12 May 99
This from a student who read the Coulter piece yesterday:
“I despise Clinton not because he is Godless, but because he is self-serving, and dishonest — a crooked, self-interested asshole. The burdens borne by others because of his actions and inactions seem of no import in his considerations at any level. If an author must be credited, I would suggest not Nietzsche, but Machiavelli.
I am utterly unconcerned whether he says he is God-fearing or Satanic. The Evil Ms Coulter speaks of is so clearly and frequently spawned by both, I really don’t know what that particular quarrel could possibly be about.
My questions are simpler: What laws are proposed to be passed that law-breakers will not ignore? Shall they also pass laws against suffering and death generally? Shall we require perpetrators to announce their intentions and count to ten before acting, upon penalty of surcharge to their terms if they are caught, prosecuted and found guilty? I can think of no end to proposals along similar lines which may provide an illusion of constructive action for the common good while, in fact, only reinforcing and perpetrating illusions. Then, again, a fellow can win elections with those.
From time to time in my anguish I, too, cry out against the wind. And when rationality returns, I go on about my business, but without any illusion that the wind has heard me or gives a shit one way or another. It may have made me feel better for a moment, but it did not change the self-interested hearts of evil-doers nor turn back the hands of time.
Any ‘solutions’ to problems such as these are found in hearts, not in laws. Would that we could read one as easily as the other.
In the mean time, I live my own life with joy and anticipation. I write and sing and listen and observe and attempt to share with my fellows.
And I carry!”
/John
