James M. Redwine

Respect

Mom Knows Best

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Tom Nichols is a staff writer for The Atlantic magazine. In his opinion piece of August 15, 2022, Nichols asserted the United States is living in a “new era of political violence.” Nichols compared our current political climate to America’s Civil War and declared:

“Compared with the bizarre ideas and half-baked wackiness that now infest American political life, the arguments between the North and the South look like a deep treatise on government.”

Of course, Nichols, as all of us do, meant those ideas he disagreed with. He wrote his article as a warning against “the random threats and unpredictable dangers from people among us who spend too much time watching television and plunging down internet rabbit holes.”

While I believe Nichols falls victim to the kind of incitement to political violence he warns the rest of us to avoid, I agree with him that much of our poisonous political atmosphere is both created and exacerbated by “instigators who will inflame them from the safety of a television or radio studio.”

When I try to glean news from Facebook, MSNBC, CNN, FOX News and even sometimes NPR and the regular commercial news outlets, I spend a lot of my time hearing the echo of my Mother’s sage advice, “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.”

In our current political discourse it seems almost every discussion has to first set forth the commentator’s pro or anti Trump diatribe then morph into the “real news.”  I keep trying, with little success, to block out the opening statements as I wait for any significant new facts.

This atmosphere of dueling slings and arrows, some of which are more than mere rhetoric, is the “political violence” Nichols refers to. People committing random acts of physical violence against complete strangers for no reason other than to attempt to give some meaning to their uninteresting lives. And as many of us have suffered through the discomfort, or worse, of political conversations with our friends and family these last few years, it is not just random strangers who have accosted one another with Nichols’ “New Era of Political Violence”. Long-time friendships and relationships have often suffered due to competing political views.

A large contributor to the current “Era of Bad Feeling” is the tendency to classify those who do not share our political views as holding “half-baked” or “wacky” ideas because, in Nichols’ view, they suffer from “a generalized paranoia that dark forces are manipulating their lives.” The sense I get from our current political in-fighting reminds me of the McCarthy Era from the 1950’s when Senator Joe McCarthy held hearings that ruined countless lives with accusations of Communistic leanings among American citizens. Sure, eventually we, as a democracy, saw through the “Red Scare” but it was too late to save many good citizens.

It feels to me now as those Red Baiting times felt. We seem to go immediately to anger when the “other side” speaks its views. Perhaps we could learn from our history instead of repeating it. As Mom would have said, “Just because someone sees things from their viewpoint doesn’t make them wrong. And just because someone else voices an opinion opposed to ours doesn’t mean they are bad.” It kind of goes back to that old advice, “If it ain’t good, don’t say it.”

That does not apply to real news, only personal character assassination. We need our democracy to have unfettered access to information about many subjects. That is, we need facts to make good decisions. What we do not need is vituperative personal attacks masquerading as evidence.

Game On

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Peg and I sat in our warm cabin on the Osage County, Oklahoma prairie recently and watched the live stream of the state high school semi-final football game between the Pawhuska Huskies and the Cashion Wildcats. Thank you www.kpgmtv.com!

It is not that we are only fair-weather fans; we have enjoyed attending the Huskies games in person since we moved from Posey County, Indiana to Osage County, Oklahoma two football seasons ago. However, this state semi-final match was played on a neutral field about 70 miles from our home so we opted for armchairs. It was still an exciting game, final score 35-31.

And while we truly appreciated the free live-feed, there were parts of the game that may have slipped our attention. So, if my observations are not 100% accurate, that is my excuse. That said, as Fareed Zakaria might say, “here’s my take” on the game.

The opening ceremonies affirmed both schools’ commitment to all that is good about high school sports. Then the hard-hitting play that followed had to make both fan bases proud. Neither team ever let up from an all-out effort on offense, defense and special teams. There were few penalties and none for unnecessary roughness, late hits, unsportsman’s-like conduct or taunting. There was no taunting, only two fiercely competitive groups of finely disciplined and talented, well raised and well coached young players. The game could be used in civic classes as an example of why high school sports are an important component of education.

These players likely all started in the summer of 2021 with two-a-day practices and sacrificed fun times for sweat and misery to be ready for this 48 minutes. High goals were set and achieved. Most significantly those goals included giving their best, not just in the game of football but in their examples of how sports can help mold character. It was unquestionable that each player on both teams wanted to win. However, Peg and I saw several players from both teams help their opponents up and even pat their adversaries on the back during the game. There were no fights or shouting matches or claims of bad calls. Football for football’s sake was the standard.

