Minority Rule

by Tarzana Joe

It is important to listen to the arguments of your opponents. Every debate coach drills that into his teams. But sometimes the arguments of your opponents send the blood rushing to the extremities and it becomes impossible to listen. The urge to respond, the urge to vent the fury, smothers the ability to hear and to understand. Great debaters know just how to infuriate their opponents and make them forget to listen.

But you can learn a lot from listening. Do I paraphrase Yogi here? Try it. Every third debate, decide to resist the rush to rage. Accept that you do not have to win–this once. And listen. You might find something in the semi-din. Clarity.

It happened today. I was listening to the Dennis Prager Radio show. I was also working with the other half of my brain, so there was no grey matter left to formulate a reply to the twaddle I was hearing. I could only listen. Dennis, usually a formidable debater, was in the midst of a blood rush. He was so anxious to respond to each outrageous statement--delivered, as they were with calm smugnitude by a law school professor-- that I believe he missed something very important.

At issue was the left’s annual assault on Christmas. All over America, Nativity scenes have been falling like ten-pins before ACLU lawsuits. The wire services bring reports of legal action in smaller and smaller towns each year as the purge exponates into the heartland. I’m sure many municipalities have voluntarily withdrawn from the fields by night to avoid costly litigation. The municipal manger is history. But soon, any governmental acknowledgment of anything except the winter solstice might follow.

The case in point is the uprooting of a Christmas tree from the atrium of the University of Indiana (at Indianapolis) Law School atrium. Law Professor Roisman told a local newspaper, "This is unacceptable at a place that presents itself as inclusive of all people." And so the decorated Scotch Pine, a secular symbol really, with no direct relationship to Jesus, Bethlehem, shepherds or wise men-- falls.

Oh, I know the evergreen was the center of some pagan German winter fests (they probably slept under it when the Octoberfests lingered on into the bleak midwinter). Later, as Christianity spread into the provinces of the Roman Empire, the stubborn Germans accepted Christ but kept their trees. Even later, the more stubborn and Germanic Prince Albert brought the tree to Victorian England so Dickens could write his novels.

Some Christians scorn the tree because of its pagan roots. Many non-Christians accept these dangerous messy firetraps into their homes without a thought of Christ. Regardless, a tree in a public law school atrium is "unacceptable."

I would be foolish not to admit that most people see the tree as a symbol of the Christian holiday. But just as clearly it is both more and less than that.

Zap. It is gone. It has been replaced by an "Indiana Winter Scene" containing two bare trees, fake snow, and poinsettia plants. I can’t wait until someone leads the left to horticulture and they realize that the poinsettia contains more Christian symbology than the pine does.

Now, I have written for a page and I haven’t even made my point. I must be furious. The point is that in opposing the removal of the tree, Mr Prager made the point that the tree is not offensive but would be welcomed by the majority of people who entered that law school atrium. Why should the feelings of the majority be trumped by the intellectual discomfort of a tiny minority?

His adversary in the discussion, a law professor at the school, replied that we lived in a country where once the majority supported slavery. Thus, the opinion of the majority should be held as having no value when deciding the fate of the tree. To equate the majority’s delight in a tree to their toleration of slavery is to understand neither Christmas nor slavery. Never mind that slavery was never put to a direct vote in this country, her point was made with the holier-than-thou sanctimony that achieves its purest form only in the breath of atheists.

But I was listening. And the professor’s remark suddenly enlightened me.

The tree is not the enemy. Neither is Christmas. The enemy is the majority. The majority is tyranny. The tyranny of morality. The tyranny of temperance. The tyranny of abstinence.

The left knows better. But the majority is too stupid to ever understand that. The left knows that they will never be able to educate or convince the majority. Thus, the majority is to be defied and defiled. If you are part of the majority, you participated in slavery, the oppression of women and the Indian wars. The majority is to be opposed and beaten with the only weapon available in a representative democracy–the fiat of judges.

Once the judges do their work, the majority will adapt to the new ways–even if they don’t have the capacity to understand them. Heck, they might even be able, someday, to witlessly mouth the tenets of the left just like a catechism.

It has already worked with abortion. The majority feels abortion is a horrifying thing-- but do nothing about it.

So where ever the majority lives–eating meat, wearing fur and leather, praying, celebrating, marrying–you will find the left attacking. Just listen for it.

