Outliving this Day and Coming Safe Home

The late 1960s saw a lot of political turmoil and some violence (sound familiar?) as a result of a civil rights movement that turned violent and the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Racial segregation and discrimination were legally ended with some dispatch, but the social and cultural reality would linger for some time, even to today to some extent.

Accordingly, from the middle of the decade onward there emerged a Black Power movement demanding a concept of equality, to be achieved by violent means if necessary.

H. Rap Brown, one of the most vocal leaders of the Black Power movement, and who often advocated violence, died last week in a prison hospital while serving a life sentence from 2002 for the killing of a Georgia sheriff’s deputy and other charges. He was 82.

In 1967 Brown succeeded Stokely Carmichael as leader of the civil rights organization oxymoronically named Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick” by some). As SNCC Chairman, Brown developed a reputation as a fiery orator and leader of the militant black power movement. He was a founder of the Black Panther organization and was styled as its minister of defense. He spent the next decades in and out of prison for his conduct in violent protests.

In July 1967 Brown spoke in Cambridge, Maryland saying, “It’s time for Cambridge to explode, baby. Black folks built America, and if America don’t come around, we’re going to burn America down.” Gunfire reportedly broke out and both Brown and a police officer were wounded. A fire started that night and by the next day, seventeen buildings were destroyed. Brown was charged with inciting a riot.

Brown’s trial was originally to take place in Cambridge, but a change of venue moved the trial to Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, to start in March 1970. On March 9, two SNCC officials, Ralph Featherstone and William “Che” Payne, were driving on U.S. Route 1 just south of Bel Air when a bomb they were carrying exploded, killing them both.

At that time I was in my last tour of military duty at the nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground as an officer in the Ordnance Corps. I recalled hearing about the blast but did not pay much attention to it at the time. Several years later when I was a detective in the Dallas Police Department I met Dr. Vincent DeMaio, then Assistant Medical Examiner for Dallas County and consultant to the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences. At the time of the Bel Air bombing. Dr. DiMaio was employed in the Harford County medical examiner’s office, where what was left of the bombers was taken for autopsy.

Dr. DiMaio recalled that the county sheriff’s office was on high alert for anticipated violent protests surrounding Brown’s trial. One afternoon a deputy noticed a car making several slow trips around the courthouse in downtown Bel Air, apparently casing the location. The occupants appeared to have spotted the deputy and turned onto the highway leading out of town. The deputy followed them and looked for a reason to stop and investigate. While driving behind the suspect car, he decided to contact the dispatcher by radio. A second or two after keying his microphone, the suspect car exploded, severely damaging it and killing Featherstone and Payne. Dr. DiMaio said the investigators determined the RF from the police radio set off an electric blasting cap, detonating the dynamite. The passenger had the bomb in his lap and the explosion literally blew his body in two.

One lesson from that incident: there is always a way to blow up explosives; the trick is not to be around when they go off.

This lesson has oft gone unheeded. There have been numerous wannabe bombers in militant groups from the Provisional IRA to the Weather Underground to Al-Shabaab who have succeeded in blowing themselves up, not having learned that trick.

Note: Dr. Vincent DiMaio left Dallas County to become the Chief Medical Examiner for Bexar County (San Antonio) Texas until 2006. He was appointed to the Texas Forensic Science Commission in 2011. Dr. DiMaio authored many publications about forensic pathology and testified in a number of high profile trials, including for the defense of George Zimmerman in the Trevon Martin shooting in Florida. He died in 2022.

The Dallas Morning News obituaries this week announced that Suzie Humphreys has died at age 87. May she rest in peace. For those of us who were around during the late 60s through 70s and later, Suzie was a television and radio personality. She was probably best remembered as Ron Chapman’s remote sidekick on his popular morning program on radio station KVIL. Chapman and his crew catered to an audience primarily of the young urban professionals, then known as “yuppies,” many of whom were reformed hippies. In addition to playing contemporary pop music, Chapman fielded phone calls and exchanged banter with listeners. Those calls rarely involved politics, except when some politician did or said something ridiculous or otherwise humorous. Such comments were not hostile or venomous like today’s social media, but many were followed by a “what’s this world coming to” jingle. This, of course, was an age in which there were only line-land telephones. 
	Suzie’s role was making traffic reports, first from the KVIL helicopter and later from the “Yellowvan” that roamed the streets. She and Chapman engaged in a lot of humorous and interesting banter interspersed with reports of jams on the freeways and the occasional wreck. Suzie’s transition from the sky occurred only after her escape from death. One morning in the late spring, while pregnant, Suzie, intrepid as ever, flew and made her reports and conversation with Chapman. That day’s weather was turbulent, some gusts over 25 MPH. Suffering from nausea brought about by her morning sickness and the rough air, Suzie asked the pilot to land and let her out. He did and took off again. After several minutes, the KVIL helicopter crashed, killing the pilot and destroying the aircraft. After that harrowing brush with death, Suzie, Chapman, and KVIL management decided that it was prudent that she continue her career on the ground — she did and continued until Chapman’s show ended and he went to another station.
	I had a somewhat minor connection with that event.  The day of the KVIL helicopter crash I was a detective with the Dallas Police Department’s special investigations unit, a group of officers that investigated organized property crimes and anything else the chief assigned. At the time there was a rash of burglaries of wealthy homes in North Dallas. One of the burglars had been arrested, and probably in hopes of some leniency, told us that he and his partner in crime had stolen a safe from a victim’s house. They could not open the safe and it was too heavy and bulky to carry very far. They left it on the side of one of the numerous creeks that ran through the neighborhoods in North Dallas. We caught one of the burglars and when interrogated he told us about the safe and roughly where they left it. Rather than search on the ground that day, I volunteered to ride in a police helicopter to look for the safe along the creeks. It did not take long to spot and we called officers on the ground to retrieve it. On the way back to the airport in southwest Dallas, we ran into the same weather Suzie and their pilot were experiencing. Susceptible to motion sickness myself, I thought about asking the pilot to put down, but valor rather than discretion took over and I toughed it out. Later, after hearing about the helicopter Suzie had been in crashing, I thought about what could have happened to me. It has taken the grim reaper another forty-eight years to claim Suzie. Hope it takes him longer to harvest me.