As a graduate of Pawhuska High School, I was gratified by the lessons these players so obviously had learned. The same would have been true had I gone to Cashion. So, thank you to the parents, coaches and teachers who set these young people on the right track and thank you to the players for a great game.

Death Is Swallowed Forever (Isaiah 25:8)

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Barbara Taylor Pease & Jim at Echoes of Our Ancestors: The Secret Game Book Signing OCHS

Barbara (Taylor) Pease passed away ten days after my brother Phil Redwine. Their Baptist Christian services were similar in several comforting ways. They were also differing as Phil’s funeral was in Norman, Oklahoma and Barbara was honored as a member of the Osage Nation in Indian Camp in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Peg and I had attended Barbara’s mother, Judy Taylor’s, funeral in 2016 and were moved by the Osage graveside rites. Perhaps the coincidence of my appointment as a Special Judge in a recent Indian law case made Barbara’s services even more impressive to Peg and me. I know I was surprised about how little I knew of Osage traditions even though I was born and raised in Pawhuska.

As part of my legal research into an area of the law completely new to me I went to my personal library and reviewed my autographed copy of John Joseph Mathews’ book, The Osages, Children of the Middle Waters. Mr. Mathews was well known to my parents and, at our mother’s request, Mathews signed a copy of his book “with special pleasure” to my brother Phil and me. Mathew’s extensive scholarship into Osage traditions brought out the beauty and solace of Osage burial rites.

Barbara’s services included former Osage Chief Johnny Red Eagle fanning over Barbara’s body with an eagle-tail fan. This impressive ritual reminded me of the following passage in Mathews’ book that described a burial of several Osage members of a hunting party who were killed by a lightning strike:

“The survivors came into the village carrying their comrades and singing their song of death. The Little Old Men looked at the sky in fear, then fanned away the evil spirit from the bodies with an eagle-tail fan…”

See Page 68

At Barbara’s services Palee Redcorn sang beautiful, haunting and comforting acapella renditions of hymns in the Osage language and then transitioned seamlessly into English versions. One of those death songs was the traditional Christian hymn, “Amazing Grace”. At my brother’s funeral his youngest son, Ryan, who is an ordained Baptist minister, sang a deeply felt acapella version of “Amazing Grace” from the pulpit.

Of course, Ryan also gave a marvelous and inspiring message under the most difficult of emotions to honor his father much as Reverend Scott Kohnle of the Indian Camp Baptist Church spoke for Barbara. I do not know if Ryan’s mother’s Native American heritage influenced Ryan’s message for his Dad, but I do know Ryan and Scott both captured the essence of Barbara’s family’s and our grief and pride in our loved ones. Barbara and Phil were similar in their kindness and generosity and in their steadfast pride and support of their numerous grandchildren.

To lose two such priceless members of our small circle within ten days of one another was a lot to bear, but the thoughtful and heartfelt services helped. Peg and I now better understand the communal support of family and tribe.

Of Motes And Logs

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Last week the National Basketball Association deferred its 2020 playoff games out of respect for the Black Lives Matter movement. The incident that was the catalyst for the Milwaukee Bucks professional team to decide to boycott game five of the playoffs against the Orlando Magic team was the shooting of 20-year-old Jacob Blake, a Black man, on August 23, 2020 during an encounter with the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake informed the arresting officers he possessed a knife but he did not wield it. Blake’s shooting struck many as part of a continuum that began May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota when 46-year-old George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died as a result of an encounter with police. In between Floyd and Blake several other incidents of police/Black person violence have made national news. History records numerous such incidents and a great many more have not been recorded but exist in the psyches of both minority and majority populations. Until cell phone cameras became ubiquitous such incidents tended to get lost in the vagaries of competing memories. Today the incidents are often still in dispute but there may be video and audio evidence to analyze in search of the facts as opposed to mere opinions.

In my experience the truth as believed to be proved by whatever evidence may exist tends to depend to a large extent upon the ability of the observers to set their personal prejudices aside and apply a degree of objectivity to the situation in question. Although such matters as the Blake and Floyd cases are qualitatively light years from sporting events, perhaps an analogy may still be apt when it comes to determining the actual facts as opposed to opinions about the perceived facts or, more likely, the projected ones.

