The American Spectator : Bring Back the Duel

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Bring Back the Duel

By Christopher Orlet on 7.29.10 @ 6:08AM

Because drive-by shootings ain't what they used to be.

So we are a little behind the times. The important thing is that D.C. and Detroit and Dekalb got nothing on us. Not any more. Our Town has finally experienced its first drive-by shooting.

It was a tragedy, to be sure. An innocent teenager was killed in the melee. Police think he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, hanging out in front of the wrong house, when he should have been home hiding under his bed.

Our inaugural drive-by has been a long time coming. Crime rates have been soaring and murders are a dime a dozen, which I guess is a gangbanger's idea of a bargain. Even so, our homicides usually involve robberies or rapes, the sort of youthful pastimes where someone is bound to get shot eventually. The whole drug gang war era drove right past us without even honking.

Obviously a lot has changed. But perhaps the biggest shift has been the revolution in the art of the drive-by shooting.

Readers may remember how a quarter of a century ago drive-bys were all the rage among drug gangs for their highly efficient manner of dealing with conflict. You'd spot a rival gangster hanging out on the street, you'd call your friends, fetch your semi-automatics and drive over and take care of a little business. It was always about business, about who got to be territory sales manager of the month. Sure, sometimes an innocent kid got in the way, but it was never personal.

These tactics were no different than the tactics of the Irish and Italian mafia. It was Prohibition gang leader Bugs Moran who gets credit for popularizing the act of driving by a rival's hangout and spraying it with Thompson submachine gunfire. As with any war, there is bound to be some collateral damage, but even the most callous gangster would try to minimize that.

Today, however, it's personal.

The 15-year-old who was gunned down in my hometown wasn't a gang member. Nor was the kid who was supposed to be gunned down. So why was he targeted? Because he had offended the shooter or the shooter's mom or maybe the shooter's cat. Whatever the case, he had been disrespectful. For a large part of our urban street culture, being disrespectful is tantamount to a death sentence.

A recent series in the Washington Post tells how one D.C. teenager reacted when his cheap bracelet turned up missing. The 19-year-old became obsessed with avenging this show of disrespect. This set off a tit-for-tat series of drive-by shootings that resulted in five deaths. It turned out the bracelet hadn't even been stolen.

IT HASN'T ALWAYS been thus. When I was a kid and you said something nasty about another kid you could expect a punch in the mouth. Sometimes the rivals would meet in the parking lot after school and there would be a very well attended dust-up. I'm not sure how grown-ups settled their differences -- perhaps by dumping their grass clippings on the offending neighbor's perfectly manicured lawn. It certainly wasn't pistols at dawn, as was the habit of Southern gentlemen of a bygone era. It's too bad we've abandoned the art of dueling. There was at least a degree of honor in it, and it afforded a fair fight. Men of the highest renown dueled. Andrew Jackson fought at least 13. Duels were so popular, in fact, that anti-dueling societies popped up in most Southern cities. The Civil War ended dueling and many other dubious southern practices, which was fine, until now.

Now, as part of our urban street culture, he who is dishonored or "disrespected" is expected to gun down the offending party in cold blood. The thinking -- if you can call it that -- goes like this: "You have insulted my masculinity, therefore I will do the cowardly thing and shoot you from a speeding car."

Why can't our urban teens simply challenge one another to a bout of old fashioned fisticuffs? Why is the yellow-bellied act of shooting an unarmed boy in the back of the head seen as the proud and manly thing to do? Why aren't such people ridiculed as pansies and pantywaists -- I mean, besides the obvious reason that they will shoot you if you say anything.

Obviously, I am just an old crank trying to make sense of the inscrutable ways of the youth who are Our Future. I just wish Our Future would learn the difference between a fair fight and the actions of a coward.

About the Author

Christopher Orlet writes every Thursday from St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (48) | Leave a comment

JS| 7.29.10 @ 6:49AM

I remember reading an article making exactly this point two days ago on the Adam Smith Institute blog.

I hope that both writers came up with identical ideas independently.

Humphrey Dumfries| 7.29.10 @ 10:18AM

JS,

I don't really see how they're "identical ideas":

http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/.....-duelling/

They both mention duels in their titles?

Jamie Brooke| 8.1.10 @ 9:09AM

I wrote the article published on The Adam Smith Institute's website and am somewhat perturbed by the very similar nature of this piece. Whilst I'd hate to make any defamatory comments, I am of the opinion that the proximity in time between my article and this one being published is suspicious.
Of course, the author will deny any palgiarism, but his honour will lie in tatters for the doubt that has arisen. I wonder, would the dishonoured gentleman accept his own challenge? A fistfight to settle the matter.