Eighteenth Century composer George Frederic Handel who is probably best known for his oratorio Messiah, wrote and performed many more of the same genre. One, Judas Maccabaeus, was reportedly composed to celebrate the victory of the Duke of Cumberland over Charles Edward Stuart (known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”) at the Battle of Culloden during the 1746 Jacobite rebellion. The libretto, with considerable dramatic license, comes from the Bible’s Old Testament Book of 2 Maccabees that chronicles the period 170–160 BC when Judea was ruled by the Seleucid Greek Empire.¹ The then ruler Antiochus IV had undertaken to defile the Second Temple in Jerusalem and destroy the Jewish religion.

Judas Maccabeus, son of a priest who defied Antiochus, became the leader of the resistance and inspired the people with thoughts of liberty and victory through the power of Jehovah. When victory was finally achieved for the Jewish people, Maccabeus was celebrated as their hero (the chorus “See the Conquering Hero Comes!” in Act III). News arrives that Rome is willing to form an alliance with Judas against the Seleucid empire. The people rejoice that peace has at last come to their country (“O Lovely Peace”).² The Jewish feast of Hanukkah commemorates the victory and the cleansing of the Temple.

Mark Twain is reputed to have observed history does not repeat itself but it rhymes.³ So go recent events in the war of Israel against its Hamas enemies in Gaza. That war, or at least that phase is over. The result has to be regarded as an Israeli victory, the return of the hostages eliminated Israel’s internal opposition to continuing to fight. If Hamas reneges on the rest of the deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netaynahu will have free hand to deal with it as he chooses, and President Donald Trump has said the U. S. will back him.

The Israeli success was multi-factored. The competence of the Mossad and the competence and courage of the Israel Defense Force were two of them. Netanyahu’s resolve in the face of a internal dissent and international disapproval (and condemnation) was another. But Donald Trump, deal maker extraordinary, orchestrated the process. After giving Netanyahu a green light to eliminate Hamas leaders in Iran and control Iranian airspace, Trump delivered the coup de grace and destroyed Iran’s incipient nuclear capability. The combined Israeli – U.S. forces thus neutered Hamas patron. Iran’s proxies Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yeman were also neutralized; Hezbollah leaders decimated by the exploding pagers, dubbed “grim beepers.” Trump publicly urged Netanyahu to seek a peace deal, but appeared to privately support whatever Israel did. When Netanyahu bombed the Hamas leaders in Doha, Trump publicly expressed disdain, but this act appears to have had the President’s tacit acquiescence to the deed. In any event it seems to have motivated the Qatari rulers to force Hamas to the table.

After the combatants agreed to the cease fire, Donald Trump went to Jerusalem to address the Knesset.⁴ He was greeted with a standing ovation and a trumpet fanfare. Benjamin Netanyahu was similarly, if not as ostentatiously, honored. There is no report that the fanfare was based on Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus choral anthem. How apropos would that have been!

Postscript

While the Second Century B.C. Maccabees ultimately prevailed against the Seleucids, It was slightly less than a century when their erstwhile Roman patrons under General Pompey, during the conquest of the rest of the Levant, entered Jerusalem and established Rome’s rule over Judea and the rest of what is now the State of Israel. The downstream effect of the Trump-Netanyahu cease-fire, whether soon or distant, is anybody’s guess.

For now we can enjoy Handel’s oratorio, like the rest of his music is, in a word, glorious.

Footnotes

1. Alexander the Great’s empire was partitioned among several factions after his death.
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2. Maccabeus, the spelling varies, was actually killed in the final battle. But the Maccabees fought on.
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3. Mark Twain, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day (1873) Ch. 47. What was actually stated was in a quote“History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.” Later writers interpreted it to the shorthand version.
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4. The Israeli parliament. ↩︎

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr gave Jimmy Kimmel’s late night television show a boost to his anemic ratings. The Chairman made a not so veiled threat to use the Commission’s licensing power to discipline media for speech that it determined “not to be in the public interest.” Carr’s statement was eventually to no avail, but Kimmel’s return after a week’s hiatus was bound to increase the number of viewers curious to see what the fuss was all about. Without Carr’s foolish faux pas it would have been a non-story and Kimmel would have remained canceled.