When a sports fan endures the indignity of an umpire’s or referee’s close call against the fan’s team, it is the rare fan who congratulates the official for his/her judgment. What may look like interference to the referee may look more like “no harm, no foul” to the fan. Of course, when it comes to issues of race the emotions are much more complicated and visceral and deadly force or resistance may be involved. If in war the first casualty is truth, when it comes to matters of race and ethnicity truth often depends more on the culture of the observers than observation alone. That is why the wise people who founded this country fashioned a government of laws. Without law the scales of justice tend to dip in favor of whoever has the power to put their thumbs on the scales even when they would swear, and probably believe, they are fair to a fault.

About the best we can hope for, even in ourselves, is that we recognize our judgments on matters as fundamental as human rights are often influenced by our particular frailties and that our frailties come from our particular culture. Then we can bring up the logs that are in our own eyes and try to account for them in determining what the evidence truly proves in any particular case. People whose duty it is to make judgments on the behaviors of other people often learn, sometimes the hard way, that their conclusions about what certain evidence proves have been subconsciously affected by personal factors related more to the person doing the judging than the actual behavior of the ones they judge. This phenomenon has been recognized by trial lawyers and judges since we homo sapiens first began to settle our disputes in court instead of with clubs. That is one of the main reasons attorneys prefer to settle cases by compromise as opposed to seeking the full measure the attorneys believe their clients may be entitled to from a decision by a judge or jury after a trial. Over 95% of all court cases settle without a trial. The attorneys know that it is rare for a court decision to be intentionally biased but it is often subconsciously so. And if this is true with trained judges it is good to keep inherent biases in mind with such organizations as political parties and the media.

There are remedies to unjust treatment that has resulted from unrecognized prejudices. However, such things as money damages are usually insufficient compensation, especially if permanent disability or death to either an offender and/or officer occurs. Prevention is a better treatment. And prevention requires that we look deep within ourselves, hopefully well before, but at least at the time of a racially or culturally charged incident. Such introspection should be demanded of all whose job it is to control the behavior of others; police officers and judges come to mind.

But all of us would do well to recognize our potentional to unfairly discriminate based on factors we rarely acknowledge to ourselves. Of course, one of the best remedies for eliminating prejudicial behavior is an atmosphere where all points of view are allowed to be considered and evaluated. That is why Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) stated that the right of free speech is … “the dread of tyrants”. Perhaps Douglass recognized that tyranny can also come from within each of us and that the atmosphere of our current Cancel Culture that is festering hate on college campuses, in the news media, in politics and even among friends may be the place to start addressing systemic prejudices.

Spare The Rod …

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When our early immigrants from Great Britain set up their legal system in New England they did not have prisons and, often, not even jails. What passed for justice included such corporal punishments as standing in the stocks or being bound to the whipping post, usually in the village square and always in public view. That shaming was part of the punishment. Also, it was erroneously believed to reduce recidivism. The great French legal philosopher Paul-Michael Foucault (1926-1984) posited that the “public” part of public punishments was essential to helping eliminate cruel and unusual sentences for crimes.

If a petty thief could have their hands hacked off on the public square, society would more likely be averse to such disproportionate penalties. According to Foucault, modern governments began to remove punishments such as beheadings from public view not out of a concern for general sensibilities but out of a desire to prevent the people from rising up against the government. If the public, through its governmental officials, see fit to physically punish a miscreant, especially a political prisoner, then the public should be witness to the gory spectacle.

Recently, perhaps as a concomitant of the Black Lives Matter phenomenon, such vestiges as public whipping posts are being removed from public lands and moved to museums. The state of Delaware allowed public floggings as criminal punishments until 1972. Now the places where the public could watch as a person was beaten with a cat-o-nine tails are being removed from such places as jail yards and courthouse lawns. Even the memory may be lost.

In 1817 Posey County, Indiana did not yet have a jail but in one of the county’s first criminal jury trials the defendant, one Mr. Green, was found guilty of hog stealing and sentenced to 49 lashes at a post just outside Posey County’s first courthouse which was the living room of Absalom Duckworth’s home.