Christopher Orlet| 8.3.10 @ 5:31PM

Two essayists somewhere in the world have similar ideas about a broad topic? Incredible! I guess I can never write another essay about walking because, oh, only about a million essayists have written essays about walking. I'll let you in on a little secret: you were about the 1,000th person to write an essay about bringing back the duel. My ideas for my piece came not from your blog, which I have never heard of, but from the Washington Post article, a book I read long ago called Cracker Culture, a story of a gang shooting in my local paper, my own observations living in the St. Louis area, and conversations with my fiancee, a dash of Wikipedia and about a billion other places.

Jamie Brooke| 8.5.10 @ 12:12PM

I could not agree more- there have been hundreds or thousands of essays written about bringing back the duel. What I find does not sit right is that within a week of my suggesting it as a means to combat gang culture, another author publishes with the same suggestion.
This author posts a regular blog, every week in fact. What if he is short of ideas one week and his deadline is fast approaching? If I were so lacking in ideas and so morally bankrupt I would poach another writer's suggestion... Fortunately for me, I am not so lacking.

Tomas| 7.29.10 @ 12:55PM

Murder and suicide are both the coward's way out of a problem. One blames the other for one's problems, the second blames... the other... by way of one's self.

Hmmmm....... sounds like Islam, doesn't it?

BTW, Orlet:

"IT HASN'T ALWAYS been thus." ?????

Pu-leezzzz. Write English. OK.

hyrdr| 7.29.10 @ 3:18PM

They probably did. it's obvious that shootings are a product of PC teachings. I saw many a ass whopping when I was in school and it settled a lot of problems. Today the schools have created a atmosphere where students cant solve their differences without taking drastic action.

Maddox| 7.29.10 @ 6:57AM

Don't you get it? These fine young people are "entitled" to their stuff and respect.
I know because our government tells me so.

gypsy| 7.29.10 @ 10:19AM

and we the people are entitled to organize, arm and act. The broad center of this country, the working and middle class, pay for EVERYTHING, all the bailouts for the rich and the handouts for the poor, yet we get jack shit in return. Since it is all too obvious that our government has no intention of actually protecting us middle class shmucks from gang bangers and the alien trash of this hemisphere, we need to take matters into our own hands and defend ourselves by any means necessary.

gearjammer| 7.29.10 @ 4:27PM

I am with you gypsy. At 62 I work out more than at 22. I am hoping to stay ready for self defense purposes, and what I believe will days, months, years of rumbling and street combat with the anarchist left-be they white, black or latino or whatever. In the 60's we let this pack of shitheads get away with murder-not this time. The enemy within has been told by democrats to bring about revolution via the ballot. When this fails to materialize they will go violent in ways that make the 60's seem tame. I will be part of the counter force that will put the big hurt on them. I live in a college area-you should see these revolutionary academics with their tats and leather get ups and unshaven mugs and goofy hair. The entire idiotic stick Che get up. Won't they be surprised when some guy in chinos, a polo shirt takes fist to their ugly. miscreant faces.

carnot| 7.29.10 @ 9:57PM

dude. no need. when the reality of permanent unemployment finally sinks - and parents can no longer support 30+ yr old basement boys - the tone will change.

JimP| 7.29.10 @ 7:01AM

This is a good column, except for the regional ignorance shown by the author. Dueling was not just a Southern custom. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, America's most famous duelists, were both Northerners. And as for dubious Southern pratices that vanished after the 'Civil' War, the Yanks have a few of those too. Like the New England slave trade which was willingly tolerated up to the beginning of the late unpleasantness, along with what equaled billions of dollars it added to the Northern economy. The "middle passage" was no love boat cruise for the slaves the Northerners were bringing over. The North was also only too happy to make what equalled billions from slave produced Southern textiles as well. And, it wasn't just Southerners who passed laws against dueling. Notherners did too. Sadly, Mr. Orlet displays typical Northern ignorance, dare I say prejudice, about the South. Next time, please get your facts straight.

All that being said, I am at your service, Sir, to meet at dawn if you so desire.

Robert Pinkerton| 7.29.10 @ 7:08AM

Over at Chronicles, maybe a year ago (Sorry I cannot give the URL.), Clyde Wilson said something to the effect that many Southern duels involved a relative of an abused wife against her abusive husband.

old white guy| 7.29.10 @ 7:50AM

a drive by would indicate a level of cowardice. it takes balls to face someone and try to do physical harm to them. alot of balls if both are equally armed. not much courage is needed to do a drive by. not much courage is needed if you possess superior strength or a weapon .

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.29.10 @ 7:54AM

""A dueling society is a polite society." Robert Heinlein.

