Category: Fleming

Meet Derick Almena, model Californian and prototype for the next generation of Americans.  Derick—in his world we dispense with formalities—is “manager” of a warehouse in Oakland California, where he sublets space to various artistes.  At this for-profit arts collective, which he named the Ghost Ship, Derick and his rentors throw parties.  At a dance party last Friday night, a fire started and raced through the rabbit warren, killing at least 36 people.  Derick’s first reaction, posted on Facebook, expressed no sorrow for the victims—much less remorse: “”Everything I worked so hard for is gone.  Blessed that my children and Micah...

Let’s begin with the basics.  Rather than breaking down Jerks into categories of severity—rating them from one to ten—we can agree to divide them broadly into what I am calling Boors and Louts.  The boor is someone who does not know how to behave.  He constantly makes a fool of himself by using the wrong fork or insisting upon steak in a seafood restaurant.  He will pay embarrassing compliments to women he has just met and make himself the life of every party by telling anecdotes about his not very interesting life—anecdotes in which he inevitably plays the hero.  Most...

Another surprise.  The homicidal maniac who went on a rampage at Ohio State turns out to be one Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an 18-year-old Somali Muslim.  No one knows why he did it.  NBC has informed us that “a senior law enforcement official said authorities are a “long way” from pinpointing a motive for the Monday morning attack, which sent 11 people to the hospital.  Apparently irrelevant are the the young man’s complaints against America for the persecution of Muslims in Burma.  Yes, Burma.  Why didn’t he go to Burma to kill the enemies of his religion?  Perhaps because that would have required...

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This is the conclusion to my piece from 1985.  The points made include:  1) There is no right of or  justification for “civil disobedience.  Crime is crime, and treason is treason.  2) So-called “liberation theology” is only Marxist revolution with a false Christian gloss, 3) our primary moral obligations to family, community, and  nation take precedence over any imagined obligations to strangers, and, finally 4) the confusion of roles–national government dictating how children are reared while individuals and cities are making foreign policy–is a sign of a profound disorder in American life. Although civil disobedients like to lump their activities...