PROFESSOR OF TERMINOLOGENESIS
Re: William Tucker’s The American
Chamberlain:
Recently I had the opportunity to read an article dated October,
12, 2004, entitled “The American Chamberlain,” by William
Tucker.
In the article, Mr. Tucker utilizes the term “deprisonization”
in describing a political backlash against wanton imprisonment.
I am writing to inform the Spectator that the word
“deprisonization,” and its definition were copyrighted in 2002.
I am sure the utilization of the term in the article is simply
an oversight, as I am well aware of the Spectator’s
professional reputation.
As well, in this particular case the appropriate term to use
would have been “decarceration.”
If the Spectator, or contributors thereto, utilize the
term “deprisonization” in the future, I would appreciate due credit
for the coining and defining of the term (simply put, it is the
completion of Donald Clemmer’s concept of “prisonization,” coined
and detailed by Clemmer in his 1940 work The Prison
Community).
The book in which the term “deprisonization” is issued and
defined for the field of criminology and criminal justice is
entitled: An Examination of Donald Clemmer’s Concept of
Prisonization and Its Future Role in the Development of Penal
Policy in the United States.
It can be found in the library of the University of Southern
Mississippi.
I appreciate your time and professionalism regarding this
issue.
Please direct any further inquiries to this email address, as I
am out of the office for the summer.
— Jack W. Brown, Ph.D., Criminal Justice, Program
Coordinator, Glenville State College
Glenville, West Virginia
INACTION IN THE HOUSE
Re: James G. Poulos’s A Jones for
Timetables:
I am all for staying in Iraq until the job is done, but I would
love to see some private accounts for Social Security. Just wish
they had been around for me. AARP is very two-faced about fighting
against the private accounts, way to risky they say, but sure do
push their stock plans to us. I am getting very upset with the
weak-kneed Republicans.
— Elaine Kyle
Cut & Shoot, Texas
HANDICAPPING BEN
Re: Ben Stein’s Desert
Stars:
Ben’s article about his new home at Morningside Country Club is,
like most of his writings, very interesting. But I couldn’t help
but notice that he mentioned nothing about playing golf! Could it
be that Ben’s game is nothing to write home about?
— unsigned
Amen.
— Doug Santo
Pasadena, California
Is this a joke? I really can’t figure out why anyone cares about
Ben Stein’s new house. This is absurd! I could read the tabloids if
I wanted to know about the newest home of some Beverly Hills rich
guy.
Are we supposed to care because Stein claims to be conservative,
or
because he works the word God into his journal every few
paragraphs? I’d love to hear from anyone who really gives a care
about Ben Stein’s new home. If TAS is running short of
real stories, maybe I could write a few for you? Maybe other
readers would like to read about my new dog? Sounds like good
copy!
— HNP
Placerville, California
WHAT WOULD THE PRINCE DO?
Re: Jed Babbin’s Deadly
Tolerance:
Terrorism is defined as the use of violence, torture, or
physical intimidation by a group or organization as a means of
forcing others to satisfy its demands. The war on terrorism between
the United States and the terrorists is a conflict never
experienced before in American history. Some would argue that the
guerrilla tactic used by both sides in the Vietnam War is the same
kind of tactic employed by the United States and the terrorists.
The difference, however, is that the military tactic employed by
the terrorists is a corrupt evolution from guerrilla to terror
(from non-conventional to non-ethical). In so doing, the terrorist
willfully surrenders any protections of citizenship or statehood.
Unfortunately, the U.S. is not willing to take the war on terrorism
to the appropriate level. In the movie Untouchables, Jim
Malone advises Elliot Ness, “When dealing with the Mafia, if they
send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of heir’s to the
morgue.” He then asks, “What are you prepared to do?” Perhaps a
more appropriate question should be what would Machiavelli do?
The U.S. military needs to withdraw all conventional forces
immediately from Iraq. The whole premise for going to war with that
country was to disarm it of its weapons of mass destruction (which
the U.S. sold them). I supported the war effort because I believed
the Bush Administration was telling the truth. Unfortunately, it
appears the American people were deceived into fighting a war for
oil and almost 2,000 crack U.S. troops have been killed helping to
promote greed rather than defend the homeland. Once the military
withdraws, it can regroup and reformulate better combat tactics to
be used in the war on terrorism.