Walking Horse| 7.29.10 @ 12:32PM

Precisely. When uncivilized people have no reason to believe they might be held to account for uncivilized behavior in a very personal manner, manners and morals inevitably deteriorate.

Saul Alinsky types would be very rare birds in a society where dueling was sanctioned.

Leesburg Pete| 7.30.10 @ 10:42AM

Exactly so.

Yancy| 7.29.10 @ 8:26AM

I believe one could get a "stimulus grant" to teach the Code Duello to teen youth --it's for the children

Denver Todd| 7.29.10 @ 8:38AM

I think the idea of a drive-by is to create fear and notoriety.

Aelfgyva| 7.29.10 @ 10:06AM

Exactly. They say they seek "respect", but that's a code word for fear.

Louis jenkins| 7.29.10 @ 9:10AM

Drive bys are an act of cowardice. Far better to meet el mano el mano in the street and duke it out, or duel it out.

JimH| 7.29.10 @ 9:28AM

Welcome to Dahoodistan.

Petronius| 7.29.10 @ 9:31AM

The Duel is an Affair d' Honor, and reserved to those who have it.
If the street trash kill each other it's no loss at all until those uninvolved get hurt. But the bottom line with these lawless punks is that their false pride is all they have and they kill because a fat lip doesn't satisfy. They have no right to any civility.
We need an urban terrorism prevention law that will get known gang members with felony records off the streets and into special prison units where they are to be broken like the wild animals they are ala Cool Hand Luke. And no squealing about "human rights" on this. Human beings don't behave like them.

Bill| 7.29.10 @ 9:32AM

Since you're the challenger, I assume Mr. Orlet gets to choose the weapons.

JimP| 7.29.10 @ 5:36PM

Bill,
I assume your remark is directed to me. Absolutely it is his choice of weapons. My second will work out the details of time and place.

Guy| 7.29.10 @ 10:17AM

This piece reminds me of a legend that is told about the people who originally inhabited this continent. According to the legend a warrior was awarded glory by his people if he actually touched one of the enemy during a battle. I believe they called it something like "counting coup". Talk about courage.

Grzmlyk| 7.29.10 @ 10:53AM

You know who's fault this is? George Bush.

It certainly isn't the just desserts of institutionalized liberal policies - the altar before which unreconstructed fools like Alan Brooks, PurpleGuy, VTwit and Liberal Reader prostrate themselves, creaming their little testicle-free khakis at the thought of even more human beings becoming dehumanized as they are thrown under the wheels of the megalith of socialism, fully loaded with an ever-burgeoning, ever more menacing bureaucracy.

Move along, folks: Nothing to see here. The Great Society made the liberal fools feel good about themselves, and that’s what’s important (the blighted landscape urban blacks are relegated to notwithstanding); Success? You betcha. How can you argue with generation after generation of black people whose potential is squandered even as they remain trapped in the fun house of liberal policies, the 70% out-of-wedlock birthrate among blacks, the 12% of black men who are incarcerated, the utter decimation of the black family, the obsolescence of the black male, the demonization of religion, the trashing of the work ethic, the lionizing of values that are antithetical to functional communities (the above-mentioned rubric of "respect," the pursuit of bling, the rejection of education as subservience to the dominant culture, the obsession with the symbols of luxury like Cristal, a never-ending supply of promiscuous women, Cadillac Escalades, designer clothes), the contests to see which urban black men can father the most bastards, the acceptance of random violence and on, and on, and on, and on.

Hey, with success like that, who needs failure?

To use Barack Obama's logic, sure, the situation in the urban black neighborhoods is a combination of hopeless third-world nightmare and perpetual guerilla war zone, but think how much worse it would be had liberal policies NOT been enacted!

My guess: If liberals hadn’t hoodwinked the vaunted “black community” (an odious, racist term, but when in Rome. . ), we would be closer to Martin Luther King's vision of equal co-existence, brothers in character, than the balkanized, toxic, corrosive ghettoized situation that exists today – and which is reinforced by well-heeled white youth, who romanticize the hip hop culture, the guns, the bling, the promiscuity, the primal, zero-sum existence that, in the real world, cuts so many lives short one way or another.

Rather than excommunicating blacks from the hip-hop culture if they dare to break the bonds of the New Slavery and join the productive class, guilt-riddled whites could drop the Alice-in-Wonderland false consciousness and stop treating blacks as if they are 3/5 of a person and start seeing them as INDIVIDUALS.

But no; liberals pat themselves on the back and gaze upon their visages in the mirror with a self satisfied smirk because they CARE. Yeah. Aren't liberal policies just swell? And when you apply them at large, you get shining cities on a hill, like Detroit or Philly or DC. Thanks, liberals!