This situation and similar ones have illuminated free speech issues already raging in public discourse. This right, ensconced and protected by the U. S. Constitution, is widely misunderstood. What it means is, with extremely narrow exceptions, that if a person expresses an opinion or interpretation of facts, the government or any state actor may not do something unpleasant to that person. It does not apply to private persons unless they are state actors.¹ There is no permitted legal sanction for so-called “hate” speech nor criticism of government, public officials, or other private persons or groups. An exception is speech “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action and it is likely to incite or produce such action.”² There is also an exception for civil actions for defamation, i.e. slander and libel where a person utters or publishes false facts — not opinions — that are defamatory.

Governments may also enact reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions for expression, so long as they are not based on content. An example is requiring a permit for use of a public street. Certain acts, such as vandalism of public or private property or assault, might also be legally punished.³

The above is a brief overview of the Constitutional and legal aspects of free speech and expression. There are many yards of law library shelves (or today terabytes of electronic storage) that contain law and commentary on the subject.

Of note is the current issue of private “self censorship” enforced by social disapproval of an individual’s peer group, or by economic boycotts, formal or otherwise, of business activities. That might be worth another post.

Of interest is Tunku Varadarajan’s summary of his interview with Harvey Silverglate, a lawyer who describes himself as a “liberal libertarian” in today’s Wall Street Journal (9/27/2025). Silverglate, along with Alan Charles Kors, a University of Pennsylvania history professor, described as a “conservative libertarian” founded in 1999 the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).⁴ This organization is in the forefront of promoting freedom of speech. Varadarajan’s interview summary is at https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-right-needs-to-conserve-free-speech-14291c81?st=HCcded&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink and is well worth a read.

1. Private employers are generally not state actors, and may restrict speech or expression as a condition or employment.
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2. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).
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3. It’s arguable that burning a flag in a public place could be banned on safety grounds. ↩︎
4. The FIRE was originally “Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.” Its original purpose was to promote free speech on campuses that were restricted by “speech code” by many colleges and universities. It recently expanded its focus. ↩︎

August 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the first and only wartime use of nuclear weapons. A de facto moratorium on such use has existed since then.

Recently Vladimir Putin has made veiled threats that he could use nuclear weapons to keep the USA and NATO from helping Ukraine further defend against Russia’s invasion. Further south, Iran has attempted for years to obtain nuclear weapons to achieve its stated goal of annihilating Israel. These and other events have stimulated interest and speculation among journalists, politicians, and those of us who are interested in international current events, that this moratorium could soon come to an end.

So far, public alarm has not risen to the level of that of the 1950s, where schoolchildren practiced diving under their desks as a first response to nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Nor of the early 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative provoked the Soviets’ saber, er, bomb rattling.

Some observers regard the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 as the closest the world has come to a nuclear war. Thankfully, it was averted. But ever since the Soviets got the bomb, there has been an undercurrent of worry that “somewhere, somehow, a damn foolish thing in a remote place would precipitate a nuclear confrontation that would escalate to involve the whole world” (to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck’s prediction about the inevitable coming of World War I).

Russia, China, and to some degree North Korea, use nuclear threats more as a shield than a sword. North Korea is also too close to South Korea to use a weapon against its neighbor, for fear of backfire on their side. The same applies to India versus Pakistan. Even so, a series of missteps in these venues could precipitate a war between the major powers.

Currently there are nine states that have deployable atomic weapons: the USA, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and Israel. Would any of these nations use these weapons?

The concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) has doubtless been a major factor in the prevention of a USA-Russia conflict. It surely has crossed the collective mind of other powers.

But what about Russia’s currently unsuccessful war with Ukraine? It can be argued that those two countries are too geographically close and Russia’s nuclear use there would affect Russian territory. At any rate, Putin wants to take over Ukraine more or less intact, not as a radioactive wasteland.

Britain and France have no interest in starting a war with the Russians, or anyone else, but they are members of NATO and bound to come to another member’s aid if that member were attacked.

China? That nation’s goal, beyond obtaining trade dominance, is taking over Taiwan. That can be done with conventional weaponry. If the US were to aid Taiwan militarily, a conventional conflict would be more likely and would not necessarily threaten either power’s homeland.

North Korea is also constrained by geography as to its rival on the southern part of the peninsula. Kim Jong Un’s plan appears to be obtaining a delivery capability to threaten the USA if it uses its military to support the South.

While not yet a member of the nuclear club, Iran under the rule of Islamist mullahs has spent the last decade or so and billions attempting to obtain an atomic bomb and a ballistic missile delivery system. The stated goal of obtaining these weapons is to provide the means to eliminate what the ayatollah and other Islamists consider the Great Satan and Little Satan, that is, the USA and Israel.

Iran is different from other potentially hostile nuclear powers. It is run by religious fanatics who are undeterred that using these weapons would end in their own destruction. Becoming martyrs guarantees entry to heaven to be serviced by many virgins; this a fantasy many take seriously. There is little doubt that Iran would use nuclear weapons if they obtain them.

