ACCOMMODATING TYRANNY?

In 1964, as a graduating high-school senior, I was opposed to the public-accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist and candidate for the US Senate from Kentucky, has made some recent comments about that which have stirred up a very unpleasant memory. I cringe to admit what my thinking was back then. 

 As a product of very conservative instruction on American government in my senior high-school year, I was focused solely on the consideration of the owners of “public” businesses being controlled by the federal government in deciding whom they would serve in their eating or lodging establishments. I was indifferent to the very real suffering of those who were denied such service solely because of their skin color. I was obsessed with whether or not the “Commerce Clause” legally authorized the federal government to intrude into local commerce. The Commerce Clause in the US Constitution authorizes Congress to regulate “interstate” commerce, and the US Supreme Court confirmed that includes most public accommodations as regulated under the Act. 

Fast-forward about eight or nine years, and my thinking had undergone some considerable revision, probably due to some very timely and welcome legal education. No longer was I willing to make legal excuses for bigots. Ironically, my recent thinking has been hardened even further by the dust-up over the federal mandate to purchase health insurance from private vendors in the recently adopted healthcare law, which I think is unconstitutional because I do not believe it is a proper exercise of the powers set forth in the “Commerce Clause.” 

These seeming contradictions can be best explained (from my point of view) by noting that “commerce” is, by definition, a “public” activity. It seems clear to me that the Congress can require that anyone who CHOOSES to enter the marketplace (as a seller or buyer) must play by the rules of fairness. Given his obvious stale obsessions with the well-settled 1964 Civil Rights Act, Rand Paul should have already analyzed this situation to provide him with a firm position on the matter. Instead, he hemmed and hawed and dissembled about the validity of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and he winds up looking like the buffoon he obviously is. 

Watching the crowd on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” the other day, several were excuse-mongering about Paul’s status as a “mere” ophthalmologist who might well have a poor understanding of the law. But Senate candidate Paul willingly chose to take and express an extreme position on the law based upon a thoroughly discredited line of thinking, in which case, as an obviously well-educated, intelligent Board-certified ophthalmologist, he should have been prepared to defend his point of view. That he flip-flopped on the matter demonstrates that he is not ready for prime time. Any Kentucky voter who votes for Paul hereafter is a fool. 

As for the healthcare law, while Congress obviously has the power to demand fairness from those who choose to enter the marketplace, to my memory it has never exercised power to force private individuals to enter the marketplace and have business dealings with other private entities. This will be banged out in the courts, and properly so, but I reject the analogy of auto liability (not collision nor comprehensive) insurance because those who choose to avoid use of the roads are not required to buy such insurance, and those programs are established under state law, not federal law. The 10th Amendment draws a significant distinction between state and federal authority, not that very many voters, journalists, politicians or judges seem to care these days. 

I am deeply sorry for failing to recognize the pain and suffering that my stingy analysis of the 1964 Civil Rights Act disregarded so long ago. I am grateful I finally saw the light. There is a big legal difference between the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the healthcare law.

PLEASE, DADDY!

This is going to be a tough essay to write. I have lived for almost 64 years, and I am just now getting around to putting down on "paper" what has become probably the most terrifying memory that I have, listening to my drunken father threatening to come upstairs and kill my 11-year-old self as I lay in my bed, presumably sleeping, but actually eavesdropping in abject horror on his drunken rantings.

I STILL, to this day, have in my bedside table drawer (the same table I had by my bed as a child) the cast-iron swag-lamp counterweight that I kept handy after the swag-lamp fell apart. I was determined to whack my Old Man in the head as hard as I could if he dared show his drunken mug in my bedroom. I truly believed he would make good on his threats, and I was as prepared as I could be. If I faked being asleep, perhaps I could take him by surprise and beat his fucking brains out before he was able to do something to me. I was as serious as a heart attack. I had resolved to beat his head as many times as I could with the counterweight. I knew I had to kill him first before he killed me.

I spent about 5 years coping with this, from about Age 11 to Age 16, in rural North Carolina. I entered boarding school right after my 16th birthday, so all I had to fear then were my schoolmates! My father's drunken threats were not happening every night, but it was random enough to keep me on my toes all the time.

My father was a pretty nice person if he was not drunk, but if he WAS drunk, then he was like Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll. My mother was worthless; he would beat the shit out of her if she got in his way. I used to surreptitiously watch him do that. I should have killed him anyway, like the mad dog he was! She was a horrible enabler in any event, wishing to keep surface appearances smooth, but that was typical of the times.

