{"id":141,"date":"2011-07-04T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-04T17:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=141"},"modified":"2011-07-04T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T17:19:00","slug":"how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html","title":{"rendered":"How We Can Fight the Evil of Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States of America is \u201ca nation of laws,\u201d as we say.\u00a0 That being so, it follows that no one poses a greater threat to us than the criminals who live among us, for by definition, criminals are resolved to undermine the law.\u00a0 And since, unlike the slave who lives by directives, commands, and orders, the free man is abides only by laws, <\/em>a sustained assault against the law is an attack against the freedom of every person who enjoys it.<\/p>\n

Considering this, it is indeed puzzling that such pundits on the establishment right as, say, Sean Hannity and Dennis Prager, \u201cconservative\u201d talk show hosts who never tire of reminding us of the need to combat the evil of \u201cradical Islam,\u201d should remain virtually silent when it comes to this far greater evil.\u00a0 Maybe, however, this phenomenon isn\u2019t as enigmatic as it appears, for speaking out against the evil of Islamic terrorism in contemporary America doesn\u2019t require nearly as much courage as speaking out against the evil of crime.<\/p>\n

For one thing, even though it is undeniably true that criminals come in all colors, the stone cold fact of the matter is that in America, overwhelmingly it is blacks and Hispanics who are the purveyors of crime.\u00a0 To put it bluntly, it is impossible to discuss the issue of crime without speaking to its racial subtext.\u00a0 Although \u201cthe War on Terror\u201d has a racial subtext as well, as of this juncture, American pundits pay hardly a price at all for comments that are perceived as derogatory of Muslims; such, needless to say, is most certainly not the case when it comes to Hispanics, to say nothing of blacks.<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t just the fear of being charged with \u201cracism\u201d that I suspect accounts for the right wing pundit\u2019s silence with respect to crime, for when we consider the variety of criminal organizations to which whites of various sorts have belonged, it becomes painfully clear that there is no shortage of the chronically evil among the Caucasoid race.\u00a0 Perhaps the right wing enemy of evil simply fears for his physical well being.<\/p>\n

Some may recall the shame that the New York City newspaper publications invited upon themselves some years ago upon the death of the infamous \u201cdapper don,\u201d John Gotti.\u00a0 Gotti was a career criminal, a convicted murderer and the head of one of the most notorious mafia families in the country.\u00a0 Yet in spite of all of this, and in spite of the fact that he died while serving a life sentence in prison, the papers paid him tribute.\u00a0 While there were some right-leaning commentators who challenged them on this, with remarkably few exceptions (of whom former talk radio host, founder of The Guardian Angels, and one time Gotti victim, Curtis Sliwa, is the most notable), I don\u2019t recollect any who were willing to call out Gotti for the thug that he was.\u00a0 Could it be that they feared Gotti would have put out a \u201ccontract\u201d on them? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

More recently, an Irish-American mobster from Boston named James \u201cWhitey\u201d Bulger was arrested in California after having been on the run for the last 15 years or so.\u00a0 Bulger, too, was the lowest of low lives, from all accounts, a career criminal responsible for all manner of crime, from murder to extortion and everything in between.\u00a0 Before he went on the lam, Bulger began cooperating with the FBI.\u00a0 It appears now that corrupt agents within the Bureau had been aiding Bulger all along.\u00a0 Surely, then, this is no small story and yet, to my knowledge, none of the usual fighters of evil have touched it.<\/p>\n

All of us, whether we are in law enforcement or not, have an obligation to combat evil. The Islamic terrorist who deliberately targets for death innocent men, women, and children is<\/em> evil, to be sure, but, this evil doesn\u2019t pose as clear and present a danger to us as the evil of the Criminal.\u00a0 With the exception of the darkness that lurks within our own hearts, in our campaign against wickedness it is the Criminal who should receive the lion\u2019s share of our attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For those of who aren\u2019t in law enforcement, there is only so much that we can do. But the little that we can do may ultimately prove to be quite considerable.<\/p>\n

Besides regularly observing the law, cooperating with law enforcement officers when necessary, and enthusiastically pledging our support for the toughest of penalties for the Criminal, we can also strive to inculcate in ourselves the utter contempt for him that he so richly deserves.\u00a0 This in turn means that we must steadfastly refuse to so much as remotely endorse any and all attempts on the part of Hollywood and the media to romanticize him.\u00a0 If nothing else, while enjoying, say, but another viewing of The Godfather, <\/em>we must continually remind ourselves that while it is undoubtedly a fine piece of art, it is emphatically not <\/em>an accurate depiction of mafia life.<\/p>\n

Just as importantly, because language contributes in no small measure to shaping the world that we inhabit, the world that we perceive, we must set out to subvert<\/em> the conventional vocabulary in terms of which the Criminal is characteristically described.\u00a0 Words invoking manliness\u2014\u201ctough,\u201d \u201cbold,\u201d \u201crespect,\u201d \u201chonor,\u201d etc.\u2014have all too frequently been used in connection with the Criminal\u2014even though his unwillingness and\/or inability to order his life in accordance with the law <\/em>without which a true man degenerates into something less than a real man should establish beyond a doubt that they have no place when it comes to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For most of the history of what we now call Western civilization, a real <\/em>man or a true <\/em>man was recognized as being synonymous with the good <\/em>man, the man of virtue<\/em>.\u00a0 A virtue is an excellence.\u00a0 <\/em>Of two eyes, only one of which has sight, we say that it alone is \u201cthe good eye,\u201d for only an eye with sight is capable of doing that for the sake of which eyes exist to begin with: see.\u00a0 An eye with perfect vision, as we say, is a \u201cvirtuous\u201d eye, for it excels <\/em>at fulfilling this purpose.\u00a0 In contrast, an eye devoid of all sight, being a bad eye, is not really an eye at all; it is an eye in name only.\u00a0 Similarly, an evil man is in reality something less than a real man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In order to be good men, real <\/em>men (and, of course, good, true women) we must resolve to express this truth every chance we can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jack\u00a0Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States of America is \u201ca nation of laws,\u201d as we say.\u00a0 That being so, it follows that no one poses a greater threat to us than the criminals who live among us, for by definition, criminals are resolved to undermine the law.\u00a0 And since, unlike the slave who lives by directives, commands, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow We Can Fight the Evil of Crime<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How We Can Fight the Evil of Crime\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The United States of America is \u201ca nation of laws,\u201d as we say.\u00a0 That being so, it follows that no one poses a greater threat to us than the criminals who live among us, for by definition, criminals are resolved to undermine the law.\u00a0 And since, unlike the slave who lives by directives, commands, and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-04T17:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How We Can Fight the Evil of Crime","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How We Can Fight the Evil of Crime","og_description":"The United States of America is \u201ca nation of laws,\u201d as we say.\u00a0 That being so, it follows that no one poses a greater threat to us than the criminals who live among us, for by definition, criminals are resolved to undermine the law.\u00a0 And since, unlike the slave who lives by directives, commands, and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2011-07-04T17:19:00+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html","name":"How We Can Fight the Evil of Crime","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-04T17:19:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-04T17:19:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/07\/how-we-can-fight-the-evil-of-crime.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How We Can Fight the Evil of Crime"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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