Bang Bang

A Commentary on Ann Coulter's Godless - Ch. 2 - "The Passion of the Liberal: Thou Shalt Not Punish the Perp"

One of the hard things about critiquing a political piece is that readers always want to classify you as one or the other. Are you with me or against me? After the critique on Ch. 1, many thought I was a closeted liberal. Their LibDar (as opposed to GayDar) went off, after seeing my CNN credentials, my love for the NY Times editorial board, and my discomfort with Southern evangelism. So allow me to throw you a curve ball.

There are actually a few things in chapter 2 I agree with. But once again, her good ideas are poorly supported by contradictions and a play of words, so that anyone who did a little extra research on what she says realizes the issues are a lot grayer than she makes it.

But I'll begin with the good.

The topic sentence of the chapter is all you basically need to read: "The Left's most dangerous religious belief is their adoration of violent criminals." Powerful. She then answers the FAQ from a typical liberal: What if innocent men are executed? The death penalty does not deter, so why do it? Why are we the only modern democracy so primitive to have the death penalty? Why is the punitive system racist? Prison is worse than death, so why have the death penalty?

Naive and legitimiate questions that I have heard not just from liberals. I know many conservatives who have trouble stating a position on the death penalty, as they are trying to stay true to their pro-life debate carried over from the abortion debate. To not play God in one respect, but to play God in another is a weird switch for many, not just liberals.

But I do not blame them. I blame it on Denzel Washington and the Oscar-nominated Hurricane. I blame it on Tim Robbins and the Oscar-winning Shawshank Redemption. I blame it on the Apostle Paul. We are told these long tales of redemption from murderers to prophets. We are told of the determination of the wrongfully accused. These things seem to be able to happen to anyone, so we are affected.

Nonetheless, inspiring stories and the faults of a human-made punitive system are not the norm. So to destroy and undermine the entire police department because of Rodney King would be absurd. To no longer trust the judicial system because of OJ would be irresponsible. So to forfeit the death penalty because of Denzel Washin...I mean, Rubin Carter would be teh act of a fairy-tale maker. The Left, and I would argue, much of the younger American public, has a naive fear of the "what ifs" that it practically leaves our system helpless and handicapped.

Answering these questions, there were actually some good responses from Coulter. If prison is so much better than death, why are people on death row scratching and clawing themselves away from the chair?...Most blacks kill blacks and most whites kill whites, so if we did punish more blacks, are we not valuing the lives of black victims and their families?...Murder rate has soared each time we have eased on the punitive system...With all this talk wasting the taxpayer's money on prisons, what about your senator's office or the EPA or FEMA?

Not saying that I agree, but they are thought-provoking answers for tough questions.

But then she heads into some muddy waters where I agree with her, but wait? You're contradicting yourself. She injects the name Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the ultimate Savior of the liberal's plans to bring the nation to demise in crime. But with Rudy's get-tough policies with New York, he singlehandedly changed the face of America. Having lived through Mayor Dinkins' run, Giuliani's, and now Bloomberg's, she without a doubt has a case. Before Giuliani, the streets of Times Square had more porn shops than hot dog stands. But now, it has morphed into my favorite place in the world. Crime has gone down at a pace so drastic that New York City has transformed its very reputation. Proof? Look at movies 15-20 years ago that took place in NY (Ghost, Coming to America), and look at the cosmopolitan look it has now.

But she is not making a lot of sense. While President Clinton does not deserve the props for changing the face of crime in New York, why does Giuliani deserve the props for changing America? As we all know, New York is an anomoly from the rest of America. Canadians have more in common with America than New Yorkers do. She does mention the increasingly Republican Congress, but Giuliani becomes royalty in this chapter. Which suggests another question. To declare Giuliani and a Republican shining on a hill is a little misplaced, considering his views for gay marriage and for abortion - two issues she continues blasts liberals for throughout the book.

Coulter spends much of the chapter reviewing through Supreme Court cases she subjectively handpicks and bringing up the usual subjects of Tookie Williams, Mumia, Sacco and Vanzetti, etc. But as we all know, she does not bring up the doubts or controversy that surrounds each case, but instead, explains them as clearcut cases. She has little confirmation on these facts, considering the actual events themselves happened years before she was born or when Reagan was not punching a wall, saying "Reagan! SMASH!" (Family Guy reference). Though she calls Tookie Williams the Lance Armstrong of deranged shotgun killers, she devalues the presence and power of him winning the Nobel Peace Prize. That was another of many examples throughout the book in which she picks and chooses information to value and information to claim useless.

While I agreed with Coulter that many Americans are living a fairy tale life that tries to ban many punitive solutions, she proposes too much of a trigger-happy-Dick-Cheney-shoots-friend-in-the-face-oops philosophy. There is a line between liberals and others who live the fairy tale and those who have a greater love for justice than she ever will. It is not so much that people like me want to free murderers or Enron executives. I would be the first to tell you that if someone killed my mother, I would want him to die in the most painful way possible. But for the purposes of my own closure and the purposes of justice, I want to make sure it was the deserving person. So if there is reasonable doubt or if the facts do not match up, we will take advantage of the entire justice system America has to offer, not just the "verdict-and-sentence" portion. For me, justice is not punishment or relief of punishment. Justice is getting things right.

After all that I have said of her being a false prophet, it was funny to see her end off her second chapter with a motivational and touching story regarding Brian Nichols and his converstion through Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. Coulter even told it in a touching way. Her final paragraph says:

"Smith turned him from a beast to a fellow sinner, still deserving of punishment, but also of forgiveness. This phenomenon, utterly unknown to liberals, is what's known as a miracle. That's how a real religion responds to rapists and murderers. In the liberal religion, there is no grace, only lies and deceit, some of it everlasting."

First of all, I would like to point out that Nichols, though turning himself in, still pleaded not guilty, which seems in direct contradiction to the character Coulter portrays in her book. But more importantly, her understanding of the Christian religion is once again skewed. She presents the idea (as do many others) that forgiveness and grace should be withheld until the murderer turns from his ways. The very gospel of Jesus Christ speaks to the exact opposite. The Bible says that He died for us even while we were still sinners. His grace, love, affection, and guidance was and is with us even when I constantly reject his love and hijack his glory.

All in all, I do not really think that how people stand on this issue is not directly related to whether or not they are liberal or conservative (though there are correlations). The way that I look at it, do you identify yourself more as the victim or the suspect? This is not to say that you have or will commit a crime, neither does it mean that will be the recipient of one. But because of the way society looks at you and the way we look at ourselves, it tells much about who in a crime story we identify with. For many, committing a crime like murder or rape may seem so far from their consciousness that to punish and put them to death would not even be an issue. But ask them about white-collar crime, and it becomes a little bit touchy, for that same person is able to see the road he or she may take that could lead there.

As for myself, I do not know. I am anti-death penalty in the same way I am anti-abortion. Though I'm pro-life through and through, I will keep quiet on the issue and try to look at it from both sides as thoroughly as possible. Kill someone? I will offer you grace. Kill my father? I will push the button myself. Terrorize Podunk, Mexico. I'll share the gospel with you. But give me a loaded gun as I'm in front of a helpless Osama Bin Laden. And you know what I'll do?

Bang...Bang...