As the oldest, with his name and same birth-date, I think I reminded him of himself, and as he was obviously into self-loathing, it manifested as a death wish on me. He was really fucked up. If I look back on it, I think his father probably ignored him unless he was being punished. I think his father was a royal prick. But, those are after-the-fact speculations. I was not given to that much in-depth analysis when I was a child.

My father was a raging "juice-freak," an alcoholic, and I am sorry for that burden he had to carry. He quit drinking about two years before dying right after his 60th birthday in 1977 (about 8 days after Elvis!), but he was an overweight, heavy smoker, and it got him. I am fat now, but I don't smoke, thankfully. I like my beer, but I don't get drunk anymore, though I have done so in the past. I don't want to walk in his shoes.

As for forgiveness, I readily accept the necessity of doing that to free myself from the grip of this terror that still rages in my memory, but I am not there yet. Some years thereafter he tried to assault me while drunk, and I beat his ass horribly. I beat him until he stayed away from me. I was about 22 years old at the time. He never threatened or fucked with me thereafter. Served him right.

I won't forgive him. Not yet. Maybe never. If you think I should well, fuck you, too!

MY LOVELY AFTERNOON

(From personal experience, (c) April 29, 2010, all rights reserved.)

I was cutting grass one beautiful, cool April afternoon down in a field behind my garage, mowing the path that runs through that field to my barn. There is a "wet spot" there that is usually soft and muddy, and I tried to "power" through it but got stuck about 6:00 PM. My mower, a huge, heavy zero-turn-radius Diesel mower with a 72" cutting deck, has turf tires and gets stuck very easily. I was royally pissed off.

Sulking and feeling sorry for myself, I trudged all the way up to the house and lay down in my recliner to drink a beer and nurture a righteous pity party, then I suddenly realized I could not just leave the mower where it was, BECAUSE the left rear tire was leaking and consistently going flat, and I was going to have one hell of a mess if I left it there overnight, thereby allowing the tire to go flat in the mudhole, as it most probably would do. I HAD to get it unstuck before dark and bring it up to my workshop where my air compressor reposes. That way, I could pump up the tire AGAIN the next day, as I must about every 2 days or so. I would not be able to get it repaired until the following Monday, having to jack up the mower, chock the wheels and remove the rear wheel over the weekend, then take it to the tire shop about 40 miles away, PROVIDED I got the yard mowed first, which normally takes about 3-1/2 hours.

NOTHING IS SIMPLE.

That very morning I had dropped off my truck (with towing chain in the toolbox) at a dealership to be worked on, so I did not have the towing chain. So, cursing and muttering at the unfairness of it all, I reluctantly went back outside, climbed up on my tractor and drove it down into the field with a web-nylon strap and a spare hitch ball stuck in the drag bar on the tractor. I did not even have a big nut to hold the hitch ball on the drag bar. There was nowhere else on the tractor on which to hook the web-strap!

After backing the tractor up to the mower, I got down, looped the strap around the front axle and the other end looped onto the hitch ball on the drag bar, then I heaved my body back up onto the tractor and dragged the mower sort of sideways out of the mudhole. I backed up the tractor slightly to relieve the tension on the strap, got down off the tractor again, locked the brake on the mower and removed the nylon strap from the hitch-ball, which strap was now CONVENIENTLY pinched in a vertical caster shaft on the front axle! (The front mower wheels are like big casters.) Eventually freeing the strap, I then climbed back onto the tractor, moved it about 50 ft. away, climbed down, got on the mower, started it and finished mowing the grass in the immediate vicinity. (I kept the tractor handy in case I got the mower stuck again.) I then got off the FUCKING mower, climbed back onto the tractor and drove it up into the yard and parked it, where it still sits. Then I walked back down to the mower, finished cutting the area, and then drove it up to the shop and parked it by the compressor. WHEW!

It was getting cold and dark by then (I had found ice in the truck bed that morning), so I got all that drudgery done in the nick of time. I really had not wanted to go back out there and do all that after going into the house the first time, but I knew it would be a royal mess the next day if I did not. I had argued with myself internally for about 30 minutes! The self-pity was almost crippling! I was truly surprised at myself for actually going back out there and getting it done, considering how much I had NOT wanted to do it!

I had been hoping it would fix itself, but unfortunately, those things rarely happen. I still had most of the yard left to mow, including taking a hard run at the mint patch which is always soft and muddy. I have gotten stuck therein several times. Unfortunately, when one hits a mudhole, the momentum of that mower dies like a miner in a Massey coal mine. It is like smacking a brick wall!

If one must purchase a riding lawn mower, do NOT trust turf tires. They are worthless. They were obviously designed by someone who has NEVER had to cut his own grass. Get the great big knobby tractor-style tires instead.