Piss What?

     I’m in an odd mood – I know, many of you are thinking “when is he not?” – so I hope you’ll excuse me a rather off-the-beaten-track post for today. What I want to write about is very much on my mind, for reasons pertaining not only to my political posture but to my religious beliefs as well.

     No sniping from the peanut gallery about “separation of church and state,” please!

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     Matt Bracken’s recent compositions posted here and here have caused a considerable stir in the DextroSphere. I sent those links to a number of folks I thought might miss them and would appreciate them. One such, Ann Barnhardt, wrote back “WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!!!??? D'OH!!!” As Ann has been very much in the forefront of the Delenda est Islam movement, right from the first, her reaction didn’t surprise me.

     The thing is, as Part Two of Bracken’s tale concludes, we read the following:

     Blinding, pulsing light hit Mike’s platform from behind him, so bright that he could barely see, even though he wasn’t looking toward it. It was only a matter of luck that he hadn’t been staring at the police helicopter when the light started flashing, but even while looking away from it he was half blinded by its relentless strobing. The continuous whooping acoustic roar was head-splitting, louder than standing directly behind a jet engine at takeoff, but the sound was uneven, up and down in tone, coming in erratic waves that were synchronized with the blinding light. Waves of nausea rolled through him, his hands clamped over his ears, feeling as if his skull was going to explode.

     The smaller helicopter that appeared from behind the building had a pair of SWAT commandos dressed in black leaning out on both sides, their feet on its skids. The pilot worked in close to the crane, the helicopter’s whirling rotors only feet from the window walls of the bank building. Two SWAT cops on the building side of the little helicopter kicked away from the skids and dropped, descending on ropes toward the crane’s jib, halfway out to Mike’s perch.

     For me, this is the crux of the matter. If Bracken’s fictional vision accurately describes what the official response would be to what “Brooklyn Mike” is doing in his story, it hardly suffices to say that we’re in the deepest of deep shit.

     The defining characteristic of political authority – the State – is its pre-indemnification for the use of coercive force. The ultimate test of its will is the decision to use deadly force: to kill. In these United States, deadly force is supposed to be reserved for the most serious of occasions: those in which human lives are at imminent risk. However – and I beseech you to take this seriously – any exertion of coercive force by the State involves the possibility of death. He who elects to resist the State is risking his very life.

     Remember, a few years back, when President Bush the Elder proposed a Constitutional amendment that would “protect” the U.S. flag? This was the wording of the proposed amendment:

     Section 1. Notwithstanding any provision of the Constitution, the Congress is empowered to enact and enforce laws prohibiting the desecration of the flag of the United States of America.
     Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
     Section 3. This article shall take effect immediately upon ratification.

     There was a considerable outcry over that, and not just from the Left. Many conservatives realized at once that a symbol that receives State protection ceases to be a symbol of anything but State power. As angry as we were about the defilements our political adversaries had heaped upon the flag, we weren’t quite ready to make it a punishable offense. The implications the precedent would open were too frightening.

     So it is with religious symbols. Catholics are fond of crucifixes, statues of the Blessed Virgin, images of the better-known saints, and others. Jews have a great fondness for the Star of David. Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and so on have their respective symbols. These provide us with a certain assistance in keeping our faiths in mind. They help some of us to focus our prayers and meditations. But ultimately, they are objects of wood, metal, stone, plastic, and cloth. We don’t pray to them. We certainly don’t worship them.

     When our religious symbols are desecrated – a very appropriate word in this case – we grow angry. When an Andres Serrano puts a crucifix in a jar of urine and presents it to the world as “art,” we ask one another why anyone would do such a thing. But we don’t run riot. We certainly don’t look for “infidels” to kill. That response is confined to Muslims.

     Bracken’s story suggests that our political class would rather suppress freedom of expression than risk allowing what “Brooklyn Mike” proposed...and that they’d use deadly force to do it. I’d tell you to “ask yourselves why,” but I hardly think it’s necessary.

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     Few things are more obvious than the rampant cowardice our public officials and institutions have demonstrated in the face of Islam, Islamic militancy, and Islamic terrorism. Most of them won’t even speak the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” despite the undeniable facts of the matter. Episodes such as the “Jyllands-posten cartoon riots” and the “Charlie Hebdo massacre” have left them unwilling to touch the subject.

     But would they be willing to kill a “Brooklyn Mike” to keep him from making their cowardice plain? Bracken’s tale suggests that they might...which has the most horrific of implications for the continuing immigration to our shores of Muslims from Africa and the Middle East.

     Think about it – and about what you’re willing to do to ensure that no SWAT cop’s crosshairs ever settle on a “Brooklyn Mike’s” chest.