This threat was abated, at least for now, by Israel (together with USA help) in the so-called Twelve Day War this past June. The threat may recur, especially if the current Iranian regime survives. If it does, Israel, the United States, and the rest of the world will be sorry.

There are numerous books, monographs, and documentary films about the making of the atomic bombs code named “Little Boy” (dropped on Hiroshima August 6) and “Fat Man” (that devastated Nagasaki August 9, 1945). The Manhattan Project, led by General Leslie Groves, with scientific head J. Robert Oppenheimer, was a three-year effort, conducted in secret, to develop an atomic bomb. Unfortunately, it was not secret enough. Stalin’s spies were embedded at Los Alamos and managed to obtain the plans, and the Soviets soon caught up with nuclear technology.

Two books recently reviewed on the Wall Street Journal are Garrett M. Graff’s The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb and Iain MacGregor’s The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It. Not sure if this writer will have time to read either, but the reviews were complimentary. The most comprehensive books on the science and engineering, as well as the politics, on development are Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986) and, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (1995).

Iran’s potential nuclear adventure, coupled with the United States’ porous borders of recent times, has suggested that a terrorist could bring a nuclear bomb into the US, secrete it in a large city, and detonate it. It would be 9/11 on a monumental scale. A 1980 novel The Fifth Horseman, by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre, was about terrorists secreting a hydrogen bomb in New York City to blackmail the USA into forcing Israel to remove its settlers from the West Bank. This book is a rattling good yarn.

For those interested, a visit to the American Museum of Science and Energy at Oak Ridge Tennessee, a suburb of Knoxville, is worthwhile. The exhibits there include the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

This past June, the Department of Defense restored the original names to a number of military bases that were changed during the last Administration. Forts Hood, Polk, Lee, and Bragg were a few of those installations whose names were surnames of Civil War Confederate Army officers from 160 years ago. This produced some hand-wringing by certain factions over such re-re-naming.

This consternation is misplaced. Few service members who served at those bases associate their names with the Confederacy, and fewer persons in living memory, whether they served in the military or not, even know or care who those installations were named for. Anyone who paid any attention in history class would know who Robert E. Lee was; how many know who Leonidas Polk, Braxton Bragg, and John Bell Hood were?

Outside of the so-called woke movement, there are few of us who do know and care. Here in Texas, Fort Hood — whose former name is now restored — was renamed for General Richard Cavazos. Cavazos and the others doubtless deserve to be honored for their service. But those honors can be given without cancelling the names of bases, especially prominent ones like Bragg or Hood.

Many present and former service members have memories — fond and otherwise — of their service to the nation at those installations. I served, albeit briefly, at Forts Lee and Polk. Fort Lee, near Petersburg in Virginia, was a day trip from many famous and interesting historical sites, including Williamsburg and Monticello. Fort Polk was not exactly Alligator Alcatraz, but it is in the boondocks not close to much of interest.

Regardless of who or what these or other public places were named for, after a while they become recognizable, not for their namesakes, but for geographical locations or what subsequently occurred at the location. Those names should not be disturbed, particularly to make a political point. That would also go for renaming international waters like the Gulf of Mexico, a bit petulant but perhaps a boon to map publishers.

Biographical Note: Leonidas Polk was a West Point Graduate who subsequently attended the Virginia Theological Seminary. He was ordained as a priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church and later a bishop in that church. Polk, who was a cousin of President James K. Polk, was appointed as a general in the Confederate army and was in battles at Shiloh, Chickamauga, and others. He was killed in the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. If interested, see Parks, Joseph H. General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A.: The Fighting Bishop (Southern Biography Series). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992; Mitchell, Joseph B. Decisive Battles of the Civil War. New York: Ballantine Books, 1955.

One hundred years ago on July 10 in Dayton, Tennessee, jury selection began in the trial of John T. Scopes. Scopes was a high school teacher accused of violating state law by teaching the theory of evolution in biology class. This trial, dubbed by some as the “Monkey Trial,” was probably a set-up to test the law. Ultimately, Scopes was convicted and fined, though the conviction was overturned on appeal for procedural reasons. The trial was reported contemporaneously by H. L. Mencken, a journalist and commentator for the Baltimore Sun known for his ascerbic wit.

The Darwinian theory, today much enhanced by a century of research and study, was — and is — highly controversial among certain populations. Almost all serious practitioners in the biological sciences accept the theory in its current form. Many who continue to be believers in various religions, maintain that their faith in divine creation is not incompatible with the biological theory. The exceptions, today as in 1925, include fundamentalist Christians who insist that the Bible (in whatever version they use) is the final word of God and its stories and statements are literally true.

When I was a freshman (9th grade) at Jesuit High School (now known by the highfalutin title as Jesuit College Preparatory School) in Dallas many decades ago, our teacher who taught both religion and English, brought up in class the stage play by Lawrence and Lee “Inherit the Wind,” a fictional account of the Scope Trial. We discussed the pros and cons of the Darwinian theory and its relation to faith, and were assigned to each write an essay about the compatibility of biological evolution with Christianity. My belief and understanding was that then, and now remains, the Roman Catholic Church does not teach that Christian faith and evolutionary theory are incompatible. Using exegesis to interpret Bible according to the spirit of its meaning, rather that strict literal language (from whatever version one wishes to read), harmonizes the science with faith. Nothing in Genesis, or elsewhere, precludes the intervention of God to endow an already developed creature with a human soul.