Under the procedure of 1817 the defendant’s lawyer, Richard Daniels, had the right to immediately petition for a new trial. He did so and Judge Isaac Blackford took a lunch break to consider the motion. During the lunch hour Sheriff John Carson, who either did not know or did not care about the petition for new trial, tied Mr. Green to the whipping post and flogged him without the Judge’s or the attorneys’ knowledge.

When Judge Blackford reconvened court, Attorney Daniels stood and requested a new trial. The Defendant grabbed his attorney by his coattails and said, “For God’s sake, Dick, do stop. I’ve had enough already!” I suppose no one could accuse the legal system of delay in 1817.

I do not condone or recommend corporal punishment as a sanction for criminal behavior. However, I do agree with Foucault; excluding the public from the imposition of Draconian sanctions makes such unfair outcomes more likely. For example, the spectacle of public whippings was legal in Delaware until 1972, but there had not been such a horrific punishment in that state since 1952 when a husband was lashed 20 times for beating his wife. There is no evidence such a sanction affected spousal abuse. But it surely caused citizens to lose respect for their legal system.

Thou Shalt Not Steal

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It is easy to have sympathy for thieves if they steal from victims we do not know. Should the victims include acquaintances, friends, family or ourselves, our magnanimity wanes. And while our heart strings are plucked by someone who steals bread to feed their family, if Jean Val Jean had stolen to feed a personal drug habit Victor Hugo might not have portrayed him as a tragic hero. When it comes to our attitude about punishing thieves it is pretty much, “Whose ox is getting gored?”

And over the last few thousands of years we Homo sapiens have applied sanctions on thieves that have ranged from, “go and sin no more”, to the death penalty. Those of us with Anglo Saxon DNA can search back just about one thousand years ago and find death for theft to be de rigueur in the areas that became Great Britain. Of course, when a society does not have jails what can you do with someone who has no respect for the property of others?

Also, in today’s world we still have countries where thieves are sometimes flogged or who have their hands amputated on occasion. The Book of Matthew (Chapter 5, verse 30) advises offending thieves to cut off their own hands whereas the Old Testament decrees if one steals food because they are hungry we should not hate them (Proverbs 6:30-31). But Exodus 22: 3-4 declares that a thief who cannot pay restitution should be sold into slavery.

In other words, we humans have tried about every possible penalty from turning the other cheek to execution when it comes to thieves. Usually a first time offender in all legal systems is treated more leniently than a repeat villain. A thief of tender years normally calls for more sympathy than an experienced adult. And a thief who can pay restitution or who appears to be genuinely remorseful fares better than one who is more callous.

Now, Gentle Reader, you may be curious as to why you and I are considering whether it is better to kiss thieves on the top of their heads or to lop their heads off. Well, I confess my own approach to these issues during my ten years as either a prosecuting attorney or a defense attorney has fluctuated greatly, usually based on which side I represented in court. But it has been my forty years as a trial judge that has seen the greatest variation in my attitude toward dealing with thieves. I have tried practically every approach from rehabilitation to retribution. Suffice it to say I have not found a solution to theft; people are still doing it and on a fairly regular basis. My most recent encounter with the phenomenon of someone who has no respect for the property of others involved a friend of mine who had his tractor stolen right out of our pasture next to the cabin where Peg and I live.

Rape and armed robbery are much worse crimes than theft but the sense of being violated and feeling vulnerable is similar with all three. One immediately feels more generally fearful and angry. The one-time sanctity of our home and the confidence our friend had in the security of his property while on our property has been greatly diminished.

I do not ascribe to Dante Alighieri’s punishment for thieves as he set it forth in Circle 8 of his Divine Comedy. However,  it does graphically show how mankind may sometimes feel about thieves. Dante portrayed thieves as having their offending hands bound with flying reptiles that also pierce the thieves’ jugular veins causing the thieves to turn to ashes. The thieves are constantly being turned back to their human form then re-subjected to the flying reptiles. Such a vision for punishing thieves is interesting but hardly in keeping with modern penology. However, Dante’s hypothesized punishments for thieves he personally despised do call upon one’s darkest urge for revenge. Of course, revenge may be understandable but it is not justice.

When it comes to justice, if it ever does, for whoever stole our friend’s tractor, we can probably best hope for something less Draconian than Circle 8, say Circle 3, where thieves would spend eternity lying in filthy slush while being constantly pelted with icy rain. However, such a penalty probably should not make it into modern law.