do so? Is there any group of right thinking people who would say that rendering help to those victims so devastated by this horrible crime shouldn’t happen? In the case of Catholic Charities is there a compelling reason to say the most destitute people in our midst should not receive a meal- that a homeless person should not have a bed to sleep in on a freezing night? Spending even a short time at Catholic Charities facilities is an eye-opening experience, because to see the real faces of the poor would change the mind of even the most cynical conservatives who rail against government programs. At Goodwill we specialize in helping people with disabilities and disadvantages find work- and that includes programs for veterans. What could the argument be against that? Why is doing that work not worthy of our collective support and our tax dollars?  There is real pain in our midst and we have the resources as a people to help resolve that pain and make a better society if we choose to do so. But we don’t. Instead we relegate that mission, and that work to the sometimes fickle chances of charitable giving.

I’m often struck by the some of the people I meet at these events because they are more than willing to contribute heavily to these good causes, but so deadly set against government policies that would do the same things. They contribute more at these chicken dinners than they would if public policy called for a small tax from all of us to support good causes.  There is something in our American culture that makes us value the personal choice to give, even when the cause is so widely recognized. Whatever that something is- I don’t think it’s a good thing. That characteristic keeps us from fully funding good causes, perhaps even gives us an excuse not to deal with compelling good causes through public policy. Unfortunately that part of us leaves these incredibly valuable programs always at the margin of financial vulnerability. So they keep having chicken dinners and pleading for operating funds from good people who are willing to give. It just isn’t enough most of the time, so many who are in need go without, and we pay on the other end with more prisons and more costly institutions the taxpayers are forced to fund. 

Public policy is a funny thing. Rarely is it logical. Rarely does it address commonly held values. Instead public policy ends up being a contradictory hodge-podge of programs that are many times in conflict with each other. I think this comes from the influence “special interests” have carved out with our law-makers. How else can we explain why many politicians in government claim we can’t serve the most needy in our country because we don’t have the money- yet will not stop the $30 billion a year we spend to give oil companies tax breaks and subsidies (remember oil corporations are the most profitable in the history of mankind)? How else can some politicians in government claim that we can’t fund early childhood education (empirically proven to be the best public investment we can make in real dollars saved for the tax payers in the long -run) yet protect off-shore tax havens, and tax breaks for billionaires’ private jets? ( Just to name a couple of examples- there are many more)

I’ll keep going to the dinners and galas- and I’ll keep contributing. I’ll also remain thankful for the others who do the same and contribute to these good causes. But I will most likely leave those events with the same mixed feelings I’ve had before, because I know that it won’t be enough to care for all who need the programs that spring from these chicken dinners and the contributions they produce. At the same time I hope a number of us will push for better public policy that recognizes the real needs of the people in our country and develop funding priorities that meet those needs.

Thanks for looking in.

Big Brass Ones

You may have to forgive me for a personal indulgence on this one, but I just have to comment on the discourse I’ve been hearing lately. I don’t listen to the radio when I’m working but I do listen when I’m driving to work and back home, or when I’m out heading to a meeting or something. Our town lost its progressive talk radio station about a year ago so any political talk I listen to is ultra-right wing stuff. You know what I’m talking about- Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et al, and even a local guy named Fitzsimmons. I used to listen to this ranting on purpose so I would know what people thought on the other end of the ideological spectrum from me. But my wife began to notice it was really affecting my personality (not in a good way) to listen to such negative and caustic stuff all the time. So I stopped doing it and found a more progressive message. Alas that’s gone now and I find myself drifting back to the old radical right- wing stuff because it’s the only political talk I can get. I listen less now than I did before, but I find the language and hatred is so much more concentrated, that a little of it goes a long way.

Over the last few weeks the rhetoric is really heating up to an all-time high over the sequestered automatic cuts in the Federal budget. The blame game is on, and to be fair it’s being played by both sides while all of us would just prefer the Congress and the President would do their job and actually govern.  But after listening to those self- proclaimed ”national voices of conservative common sense” go on for hours on the radio, I’m not sure it’s even possible for governance to happen. You have to remember that conservative talk-radio outnumbers progressive talk ten-to-one. It may be possible that the tone of our discourse has become so vile that a minority of people who religiously listen to that non-stop crap have convinced the Republican Party that they must follow the dictates of the Hannity’s and Limbaugh’s because they “speak for the base”. I don’t think that’s really true because I still believe most of us are just better than that- but such is the power of media. Clearly the very dedicated conservative "base" is a very small minority of people in the country, but they are just enough to effectively obstruct any progress.

