Is Anger Sufficient Part 2: “The Law Of The Jungle”

     If there’s one particular, not quite front-page-above-the-fold atrocity of recent decades that deserves much greater attention, it would be the complete evisceration that’s been performed – indeed, is still being performed – upon education in the history of the world generally, and upon American history specifically. In writing my screeds, I tend to assume that my Gentle Readers will know 99% of what I know about history. When I allow myself to dust off that assumption and examine it closely, I usually find nothing wrong with it.

     But the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch are an exceptional bunch. Nearly all of you are the creme de la creme of the politically engaged Web: top 1% of the class in intelligence, overall knowledge, and thoughtfulness. While I do get the occasional ignorant boor, he doesn’t tend to remain here for long. (Comment moderation appears to be the principal reason.)

     So this fine Sunday morning in the year of Our Lord 2016 – and what a year it’s proving to be, eh, sports fans? – I find my thoughts occupied by what you face when you leave here to commune with less bright, less knowledgeable minds. In particular, I find myself wondering how you would converse with someone who, out of mental dimness, ignorance, envy, wishful thinking, or just plain contrariness, is about to make a bad – i.e., bound to be destructive – decision.

     And thus is another tirade born.

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     Anger that impels to violence isn’t something only Americans feel:

     Dozens of masked man went on an anti-immigrant rampage in Stockholm in an apparent retaliation for the stabbing death of a young Swedish woman at a refugee center earlier this week, local media reported.

     The crowd of some 40 to 50 people went on a violent spree on Friday night at around 9 p.m. local time in and around the Swedish capital’s main railroad station, according to the Aftonbladet daily. They were beating up anyone who didn’t look like ethnic Swede. The attackers were wearing black balaclavas and armbands, the video obtained by the tabloid showed.

     Clearly, those “40 to 50 people” – if the group wasn’t entirely male, I would be terribly surprised – were angry enough to do something. Was the something constructive? We won’t know for a while. Were the consequences thought through? There’s evidence that they were: the balaclavas, for instance. Also, the group proclaimed its motives and intentions:

     “They were scattering leaflets which had the intention to incite people to carry out crimes,” Stockholm police confirmed in a statement on its website.

     The leaflets accused police of failing to deal with immigrants-related crimes – particularly those committed by gangs of foreign youths – or protect Swedish society....

     “[W]e refuse to accept the destruction of our once to safe society,” it added. “If the Swedish streets are no longer safe for Swedish men and women, it is our duty to take action.”

     That’s solid evidence that the group thought through the consequences of its actions. In effect, they asserted their right and intention to defend their country against invasion, a job from which the Swedish government has abdicated. It also undercuts the implication of the mealy-mouthed “They were beating up anyone who didn’t look like ethnic Swede” statement. I’d bet you any odds that if anyone other than a young Middle Eastern male was roughed up, it was entirely by accident.

     As an example of constructive, properly thought out anger in action, this incident is hard to beat.

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     If you’ve ever heard a teacher or comparable authority figure orate about “the law of the jungle,” the odds are about 99 to 1 that he’d applied the phrase to a state of affairs that didn’t remotely deserve it. Perhaps the following fictional example of what I mean will make it clear:

     It was an ordinary July evening in Onteora: hot, damp, the air too still, the black gnats too numerous. Most of the city's residents had retreated behind closed doors and powered up their air conditioners, then turned their television sets up high to mask the compressor noise. On an unlit street in the abandoned part of the city, Joseph Follett and Lafayette Buskey were enjoying a special pleasure, raping a teenage girl who had wandered onto their turf.
     They had cut away her jeans and panties, stuffed the scraps of the panties into her mouth, and bound them there with a double winding of packing tape. Buskey knelt on her arms and held a knife to her throat while Follett violated her at his leisure. They had changed places once already. Perhaps they would do so again before the fun was over. Neither had bothered to conceal or disguise his face.
     They had been at it perhaps ten minutes when a quiet patter of footsteps from the far end of the street alerted the merrymakers that they were not alone. Both looked up to see the onrush of a short, slight figure, bearing down upon them.
     Buskey had turned toward the sound but had not yet risen when the runner braked and planted. His right foot lashed out in a powerful placekicker's arc, catching Buskey squarely beneath the jaw. The snap of Buskey's spine resounded the length of the street. He flipped backwards and lay on the sidewalk, twitching spasmodically.
     Follett had pulled away from the girl, drawing his own knife. The runner turned to face him.
     "Keep back, motherfucker."
     The runner made no reply. He advanced.
     Follett dropped into a knife-fighter's crouch. He kept both hands well out in front of him, daring the man to come within slashing distance. The runner halted and watched him, apparently relaxed.
     "So this is your idea of a high old time, eh, asshole?" The runner's voice was soft. The darkness concealed his face. "Wait till some defenseless girl wanders by, take her down, rape her a few times, then gut her like a deer? Not much to take home from it, though. Not like a Grand Avenue mugging or a good B and E."
     The young tough snarled. "What do you know about B and E?"
     The runner's eyebrows rose. "Isn't that how you make your living?" He gestured at Follett's crotch. "I mean, that thing dangling from your fly isn't big enough for you to make it as a gigolo."
     Upon being reminded that his dick was still hanging out of his jeans, Follett looked down at his crotch.
     The runner whirled and kicked again. His toe caught the elbow of Follett's knife arm. The elbow cracked and bent the wrong way, and the knife flew from the hand that held it. The young thug spun and dropped to the pavement with a piercing shriek, clawing at the rough asphalt.
     The runner stepped forward to stand over his victim. Stray rays from the headlights of a car passing on a connecting street revealed the runner's expression. It was that perfection of rage that resembles perfect calm.
     "Well, so much for the muggings and B and Es. Think you can make a living as a rapist? I mean, you're going to need a new helper and all. Maybe two or three. Big nut to carry."
     The runner straddled Follett's body and lowered himself to a squat, all but sitting on the thug's belly.
     "Who the fuck are you, man? You got no business here!" Follett's voice was an agonized hiss.
     The runner pursed his lips. "Business? No. I was just out for a walk, and it went on a little longer and farther than I intended. I don't get into the city much. It's not my favorite place. But here I am, and here you are, and thereby hangs a tale."
     He paused and sighed. "I knew you were going to kill that girl when you were done with her. If I hadn't been sure of that, maybe I would have handled it another way. Or maybe not. Not that it matters now. May God have mercy on your worthless soul."
     Follett's pain had not displaced all his fear and hatred. He surged in a last attempt to throw his assailant off him as he scrabbled for his knife.
     The runner's right hand arrowed at Follett's face. The heel of that hand crashed into the bridge of Follett's nose, driving the bone into his forebrain with the impact of a well-thrown spear. The rapist's body spasmed once and was still.
     The runner waited for perhaps a minute, peering into the slack face for any indication that the body might still house life. When he was satisfied, he pulled the jeans off Follett's corpse and brought them to the girl, who had remained where she'd been held. She seemed about sixteen, not especially pretty, and frightened beyond all ability to respond. Carefully, he pulled the makeshift gag from her mouth.
     "Where do you live?"
     "Eighty-two Devlin Boulevard," the girl whispered.
     He bent to help her stand, then offered her the jeans. "I'll take you home. Sorry I have nothing else to cover you with."
     She clung to him and began to keen. He coaxed her to step into the jeans, closed the fly and buttoned them at her waist, rolled up the legs so that she could walk, and escorted her down the street, one arm around her shoulders.
     The body of Joe Follett lay still in the middle of the street. On the sidewalk, the body of Lafe Buskey twitched at lengthening intervals as the life finished seeping out of it.

     [From On Broken Wings]

     “The law of the jungle” is on display in the above – but not in the response of “the runner” – the mighty Louis Redmond – to the scene upon which he happened and to which he applied a thorough and irrefutable response. What Louis did was to countervail “the law of the jungle” as it was being acted out before his eyes. So also was the response of the masked young Swedes at the Stockholm train station, albeit less directly.

     Saddam Hussein and his sons also practiced “the law of the jungle.” Think about it.

     “The law of the jungle” is that of the moral vacuum: that state of affairs in which civilized laws and norms – i.e., the laws and norms of the Christian Enlightenment – have no (or inadequate) defenders. The conception separates societies ruled by mere force from those in which “rule,” as such, is rooted in the Enlightenment principle of individuals’ rights as superior to the claims of power and groups, married to the Christian Law of General Benevolence. To dramatize this distinction, you need merely imagine how the above fictional citation would have read if Louis had gone from killing the two rapists to raping the girl himself.

     Yet the aforementioned “authority figures” who so carelessly sling about the phrase “the law of the jungle” would have tossed Louis the vigilante in with the rapists he executed, and the Stockholm vigilantes in with the Muslim rapists and molesters of a few days before. Feel free to ponder the agenda implied by such condemnations of the defense of the innocent.

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     Righteous anger, as I wrote elsewhere this morning, is important, even imperative. We need that anger to energize and propel us. But it is not sufficient. We also need a properly thought out, trustworthy conception of what our acts will precipitate. Indeed, without that conception – and it had better be pretty widely agreed upon – our own anger could bring “the law of the jungle” down upon us.

     Time will tell whether the Stockholm vigilantes have accurately foreseen the consequences of their actions. If they succeed in shaming many more Swedish men into taking part in the defense of Sweden against “the law of the jungle” – i.e., the invasion of Muslim “refugees” being facilitated by “their” government – likely all will ultimately be well. But should no such response materialize, conditions will deteriorate further. Thus, developments will tell us whether the vigilantes have judged their countrymen – at one time the most feared fighters in Europe – and their countrymen’s consciences. As for “their” government, all trust in it will soon have been withdrawn...which is exactly as it should be.

     “Art dogs,” he thundered, “or men? Ball-less wonders, castrates all? Hear me! Form ranks!”

     [Frank Yerby, An Odor Of Sanctity]