The United States in 1925 was a Protestant Christian society, pretty much fundamentalist in rural areas and small towns. Today, we are more pluralistic. There are numerous versions of Christianity, and many religious ideas and sects. And quite a few individuals here are atheists or agnostics. This pluralism is protected by the U. S. Constitution and state constitutions and law. Those who wish to manifest their beliefs publicly may do so, but those beliefs must not be ensconced into law. To paraphrase a wise observation from the New Testament: render unto the scientific study that with which it concerns, and unto faith what is its concerns.

The three main characters in the play are representations of defense lawyer Clarence Darrow, prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, and journalist H. L. Mencken. David Mamet, in todays Wall Street Journal Essay “Political Theater Makes Bad Drama,” criticizes the play as too one-sided — it tends to portray the Darrow character as heroic and dismissive of benighted populations of the town and Christians in general, Bryan as a buffoon, and Mencken as a cynical agnostic. Manet maintains drama should be more ambiguous and not dogmatic. He has a point. Invective rarely persuades the one at whom it is directed. Manet ends his essay opining that Darrow (and we) have learned nothing from the fictional play. I disagree. At the end, the Darrow character, picks up a Bible and Darwin’s book “The Descent of Man.” He balances them in each hand and puts them together in his briefcase. That says a lot other than mere words.

Note: “Inherit the Wind was staged numerous times. It was a 1960 film by Stanley Kramer; starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, and a number of made-for-TV movies, including 1999 with Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, and Beau Bridges.

Another anniversary worth noting is the launch in 1962 of Telstar, the first communications satellite. This was a feat comparable to the invention of the printing press that led to widespread literacy, the electric telegraph that enabled direct interpersonal communication from a distance, and microchips that allowed the creation of computers, cell-phones, and more. Each event was a blow to the “tyranny of distance” by enhancement of out ability to communicate. These developments have not been without side-effects, but have, on balance, improved the lives of billions.

This is an updated version of an article first posted 14 years ago.

The Fourth of July is a day for picnics, fireworks, parades, and all kinds of activities celebrating our Nation’s birth. It should also be a time for reflection on the founding principles. The source of those principles is most immediately found in the Enlightenment. This was a cultural, intellectual, and, later, political movement of the late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries that historians regard as the culmination of a sea-change of thought about the relations of human beings with the universe that began with the Reformation and its precursors. Enlightenment thinkers emphasized the use of reason as the basis of knowledge and understanding and the primary method of discovering moral and physical truths. Their use of reason led to the idea of the essential sovereignty of the individual person, and the rights of man (in the generic sense) to life, liberty, and estate, or property. The Enlightenment is associated with such thinkers as Isaac Newton, John Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and others in Europe, and Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine in America. The United States of America is the only nation founded on the basis of common ideas, rather than accidents of geography, of kinship or tribe, or conquest. Some historians have described our primary founding document as an Enlightenment Manifesto. Leonard Peikoff in his book The Ominous Parallels described America as the “Nation of the Enlightenment.” I have spent some time parsing the Declaration of Independence to show why this is so. Please read on.

When in the Course of Human Events…

The first seven words of the Declaration of Independence are themselves revolutionary. Before Thomas Jefferson (with help from Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and others) penned this document, all important legal documents began with the paean to God, or the monarch. The Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact (which some call the first American Constitution) are some examples. There are countless others. This Declaration recognized human, not supernatural, not authoritarian, events which drive this change. This is not to say that it rejects a deity, or even Christianity. It emphasizes that this is the act of human beings, and it is done in the name of a group of people freely associating.

… it becomes necessary…

The word “necessary” in the Enlightenment sense means naturally caused; that is, inevitable because it is of nature. It is akin to a natural law like Isaac Newton described in his treatises on motion and gravity. The law of gravity requires – makes necessary – that an object falls to the ground. As the Declaration goes on to say, events have made American independence necessary.

… for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another…

Political connections are a human construct, not the divine right of kings. The King is not the state – L’etat ne c’est le Roi pas, contrary to what Louis XIV of France said.

… and to assume among the Powers of the Earth the separate and equal Station…

The people of the colonies are “assuming by their own act a status that is independent sovereignty is equal to all the other nations on earth. This assumption is not a grant; it is not a sufferance of the colonial master. It is inherent by right, by the law of nature.

… to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,…

This is the core of Enlightenment thinking. God is revealed through nature, and the laws of nature are the laws of God. Jefferson may have been treading lightly here. He probably was a Deist, which many Enlightenment figures were, including Benjamin Franklin, and most notoriously Thomas Paine. He had to recognize the Judeo-Christian tradition because most of the colonial leaders, not to mention the ordinary colonists were at least nominally Christian. Deism as such, was not hostile to Christianity, or other forms of religion, but those faiths did not tolerate Deists.

… a decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind requires that they declare the causes which impelled them to the Separation.

