Damn Yankees!

What follows is a blog post without a “whiz-bang” ending. I wrote it Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, when the story was a headline.

I try to be lyrical when I write, but after the “damn Yankees” part, the article devolved into rhetoric.

My point is the thought that first leaped to mind when I heard the news: it’s time to start hanging some of these motorscooters. (World-wise adults can surmise the synonym for “motorscooters”; you kids can take your best guess.)

And I mean “hanging” literally. Not the dubious “honor” of a firing squad, or the nebulous “humanity” of a lethal injection. I mean the drop of a common thief, a totally dishonored waste of protoplasm that is best returned to his component elements as quickly as possible.

So, for my thoughts from last week, read on:

I’m listening to “The Concert for New York City” as I write this. The double CD set was a gift from a friend who lives in The Big Apple, and though my personal quirks preclude living in an urban area of any sort, the energy and the resilience of the audience comes through with tear-jerking, throat-clogging clarity.

As a people, we have the attention span of a salamander on a hot rock. In case anyone has forgotten, the concert for NYC was an all-star performance by luminaries like The Who, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, and too many others to name. Their sole purpose was to raise morale after the 9/11 horror, and even though the three acts I’ve named are Brits, it was also their way of assuring us we’re all in this together: civilization, such as it is, against the dark heathen forces that object to us and seek to destroy us.

When I say “us,” I mean civilized people; those who follow a moral compass and don’t regard life as a cheap commodity. I have a lot of fun with my Confederate heritage; tweaking Yankees is second only to NASCAR as a favorite Southern pastime. The War of Northern Aggression, a.k.a. The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in our history; like a family feud, we had some issues to settle. The hearty people of Dixie are sore losers, and we take great delight in not admitting defeat. Since we did, in fact, lose, and people from the North have been flocking here in increasing numbers ever since, it’s amusing to mess with them. My favorite hat is a gray baseball cap emblazoned with a crusty, bearded Confederate soldier, wielding a pistol and saber, standing beside a cannon. On the top of the cap are two words: “Damn Yankees.” My cap also sports an SCV [Sons of Confederate Veterans] membership pin, and a couple of other pins alluding to Vietnam. I sometimes get strange or hostile looks in public, but I have yet to pause and try to explain myself to strangers.

I like damn Yankees. The love of my life is a damn Yankee, from Detroit. I consider the family feud to be settled, and we are all one people now. I reserve the right to kick damn Yankees around by messing with their preconceptions and acting like a stereotypical redneck, but they’re my damn Yankees, and I don’t take kindly to “furriners” coming around to poach them. Somebody screws with our damn Yankees, you’ve got to fight every mother’s son in Dixie, and that’s a bar fight with bikers that you don’t want to initiate.

Somebody attacked my damn Yankees on 11 September, 2001. I’m still pissed off about it.

So, now comes the news that the nefarious bastards who didn’t die in the attack, and are in custody, will face military tribunals instead of trial by civilian juries. There has been a great deal of controversy about how to deliver justice to these mooks, and a “common tater” described the latest decision as “a total reversal for the [current] administration.”

My personal definition of justice is that people get—or should get—what they deserve. In the case of those associated with 9/11 that would entail being herded onto a jetliner and remotely nose-dived into the North African desert. (My alternative is “flying lessons” from 2000 feet above Ground Zero; one at a time from helicopters so the others can watch, and televised globally. The impacted compost can then be added to the foundation for the new “Freedom Tower” rising on the old WTC site.)

However, since we’re a nation of laws, let’s put the system to work and apply the same standards that we used for the Nazis in 1946 Nuremburg. (There wasn’t a lot of pussyfooting about crimes against humanity back then!) Bring in the big legal brains, appoint advocates for the accused, and get on with it.

I’ve heard arguments from all over the political spectrum that military tribunals, offshore detention of terrorist combatants, and any other circumvention of established law is a violation of the Constitution. I’m not a lawyer—never played one on TV—but it’s my understanding that the United States Constitution was written for the common welfare of the citizens of the United States. (I think there’s something in the preamble about “providing for the common welfare.”) Basic tenets of American law, like the presumption of innocence, a jury of one’s peers, and the confirmation of Miranda rights, apply to citizens of this country, not to enemy combatants captured in foreign countries where they originally hatched their lethal conspiracies.

I live by a simple philosophy that minimizes stress in my life. When I lay it out for others, I enjoy the wordplay of calling it “Robert’s Rule of Order.” It’s very succinct; less than a dozen words: “Don’t wave at the cops, and don’t shoot at the Army.”

The jihadist terrorists who attacked us on 11 September 2001, and continue to attack us, have violated every tenet of human decency. They have no regard for human life, and hide behind their own women and children as they seek to slaughter our own innocents. They thump holy books in the run-ups to their “missions of martyrdom”, then come to America where they swill whiskey, surf porn, and patronize prostitutes. And, breaking Robert’s Rule of Order, they shot at the Army.