Let me give you just a small slice of what you can hear all day (relentlessly repeated) on talk-radio. I'll have to paraphrase because I just can’t take it all down verbatim while I’m driving. If by chance you don’t believe me you can verify my take on this trash by listening yourself, provided you have the intestinal strength to do it. In just the last couple of days I heard the President is running a “crime family”; I’ve heard the President just hates America; I’ve heard the President is “addicted” to taxing and spending with no purpose other than to just take our money- he likes to steal; I’ve heard the President is engaged in a plot hatched in another country (presumable a Muslim or African) to literally destroy America; I’ve heard that the President isn’t a smart person and couldn't to run a small organization or couldn’t govern a small town (this is interesting because this comes from the same guy who claims the President is managing an international plot to destroy us all- but at the same time is a very stupid and incompetent man); I’ve heard that the President wants us all to suffer because he enjoys the powerful feeling he gets from that; I’ve heard that the President should be jailed because he won’t agree with the Republicans and is therefore being treasonous. You get the point. I could sit here and write them all day. It’s interesting that every right-wing talk show host has the same points, almost verbatim- like they all come from the same place. Hmmm? I heard our local talk show guy say that Vice president Biden is “an idiot”, and he meant that Mr. Biden is literally mentally deficient- and said so. The folks I’m referring to aren’t the idle callers who have nothing better to do than sit on the phone all day so they can engage in this cynical trash- they are the hosts.

After listening to these ridiculous statements repeated over and over I suppose I could get angry at the lack of real intellect being displayed, and concerned that so many people get their information from these dubious sources. But lately I’ve become amused instead. It amuses me that radio hosts, entertainers-showmen really, hold themselves up as being superior to people of real accomplishment. How does a Hannity or a Limbaugh really compare to a President (good or bad)? These radio shills have no academic credentials. They have never held office. They have never had to shoulder real responsibility for people’s lives or livelihoods. Other than a life in radio, what have they done? How do their life stories inspire us, or inspire our children? For instance, Limbaugh’s life story is train wreck- married 3 or 4 times, drug addict, racism, sexism, you name it. This man's character is so poor even the NFL wouldn't let him in. Would we teach our children to follow his path as a role model? Yet he’s the ideological leader of the conservative movement, and not one Republican would dare cross him. I was particularly amused by our local radio host. Here’s a guy who has a three hour-a-day talk-show gig in a small radio market saying he’s more knowledgeable, accomplished and has better judgment on the direction of government than a man who served honorably in the U.S. Senate for 36 years and is Vice-President of the United States. It takes some real big brass balls to say that- as it does for any of these talk show blow-hards who only talk and do nothing. It takes someone who doesn’t know the difference between ego and substance to make that claim. How many of us hope our children or our grandchildren will someday be the next Sean Hannity? Would we be more proud of our kin if they were Harvard Law graduates, constitutional law professors and President of the United States; or if they had the afternoon drive time show to spout mindless propaganda five days a week?

These demigods hold themselves up to be our voice and I suppose we’ve let them by giving them a very rich medium to practice in. My point is that we have allowed those who do nothing but talk their “talking points” to be more important than those who do the real work of governing- and that goes for our officials from both parties. Even those whose ideas are very different from mine are worthy of respect because they have put themselves in the real line of fire. They are not pretenders, or entertainers making  big bucks from their pseudo-intellects and a bunch of guys calling in to hear themselves say “mega-dittos Rush” on the radio.

I’m not an educator, but I am married to one so I often think about the public behavior of adults in leadership positions (by virtue of the office they hold or their place in mass media) in contrast to what we teach our children. I believe the way we teach children and the standards we try to instill in them ought to be the way we expect them to act as adults later in life. Isn’t that the point of education? For instance, I wonder what a teacher would say to a child in school who continually berates other people? I wonder what a teacher would do with a child who turns in a report containing blatant lies or misrepresentations of facts, knowing they are false? I wonder what a teacher would do with a child who refuses to pay attention or is disrespectful to classmates and faculty, then encourages other children to behave the same way? I believe that teacher would not accept such behavior. I believe that teacher would employ their skills to correct such children and we would all expect them to do just that, because for most of us such behavior is unacceptable. The same behaviors we call childish and unacceptable in young people seems to get rewarded in this political environment, and by an entertainment medium that values misbehavior and rancor in place of thoughtful discussion and truth seeking. Conservative talk-radio is the intellectual equivalent of professional wrestling. It’s phony, and designed to get the crowd riled up instead of encouraging better communication and clearer thinking.

The unfortunate fact is that the talk radio market and all its hate-filled rhetoric has taken hold because we’ve stopped doing a couple of very important things for our children in the last thirty to forty years. We stopped teaching civics in school and we stopped teaching critical thinking skills. Civics is the study of how our government works. If you don’t know civics-and know it well, you can’t distinguish the crap you hear from the way government is supposed to work.  Without critical thinking skills you can’t tell the propaganda from legitimate intellectual thought because you don't have the intellectual tools to analyze it. When those things are missing we tend to fall for the message that comes from the loudest voice, repeated over and over.  

I will try to remain amused. I take heart in knowing that as hard as they tried last year, the poison talkers and their ditto-head followers lost the battle. Even with a ten-to-one advantage in the radio market- they lost. Better ideas and better hopes for the country prevailed over the empty rhetoric of these charlatans and their coordinated talking points. I’m hopeful that thoughtful progressives and thoughtful conservatives will emerge once again find a way to lead and govern us. That’s what really takes big brass ones.

Thanks for looking in.