The people seeking independence are telling the world why. They are justifying their actions to the rest of the world, not just their former British overlords. Reason is what gives actions legitimacy, according to Enlightenment principles. Reason is given to men by God, or nature, and they are expected to justify their actions by it. In order for the world to grant its approval and sanction, human actions must be reasonable.

The next paragraph of the Declaration is a treatise on government and gives the underlying philosophical basis and general justification for independence.

We hold these Truths to be self evident…

The introductory phrase is an epistemological statement that breaks from the long-standing Aristotelian Scholasticism’s presumed authority of the past. The Enlightenment held that the empirical observation, and reasoning from those verifiable observations, is the basis of knowledge. The intellectual tradition of the Western world – indeed, the entire world – had been that the received wisdom from the past should not be deviated from and should form all premises on which knowledge was based. The primary Western authorities, of course were the Scriptures and the Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle. Beginning with Francis Bacon, the early modern thinkers gradually broke with this method, at least insofar as it attempted to explain the workings of the physical universe. The Enlightenment scholars, and other humanists, did not necessarily reject religious Christianity to provide moral guidance and inform men as to the relation with God in eternity, but believed that God manifested truths about the physical universe in nature.

… that all Men are created equal…

The notion of equality of human beings in the Enlightenment did not mean that everyone was the same; that is, equal in physical, intellectual, and moral character. Neither did it mean that they should be leveled to the same economic status. The operative word here is “created.” Its use in this context means that no one is given any special status in relation to others merely by the accident of birth. The Aristotelian description of the universe included the Great Chain of Being. This construct held that there is a order from God in heaven down to the inanimate rocks in which every species of being has a place. In the human order, the King and his nobles have their places at the top, and the peasants and serfs have theirs at the bottom, with different levels of status or importance in between. The Chain of Being was not a ladder, and one’s place was immutable. It was a crime or a sin to attempt to rise above or sink below the status to which one was born to. The Seventeenth Century doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings was a logical deduction from the concept of a Chain of Being. The King was God’s lieutenant on earth. The Enlightenment broke with that concept, and declared that there was no inherent aristocracy based merely on the accident of birth. The turmoil of the English Civil War, the Restoration, and then the Glorious Revolution broke the chain in England by the end of the Seventeenth Century. It would persist in France until that country’s Revolution, a hundred years later. That was not long after the American colonies won their independence, with a little help from their friend – France. Ironically, that nation was still under the ancien regime.

… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,…

The quality of being human means that there are rights which are given by God, the Creator of nature and the universe, which cannot be abrogated by the whim of human authority. Those rights may be forfeited, but only by misconduct of the individual as rationally determined in the due process and course of valid law.

… that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness –…

This enumeration of rights is declared to be, by the use of the word “among,” not exclusive, but these are the basis of, and imply, others. It comes directly from John Locke’s formulation that when human beings are in a state of nature, these are their individual rights. Locke’s Second Treatise on Government termed these rights as protection of “life, liberty, and estate” – estate being interchangeable with the concept of property. Jefferson changed “estate” or “property” to the “pursuit of happiness,” which included the right to possess and enjoy property, but was broader in scope. The proposition that the pursuit of happiness was a fundamental right was revolutionary in itself. From almost time immemorial, and certainly in the Christian tradition at least until the Reformation, life on earth was not supposed to be happy. Life was an arduous journey through a vale of tears on the way to an afterlife of happiness, or punishment, depending on how one conducted oneself in this world. Rather than pursuing happiness here on earth, it was self-denial and mortification that were virtues, not enjoyment or seeking betterment of living standards and conditions. This, of course, was a doctrine which kept the Great Chain of Being intact, as well as the hoi polloi in line. Individual liberty was nonexistent, because the individual person was subject to the collective, that is, the King or state. One’s life as well belonged to the same sovereign.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed…

Legitimate governments are created by the consent of the people, not imposed from the top down. The people, who in a state of nature are unable to adequately protect their lives, their liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness, including the protection of their private property, form a government for this purpose. In order to accomplish these ends, certain aspects of the fundamental rights are limited, and ceded to a constituted authority by consent, whose primary – and only legitimate – function is to secure the essence of those rights.

… That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

A government can become destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In fact, the use of the word “whenever” seems to imply that it is inevitable that at some point the government will become destructive of such. It is part and parcel of these unalienable rights for the people to alter or abolish it, and create a new government. A new government, however, must be instituted on the core principles stated.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

When government has existed for a long time, some deference must be given to it for that quality alone. Stability and just expectations are aspects of the unalienable rights, which themselves must be respected. This passage recognizes that the governments will not be perfect, and there may be better ways of accomplishing the protection of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness at various times, and under different conditions. Just because a government may act in an imperfect manner temporarily is no reason to take the drastic step of abolishing it. The phrase that “mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable” echoes William Shakespeare’s observation in Hamlet that we “rather bear the ills we have than fly to those we know not of.”

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

This sentence states the conditions necessary to overcome the presumption that governments long established should not be changed. When they are fulfilled, revolution becomes a right – and duty.

Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

Thus begins the justification for Revolution and nature of the grievances against British rule. It is followed by a bill of particulars containing twenty-seven specific grievances committed by the Crown, personified by King George III. If one studies the Constitution later drafted and ratified, it is possible to find a provision there which addresses many of the complaints found in this bill of particulars.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

After the bill of particulars, the Declaration provides additional justification for independence by asserting that the people of the American colonies have brought their grievances to the attention of the King, and his ministers, to no avail, and only to receive further injury.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

This penultimate paragraph reminds the people of Great Britain that the American colonists have notified them of the grievances, and they have nevertheless done nothing to prevail upon Parliament and the King’s ministers to change policies and redress the grievances. It concludes by defining the relations going forward that the Americans will have with the British: that is, a separate and equal station, along with all other nations of the Earth, and not as sworn enemies.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of Our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor.

The use of the lower case “united” indicates that each of the new entities are separate States, though united in purpose. Unification will come later, and remain tenuous, in many ways, even unto this day. The Declarations appeals to God as a witness, but is done in the name of the “good People of the Colonies” who are to be the sovereign. Divine Providence will protect them. The signers pledged their “sacred honor,” the most precious possession to an Enlightenment man. As for their lives and fortunes, they were aware they were committing treason against the British Crown, which was subject to the severest of penalties.

It was over seven long years of war and privation before the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Treaty of Paris in which Great Britain gave up all claim to sovereignty over its former colonies, but these words written and approved by the patriots in Philadelphia two hundred and twenty four years ago finally became a reality. It remains so to this day, perhaps imperfect, but there is nothing better. Indeed, there is nothing like it in the world.

NOTE

The writings of Professor Alan Charles Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, who is the editor of Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, gave me the idea for this essay. He teaches 17th & 18th Century intellectual history. Professor Kors is one of the founders of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, (www.thefire.org), a watchdog for freedom of expression on American college campuses and elsewhere. 

Friday the Thirteenth has been regarded as an inauspicious day for a long time. Like most superstitions, its origins are obscure. But whatever the reason, that June 13, 1980, forty-five years ago today in the still record hottest summer in North Texas was exceptionally inauspicious for a young housewife and her family in the Dallas exurb of Wylie

That day Allan Gore who lived with his wife and two children in Wylie was on a business trip away from home. After numerous attempts to contact his wife Betty at home, directly and through her friends, he asked a neighbor or a friend to see if there was something amiss. There was. When the friend Richard Parker and another man entered Allan’s house, they found Betty Gore’s bloody body in the utility room, together with a three-foot long ax. She had been hacked to death.

Ax murders have long been the staple of fictional murder mysteries. Their brutal, bloody, and sensational visuals excite the morbid curiosity many, if not most, of us have — at least where it doesn’t happen to us. This one, like the Lizzie Borden case in Massachusetts that possessed a number of striking similarities from almost a century prior, ended up in a woman being accused, tried—and acquitted.

For several days after the discovery of Betty’s body, it was a mystery. The town of Wylie was beset by all kinds of speculation, whether an ax murderer was lurking around and might strike again, among others. Allan Gore was initially a suspect, because law enforcement has experienced killings involving married couples in many cases.

As it turned out, the main suspect was Candace “Candy” Montgomery, who together with her husband Pat and the Gores, were members of the First Methodist Church in the nearby town of Lucas. As it came out in the investigation and trial, Candy and Allan Gore had previously had a clandestine relationship that involved sexual trysts at a no-tell motel on Highway 75 near Allan’s place of work. That affair had ended in the Fall of 1979. It was unclear whether Betty had known about the affair — Allan stated that he did not know, and if she did she might not have said anything. Nevertheless, both families’ children were friends with each other. Betty’s then six year old daughter Alisa and Candy’s and Pat’s daughter Jenny often spent the night with each other.

On that Friday, Candy was to take Alisa and her daughter Jenny to swimming lessons. She went to Betty’s house that morning to retrieve Alisa’s swimsuit. Investigation and later testimony showed that, during the visit, Candy and Betty had an altercation that involved physical pushing and shoving, and at some point Betty grabbed an ax that was there in the washroom. According to Candy, she managed to wrestle the ax away from Betty, and struck her. Candy lost control and continued to strike with the ax. After an involved investigation by the Wylie Police Department, assisted by Dallas County medical examiner and Criminal Investigation Laboratory, the County district attorney charged Candy Montgomery with the murder of Betty Gore.

The trial was held in Collin County District court in November of the same year. Candy hired Don Crowder, a personal injury lawyer and member of the same church. Crowder had never tried a criminal case (and never tried another one after this was over), but who was known as a hard-charging trial lawyer skilled in persuading juries. For criminal law expertise, Crowder associated Dallas attorney Gary Udashen.

During jury selection, Crowder shocked everybody when he stated that Candy Montgomery killed Betty Gore; she did it with an ax; it was self-defense.

At trial, Candy Montgomery testified in great detail about the events on June 13 in the altercation that resulted in her killing Betty Gore. She told the court and jury that Betty had been the aggressor and had the ax in her hands first during the confrontation, and she essentially “freaked out” when she pulled the ax away and hit Betty with it. The psychiatrist that had examined Candy testified that she probably had and a “dissociative reaction” that triggered an early childhood trauma to instigate a frenzy in which she continued to strike Betty with the ax.

