A View From Here -- Deb Weiss
A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
Traps For The Young
July 8, 1999
From the moment we first heard of a 21-year-old misfit
named Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, and his Fourth of July
weekend killing spree, we knew we were in for the
Columbine treatment.
The facts are simple -- and unbearably sad. Smith, who
was evil, or insane, or both, belonged to a racialist
cult called the World Church of the Creator, the
"brainchild" of a thug named Matthew Hale. Hale
peddles (mostly online) a drearily familiar toxic stew
of white supremacy and Jew-bashing. Among his
self-described sixteen "commandments" is this (it's
number 15): "As a proud member of the White Race,
think and act positively, be courageous, confident and
aggressive. Utilize constructively your creative
ability."
Smith's last constructive use of his creative ability,
as a proud member of the white race, was to drive
wildly from town to town, shooting at people with an
illegally-purchased gun. As millions of us honored our
nation, feasted with our families, and watched
glorious pyrotechnic displays, Smith zig-zagged across
two states, revisiting places where he'd honed his
seething sense of grievance.
Before he was done, he had killed a father taking a
walk with his kids on a peaceful suburban street, on a
gentle summer evening. He had fired upon worshippers
ambling home from a religious service, injuring
several of them. Later, miles away, he had killed a
quiet graduate student leaving church with friends.
The murdered father was black, the murdered student
Korean, the injured worshippers Orthodox Jews: they
were all, also, quite simply, human souls, blindsided
by pure evil.
In the end, Smith managed to shoot himself fatally
during a scuffle with police. He promptly became
something of a celebrity, as the good-taste folks at
NBC and ABC vied for the rights to an interview he'd
videotaped only weeks earlier, as part of a
student-produced documentary on hate groups.
The networks, salivating after ratings, are making the
most of young Benjamin, as are the activists and the
ideologues.
Excited editorialists tout polls purporting to show
that, in the wake of the violent '90s, most Americans
are ready to "trade a little security for a little
freedom."
Cries for new laws ring out on all sides. Gun laws.
Internet regulations. Laws to "ban" racism. Above all,
"hate crimes" legislation, designed to make murder
more murderous depending on the victim's group-status
(just as, long ago, it was deemed more grievous to
kill a king than a commoner).
President Clinton mournfully asserted that Smith's
frenzy reflected his "blind racial hatred against
anybody who didn't happen to be white."
Actually, most of Smith's victims were Jewish. It has
always been my understanding that the only folks who
don't count Jews as "white" are those who share the
thinking of the late Benjamin Smith. No doubt Mr.
Clinton meant well, though.
Amidst all the sound and fury, some of us felt an
aching sense of loss -- a loss of innocence, perhaps.
It is a bitter fact that there is no longer such a
thing as mourning, or shock, or shared national grief
in American public life: only politics, posturing, and
polls.
*****************************
I have before me a battered old book called "Traps For
The Young." Published in 1884, it was written by Mr.
Anthony Comstock, described on the title page as the
"Secretary and Chief Special Agent of the New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice, and Post-Office
Inspector."
Comstock was convinced that America was going to hell
in a handbasket. In nearly 300 lurid pages, he
recounted hundreds of tales of rape, robbery, assault
and murder, committed by youngsters as young as
twelve. Every one of these crimes had been inspired,
he believed, by the young felons' exposure to
sensational literature (which included everything from
"half-dime novels" to suggestive patent advertising).
Comstock was perhaps the most effective advocate for
censorship America has ever known -- at least, until
now. He crusaded successfully for a federal law
banning the transportation through the US mails of
materials he deemed "obscene:" by the time of his
death in 1915, there were "comstockeries" on the books
in nearly every state.
Throughout the 20th century, determined liberals,
brandishing the First Amendment, would dedicate
considerable energy to savaging Comstock and expunging
his legal legacy from the record.
Now, however, the pendulum has swung, and many a
former First Amendment champion has joined the assault
on free speech -- especially when it comes to the
internet, which has been cast, albeit in darker and
more ideological colors, as today's "half-dime novel,"
a pernicious thing which leads young minds astray.
No doubt there will be a spate of new laws. Bands of
fiercely principled constitutionalists, mostly of the
right this time, brandishing the First Amendment, will
spend the 21st century expunging them from the books.
And there will still be children who explode into
evil, making our hearts grow cold with fear.
A VIEW FROM HERE archive
Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999
R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999
Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999
Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999
Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999
FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999
The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999
Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999
Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999
Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999
On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999
The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999
Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999