How You Play the Game

I thought it was a bad idea to put the Little League World Series on TV. I don’t mean the edited package that aired on Wide World of Sports in the 1970's. I’m talking about ESPN’s live, wall-to-wall coverage of regional playoffs, pool play and the full week in Williamsport. I know that the network is desperate to air something besides highlights of Superbowl 7, snooker and high stakes poker, but I thought it was a bad idea to put the pressure of cameras and the whole country on the backs of 10 to 12 year old boys.

There was some strutting, trash talk, and tears in the first few years. But watching the games this year, I noticed a change and I changed my mind.

Those kids were playing fundamentally sound baseball. I saw great catches, heads-up base running, and a few neatly-turned double-plays. It was a lot better baseball than the Dodgers and Angels showed this year. And it was far superior to the game that the Oakland A’s displayed last week against the Red Sox. One of the first things a good Little League coach tells his team is "Don’t try to be the umpire." If Tejada had remembered that, the A’s would be in the Bronx tonight.

But beyond the fundamentals, we saw some of the finest sportsmanship that was broadcast nationally in quite some time. The umpiring –especially the call of balls and strikes–was questionable. The announcers remarked that Little League umps have wide strike zones to encourage the kids to swing and put the ball in play. Fine. But there’s a difference between borderline and south of the border.

Nevertheless, I did not see one boy, not one, even roll his eyes at a bad call. If the guy is called out on strikes, he hustles back to the bench. This has been so refreshing that I have been moved to stop crabbing at the refs in my roller hockey league.

Apparently, the coach-dads have made the point stick that a player takes a bad call like a man. And I mean that as chauvinistically as it sounds. Argue and you’re out of the game. Play ball. The performances of those boys should be the role models for Major Leaguers to follow–not the other way around. No fist pumping. No swaggering to first. No thank you.

Thanks boys. Thanks dads. It is how you play the game.

They Know Not What They Do

The film is not due out until March of 2004. The director and the editors have not finished the final cut, but it is already making front page news. The film is Mel Gibson's "The Passion". I recently saw the trailer on the internet and described it enthusiastically to a friend as "Mel Brooks' Passion". You can imagine the bewildered look I got until the senior moment passed and I corrected my tongue slip.

However, I will wager that a film on the life of Christ by Mel Brooks would inspire less outrage than this one by Mr. Gibson.

As you may know it is Mr. Gibson's stated intent to create a film faithful to the scriptures depicting the last twelve hours in the life of Jesus Christ. The dialogue in the film is spoken in Aramaic and Latin (although one critic contends that the Romans in Judea would have spoken Greek.) What could be the problem with such an endeavor?

Several religious leaders who obtained an early draft of the screenplay claim that the film is anti-Jewish. The scriptures recount that certain Jewish leaders conspired against a radical teacher and turned him over to the Roman authorities. For centuries anti-Jewish hated has thrived and Jews have been called Christ-killers. Opponents of the film fear that this movie will ignite ancient hatreds.

Is the story of the life and death of Jesus then to be off-limits to creative artists? For two thousand years, it has inspired the greatest art, music and poetry of succeeding ages. Are we now to abandon the story because it is too controversial?

The texts are the texts. Even if you don't take the Gospels as gospel, they say what they say. Should Mr. Gibson have done what is so often done in Hollywood? The movie version of a recent bestseller changed the villain from an Islamic terrorist to a Neo-Nazi. Should Mr. Gibson have changed his story so that it depicted certain Phoenicians conspiring against Jesus? Of course not.

Can these critics believe that Christians will now throw rocks because they see, on film, a story that they have known from childhood? Do religious leaders think so little of the flocks they tend? Apparently they do. I think of the arguments against parental notification in the case of abortion for minors. The premise of these arguments must be that the parents of a minor girl who wants an abortion would beat her to a pulp if they knew. What a perverse view of human nature and parenthood. The girl who is confronting abortion as a minor needs her parents more than she ever did before. And neither the law nor the concerned strangers at Planned Parenthood should stand between them.

Likewise, the premise of the arguments against a faithful depiction of the scriptures must be that followers of the Man who preached love and forgiveness cannot love and forgive.

Let me offer some comfort to those who take this low view of humanity. Every Palm Sunday, in Catholic churches around the world, the Passion of Christ is read. The priest, a reader, and the congregation take parts in the play. It is the congregation...the laity...us...to whom is given the role of shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!" I never liked my part in this play until I understood the purpose. This is our part in the passion play. Not to blame the Romans. Not to blame the Jews. But to see the sin in ourselves.

Those who were the human instruments of the divine plan, Jews and Romans, disciples and Pharisees, do not need our forgiveness. If the film is faithful, their verdict will come from the lips of the leading character, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."