In the aftermath of the trial, there was considerable public dismay and anger, particularly among Betty Gore’s family. Predictably, a lot of outrage was expressed towards the jury members who were vilified as stupid or, at best naive enough to believe someone could kill with an ax in that manner in self-defense.

Both the Gores and the Montgomerys, soon thereafter moved away from Texas. Candy has never allowed an interview or made any statement beyond “I have nothing to say” or words to that effect. Her last known whereabouts was in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Like Lizzie Borden, who was tried and acquitted for killing her father and stepmother with an ax in 1892, and although there was considerable circumstantial evidence that appeared to sustain that accusation, Candy Montgomery was found not guilty. Was Justice fully served? Well, the law is not about abstract justice. In this country’s system, its primary function is to protect what might be termed ordered liberty. Actual justice can only be had in a venue not of this world.

Notes and sources:

A criminal verdict of “not guilty” does not mean the defendant is innocent. It means, at least, that there was a reasonable doubt as to an element of the alleged crime. Self-defense, however, is an affirmative defense which requires the defendant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, sometimes described as “more likely than not” or 51% responsibility.

Candy Montgomery’s lawyer Don Crowder later unsuccessfully ran for Texas Governor. He died in 1998.

Dr. Vincent DiMaio, performed the autopsy on Betty Gore. DiMaio later became the chief medical examiner in Bexar County, Texas, and more recently testified in the George Zimmerman trial in Florida on behalf of the defense.

See R. Atkinson & J. Bloom, Evidence of Love; A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs (1984). A thoroughly researched and good read by experienced journalists. Contains a lot of the backstory.

Numerous press reports and personal conversations with some persons close to the investigation and trial.

Jeanne d’Arc, known in English as Joan of Arc, was a teenage girl from Domrémy in northeastern France who played a crucial role during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in 1429 – 1430. She claimed to have received visions and messages from saints instructing her to support Charles VII, the Armagnac Dauphin of France, and help him claim the French throne. (Henry VI of England also claimed to be the rightful King of France.) Whatever these visions and messages were, her presence and apparent charisma, if not her actual military leadership, purportedly inspired the French military supporters of Charles. Those soldiers had become demoralized by a number of defeats at the hands of the English and their Burgundian allies. Relief of the English siege of the city of Orléans, and other battle victories appears to have given Jeanne credibility, and because of her sex and age, embarrassment to the English forces.

After the victories that cleared the route from Chinon, where Charles sojourned, Jeanne and the French army escorted Charles to Reims to be crowned in the traditional venue there.

After Charles’s coronation, Jeanne participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris in September 1429 and the failed siege of La Charité in November. Her role or presence in these defeats reduced the Charles and his court’s confidence in her. In early 1430, Jeanne as part of a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne, which had been besieged by the allies of the English, was captured by Burgundian troops in May 1430.

After trying unsuccessfully to escape, Jeanne was sold to the English in November. She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men’s clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. In reality, these charges were mostly bogus. Her real “crime” was political. The English military and other authorities were certain a mere slip of a girl, as they doubtless regarded her, had to be an agent of the devil if she was successful in preventing their loss of the city of Orléans. Enlisting Cauchon, who was in their political pocket and would rig the trial to curry favor with them, was a tactic to obtain Church approval. Jeanne was declared guilty and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431, aged about nineteen.

In 1456, an inquisitorial court re-investigated Jeanne’s trial and overturned the verdict, declaring that it was tainted by deceit and procedural errors. A bit late for her, of course. Subsequently, Jeanne has been described as an obedient daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence. She is popularly revered as a martyr. During the centuries that followed, especially after the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of France. Interestingly, she has been used by both the political left and right to be a patron for their ends. In 1920, Jeanne d’Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV and, two years later, was declared one of the patron saints of France. She is portrayed in numerous cultural works, including literature, music, paintings, sculptures, cinema, and theater.

There is a certain amount of legend connected with Jeanne d’Arc, but the transcripts of both the condemnation and the exoneration trials are available (in early modern French). No historian doubts that Jeanne participated in the exploits for which she is known, even though character of that participation is uncertain. The real significance is the part of the lore of France, both in the ancien régime, the two empires of the Napoleons, and the five Republics that Jeanne, or La Pucelle became. As we say out here in the West, even if the legend becomes fact — print the legend.¹

NOTES:

The actual name Jeanne (pronounced “sz-ahn”– hence in English “Joan”) was known by in her time is uncertain.

There is a fine museum in the archbishop’s palace adjacent to the cathedral in Rouen that chronicles Jeanne d’Arc life and subsequent treatment by history.

REFERNCES :

Pernoud, Régine & Clin, Marie-Véronique Joan of Arc – Her Story. Translated and revised by Jeremy duQuesnay Adams, late professor of history Southern Methodist University.
(St. Martin’s Press, New York 1998).

Duby, Georges et Andrée Les Procés de Jeanne d’Arc (the Trials of Joan of Arc) (Gallimard, Paris 1973, paperback).

Leonard Cohen’s Joan of Arc, sung live by Jennifer Warnes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOh8SQxad2c a haunting rendition

1. See The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, John Ford, dir. (1962) ↩︎