Speak for Yourself: Letters to the Editor
“DEVIL’S ADVOCATES”
Robert Bidinotto’s great essay in the April issue re our criminal justice system (“Devil’s Advocates”) prompts my wife and me to wonder if he has read any of the writings by Theodore Dalrymple on crime and the British welfare state. His most recent book is Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses (2005); but his earlier one, Life at the Bottom (2001), is closely related to the criminal justice system in Britain, and would be the first one to look at for further ammunition on the subject.
Robert Hoover
Houston, Texas
I’ve seen pieces by Dalrymple, but haven’t yet had the opportunity to read his books. Thanks much for the tip, Bob. —RJB
Ayn Rand once said that she could become enraged by the simple statement, “Reality is subjective.” Apropos of recent world events, we should all long for more such ire.
Robert James Bidinotto’s editorial “Devil’s Advocates” discusses the “excuse-makers,” or as I refer to them, the compassion-mongers. They are distinguished by the objects of their compassion. In fact, it is quite easy to determine whether you fall into the category of excuse-maker. In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart tells her sister-in-law Cheryl that the opposite of charity is justice. Do you feel compassion for the victim or the perpetrator of the crime? Are you more outraged at the doer, or some amoebic entity such as “society?” Are terrorists really just “freedom fighters?”
One may appeal to psychology. The relationships between the excuse-makers and the criminals are codependent. The excuse-makers are enablers, and what they engender is a barrage of worldwide murder and mayhem. All the while, they attempt to paint those who simply believe in justice as “meanspirited,” “ignorant,” or “unable to understand complexities.”
The enabling and equivocation apply to other realms, leading to questions that otherwise seem trivially simple. Should our schools cater to exceptional or average and below average students? Should government “redistribute” income (as if they ever “distributed” it in the first place!)? Should successful businesses be automatically charged with “antitrust” simply because they have high market share?
At the heart of the matter is the moral relativist/nihilist axis, and its underlying ontological base, subjective reality. If one accepts that any person’s perception is just as accurate as anyone else’s, then we are led to the belief that no one can say anything is right or wrong. The concepts have no coherent meaning. In the absence of absolutes, one can easily equate collateral damage in a just attack on terrorist miscreants with intentional bombings on purely civilian targets.
Israel offers a prime example. I had the great opportunity to visit the small, dynamic country in May. For centuries after the expulsion of the Jews, the area was one big desert, bereft of any tangible economic resources. After 1948, with one of the most sophisticated agricultural systems in the world, it has become a Mediterranean paradise. With a vibrant economy and perhaps the most prepared military in the world, Israel stands as a model for productive societies.
The militant Islamist terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas stand at the other end of the spectrum. Funded and supported by such moribund economic abysses as Syria and Iran, these nihilistic archetypes of evil personified. The excuse-makers argue that these groups are merely doing what any poor “desperate” people would do under similar circumstances. But they are blithely ignorant of two important facts.
Circumstances do not define people. Actions do. We all own our actions. And while circumstances can never be judged as “right” or “wrong,” actions surely can. But using their own argument, no group over history could have suffered from more desperation than the Jews. After the Holocaust, they could have wallowed in self-pity. Somehow, they built the most industrious state in the Middle East, with a dazzling array of Nobel laureates, celebrities, and world-renowned authors. And what of their Arab counterpart states? Apart from oil, their economic productivity and recent intellectual contributions are limited. Which side is in need of enablers?
Anyone who elects either to justify the actions of the terrorists, or even remain ambivalent on the matter, must face the sad truth. You are at least indirectly suggesting that there is no right and wrong. No absolutes. Nothing really matters. Reality is subjective. For some reason, I’ll take the other door. Actually, it is not some reason, but pure reason.
J. Douglas Barrett
Professor of Quantitative Methods,
University of North Alabama
Florence, Alabama