squad No political prison. No gulag. Though he be mad as a Afarch hare, no permanent commitment to an insane asylum. In America a man’s right to hate his neighbor is protected as it is nowhere else on earth.
In spite of repeated influxes of immigrants from every hate-soaked, war-torn corner of the earth, America has institutionalized personal freedom. The courts have zealously guarded it, perhaps unintentionally, by acting vigorously and jealiously on the oft-stated and highly dubious assumption that for every wrong there is a remedy. Not a remedy in the next life, but here, in America. Now! Never in all of the tragic, bloody course of human history has such a radical, illogical concept been routinely accepted and acted upon by so many supposedly rational beings.
So the social fabric remains intact. No group of any size sincerely believes no one will listen to its grievance. Everyone will listen. Newspapers will spill ink, the idle sympathize and donate money, politicians orate, judges fashion a remedy. And America will go on.
Jack Yocke stared at the words on the screen as he worried a fingernail. This was America as he saw it, a deliciously mad, pragmatic place. Americans want justice, but not too much. They want order, but not too much. They want laws, but not too many. Now, into this cauldron of free spirits had been introduced Chano Aldana and his four billion dollars.
$4,000,000,000. The amount of murder, mayhem, treachery, and treason that four billion dollars would buy was almost beyond comprehension. And Aldana was just the man to make the purchase. What did he care if the foundations cracked and the house came down? He had his. And he had served notice.
“Your style is atrocious.” Ott Megenthaler was reading over his shoulder. “Not right for the Post, eh?”
“Definitely not.”
“Aldana can’t win.”
“You know it and I know it, but apparently he doesn’t.”
“A little licentiousness, Americans enjoy that. A little illicit pleasure to apologize for on Sunday morning, what’s the harm? But Aidana will sooner or later be crushed like a gnat if he tries to intimidate people here like he did in Colombia.”
“No doubt Liarakos tried to tell him that.”
“His best defense is to play the underdog. David versus Goliath.”
“Chano Aldana is Goliath,” the columnist said dryly and pulled a nearby chair around. “He made that pretty plain this afternoon.”
“We’re going to have to legalize dope, Ott. Right now nobody wants to make it legal, yet nobody wants to live in an America that is so well policed that it can’t be sold.”
“If more-efficient police are what it takes, I’m for it,” Mergenthaler said. “Aww, bullshit. You haven’t thought this through. You despised J. Edgar Hoover. You thought the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was a cancer on the body politic.” When Mergenthaler tried to reply, Yocke raised his voice and overrode him. ‘7ve read some of your old columns. Don’t try to change your spots now.”
After making sure Yocke had really shut up, Mergenthaler said, “I’ve been to Holland and seen the kids lying in the public squares, whacked out on hash, scrambling their brains permanently while the police stand and watch, while the world walks around them. I’ve been to the Dutch morgues and seen the bodies. I’ve been to the D. C morgue and seen the bodies there too. This shit ain’t tobacco and it ain’t liquor. Two crack joints will make an average person an addict. Legalize it? No! A thousand times no. his
Jack Yocke threw up his hands. “Medellin had four thousand and fifteen murder victims delivered to the morgue in 1989. Those were the bodies they found. Medellfn has a population of two million. That’s a murder rate of over two hundred per hundred thousand people.” Yocke’s eyes narrowed. “Our rate here in the District is around eighteen or nineteen. That’s four hundred and thirty-eight murders in 1989. When our murder rate is
In spite of repeated influxes of immigrants from every hate-soaked, war-torn corner of the earth, America has institutionalized personal freedom. The courts have zealously guarded it, perhaps unintentionally, by acting vigorously and jealiously on the oft-stated and highly dubious assumption that for every wrong there is a remedy. Not a remedy in the next life, but here, in America. Now! Never in all of the tragic, bloody course of human history has such a radical, illogical concept been routinely accepted and acted upon by so many supposedly rational beings.
So the social fabric remains intact. No group of any size sincerely believes no one will listen to its grievance. Everyone will listen. Newspapers will spill ink, the idle sympathize and donate money, politicians orate, judges fashion a remedy. And America will go on.
Jack Yocke stared at the words on the screen as he worried a fingernail. This was America as he saw it, a deliciously mad, pragmatic place. Americans want justice, but not too much. They want order, but not too much. They want laws, but not too many. Now, into this cauldron of free spirits had been introduced Chano Aldana and his four billion dollars.
$4,000,000,000. The amount of murder, mayhem, treachery, and treason that four billion dollars would buy was almost beyond comprehension. And Aldana was just the man to make the purchase. What did he care if the foundations cracked and the house came down? He had his. And he had served notice.
“Your style is atrocious.” Ott Megenthaler was reading over his shoulder. “Not right for the Post, eh?”
“Definitely not.”
“Aldana can’t win.”
“You know it and I know it, but apparently he doesn’t.”
“A little licentiousness, Americans enjoy that. A little illicit pleasure to apologize for on Sunday morning, what’s the harm? But Aidana will sooner or later be crushed like a gnat if he tries to intimidate people here like he did in Colombia.”
“No doubt Liarakos tried to tell him that.”
“His best defense is to play the underdog. David versus Goliath.”
“Chano Aldana is Goliath,” the columnist said dryly and pulled a nearby chair around. “He made that pretty plain this afternoon.”
“We’re going to have to legalize dope, Ott. Right now nobody wants to make it legal, yet nobody wants to live in an America that is so well policed that it can’t be sold.”
“If more-efficient police are what it takes, I’m for it,” Mergenthaler said. “Aww, bullshit. You haven’t thought this through. You despised J. Edgar Hoover. You thought the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was a cancer on the body politic.” When Mergenthaler tried to reply, Yocke raised his voice and overrode him. ‘7ve read some of your old columns. Don’t try to change your spots now.”
After making sure Yocke had really shut up, Mergenthaler said, “I’ve been to Holland and seen the kids lying in the public squares, whacked out on hash, scrambling their brains permanently while the police stand and watch, while the world walks around them. I’ve been to the Dutch morgues and seen the bodies. I’ve been to the D. C morgue and seen the bodies there too. This shit ain’t tobacco and it ain’t liquor. Two crack joints will make an average person an addict. Legalize it? No! A thousand times no. his
Jack Yocke threw up his hands. “Medellin had four thousand and fifteen murder victims delivered to the morgue in 1989. Those were the bodies they found. Medellfn has a population of two million. That’s a murder rate of over two hundred per hundred thousand people.” Yocke’s eyes narrowed. “Our rate here in the District is around eighteen or nineteen. That’s four hundred and thirty-eight murders in 1989. When our murder rate is
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