Accordingly, the U.S. needs to begin training anti-terrorist
cells (with Arabic code names that translate into al-gabang,
al-gaboom etc) primarily made up of the elite special forces group:
Delta Force. These cells will be sent into countries like Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya for the expressed purpose of
covert operations to find, kill and terrorize all pro-terrorist
cells. As for prisoners, they should be drugged with sodium
pentathol until they provide information and then be executed. At
the end of the day when the terrorist comes home to find his family
and house blown to smithereens, he may begin to re-consider the
consequences of his actions. Unfortunately, innocent family members
of these terrorists will have to face the same fate many U.S.
citizens did on September 11, 2001 and many British citizens on
July 7, 2005. The question that remains before the American people
however is what are YOU prepared to do?
— Joe Bialek
Cleveland, Ohio
Any religion that supports violence, murder or unjust destruction
against innocent civilians and their just, peaceful, and democratic
countries MUST be outlawed and banned! No religion has the right to
demand protection from retaliation just because it is a religion! A
democratic country has the right to demand that any citizen or
institution residing within its borders conduct themselves in a
democratic manner or be exiled or destroyed! Citizens in such
countries have the right to choose their religion by free choice,
not because of forceful terror. Islam must be outlawed in all free
democratic countries if they wish to keep their hard-won freedoms
or even survive!
For the majority of Americans, it has been proven beyond a doubt
that Islam has evolved into a new, evil religion. The old Islam of
Mohammed is dead. This new Islamic religion is not a religion that
will make America a better or safer place to live in. We are
saddened by this unavoidable fact.
Secularists have been trying since the '60s to convince
Christian Americans that we are obligated to take whatever evil
anyone wishes to dish out to us forever and ever. Though the words
from the New Testament clearly say, “patience and long suffering,”
we should NOT interpret them to mean, “codependence and eternal
suffering.” Enough is enough!
— L. Mills
Salt Lake City, Utah
RATZINGER THE LIBERAL?
Re: Mark Gauvreau Judge’s What Made
Benedict Conservative?:
Mark Gauvreau Judge’s wandering, and, frankly, somnolent account
of the “conversion” in 1968 of the then Professor Josef Ratzinger
to “the dark side of orthodox Catholicism,” requires that I ask,
rhetorically, when was the last time he’s known of any priest whose
ethical system outlook was reversed by one event? Monsieur Gauvreau
Judge knows that Father Ratzinger played a major role as a
committed “liberal” peritus (expert) and a follower of the German
Jesuit, Karl Rahner, at the Second Vatican Council. Rahner was easy
to identify in a crowd of Catholic priests: his Roman collar must
have been far too uncomfortable, for he was always in a business
suit.
His attire notwithstanding, Rahner exerted significant influence
at the Council. The American priest, Ralph Wiltgen, entitled his
account of the Council deliberations, The Rhine Flows into the
Tiber, indicating how strong the northern European current had
been in sweeping aside traditional liturgies and replacing the
Latin with the vernacular Mass.
I had to re-read Judge’s article for I was sure that he would at
least mention that the renegade Catholic theologian, Hans Kung,
also taught at Tubingen at this time. Two years earlier, Kung, a
priest since 1954, began his attack, which continues to this day,
on Catholic theology and doctrine with a publication questioning
papal infallibility. Judge does not pursue this possibility, but I,
for one, doubt that Kung was an innocent bystander as the events in
Tubingen unraveled.
That Professor Ratzinger was unhinged by the student critics of
Catholic theology in 1968 appears strange…to put it mildly, for
he could not be unaware of the fact that Europe was convulsed and
in disarray because of terrorist organizations: the Red Brigades in
Italy, the student upheavals, led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, in France,
and the Baader Meinhof thugs in Germany. The future pontiff may
have been annoyed, disgusted or unhappy with the seminarians and
theology students, but he subsequently showed no inclination to
alter his “liberal” outlook as the unintended consequences of
Vatican II worked themselves out.
I would, finally, caution Judge in using the word “conservative”
to describe the pontificate of Benedict XVI. It is much too early
to evaluate the decision-making of the current pontiff, for mixed
signals are coming out of Vatican City, not the least of which was
the selection of the pontiff’s successor as Prefect of the CDF. To
Catholics of a traditional persuasion, it was a disappointment that
the author of Dominus Iesus would appoint a bishop whose
claim to fame was that he was the head of the first diocese in the
U.S. that declared bankruptcy because of the priestly scandals that
haunt the Catholic Church in the 21st century.
— Vincent Chiarello
Reston, Virginia