I know, I know: If I diss a black man because, say, he doesn't like the way I looked at him, it's my own fault. I mean, we're talking about RESPECT, folks. It's the only palpable currency that the acid of liberalism hasn’t eaten through, even if it has been allowed to metastasize into an ominous and ultimately pointless form of theater. The artificial hierarchy of values imposed by the construct of “respect” is the only terra firma to be gained in environments immersed in the alphabet soup of government do-gooder programs.

But those programs are HELPING black people, you say. Why, without them, who knows what those people would be capable of? After all, we OWE them, and if they want to build a separate culture of nihilistic, destructive, entitlement-obsessed, sullen, hate-fueled values, well, hey, who are we to judge? Judging is the province of evil conservatives. Besides, it’s a small price to pay for reliable Democrat votes – and it provides warm and fuzzy feelings for the fools like Alan Brooks, PurpleGuy, VTwit, Liberal Reader, too.

As long as they still vote Democrat, it's all good, am I right?

Know what? I think somebody ought to tell all of these violent gangstas about those wildly successful gun control laws liberals are always fetishizing. I mean, all of those shootings in DC during the years it had on its books the most draconian gun laws in the country? Yup. A racist hoax perpetrated by none other than Dick Cheney.

And now the Dems are licking their chops, eager to "help" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) wave after wave of ostensibly helpless "Hispanics." Go get em, girls! You'll have 'em beaten down into their racial paddocks hating on whitey in no time!

Puprle Lips| 7.29.10 @ 11:24AM

I remember many years ago reading about the tragic life of writer James Baldwin. Baldwin was born in the mid 1920s. He grew up in the Bronx, where his impovrished family eecked out a modest living. Without any welfare, subsidized housing, nor any public assistance Baldwin was educated - initially by his family. His upbringing by his extended family and friends allowed him to enter the fomerly prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School (at one time considered the largest public high school in the world with 12000 students). Baldwin's flare and ability to write was immiediatly recognized. As a young teen he was devoutly religious and committed to his family and Pentacostal Church. His problems didn't begin until after he gained famed and moved to Paris.

Baldwin's story wasn't exceptional. Like other minorities in NYC during the 1920s and 1930s, Blacks overcame prejudice through thier private insitutions. When one referred to ghettos in the 1930s, they were thinking of Jewish neighborhoods. In places like Harlem, Bronx, and Newark, African American neighborhoods had no worse crime than Italian or Irish nieghborhoods.

My how things changed. Public housing destroyed the organic neighborhoods of the urban underclass. Abstract theories replaced reality. The Liberal theorists had a field day destroying Urban America. The "projects" that were built in the 1950s and 1960s were torn down in the 1970s and 1980s. Millions of lives were destroyed or changed for the worse.

John II| 7.29.10 @ 1:27PM

Hey Grzzy! Whenever I'm feeling bone-tired or mush-headed or blue-spirited, all I have to do is scroll through the day's AmSpec fare until I get to a Grzzy post for a bracing shot of horse sense.

Hell, I could even paint the garage door today. Thanks.

Grzmlyk| 7.29.10 @ 4:31PM

Right back atcha, John II - always a pleasure to see your name as well.

If you're painting your garage, I hope you have cleared it with the Eminent Domain Task Force; it could be that your beneficent local government has deemed that your garage isn't really yours, and would better serve the greater good by being repurposed as a community center for dyslexic, left-handed, work-averse single moms of color under the age of 15. Or perhaps a darling "clutch purse" boutique for plus-sized feminists with freckles and gender-uncertain activists who play cribbage.

If you do receive permission from the Oppenfuehrer of the CivilRightsChancery that the garage remains in your possession, you may continue. I will take it for granted that you have already placed yourself on a waiting list to attend the mandatory painting prep, painting, painting clean-up, environmental sensitivity, neighborhood diversity, color-scheme coordination, infrastructure enhancement and other associated certification courses that must be completed prior to proceeding with the actual painting of this structure.

Again, these are mandatory, and each course can be completed in less than six weeks (if you double up on class time).

Further, I urge you to be prompt about filing your environmental impact statement vis a vis your little “painting job.” I warn you that we are serious. Even the slightest wavering from these regulations will not be tolerated. You must have a sworn affidavit from a Nancy Pelosi-approved Environmental Warrior that no insects indiginous to your area will be disoriented by the color scheme you've selected or disturbed by the activity caused by the actual painting itself, because, praise be to Allah, we now have a safety net of laws that prevent Neanderthals like you, who just can’t get their minds right, from being insensitive to mosquitoes, flies, wasps, hornets, moths, beetles, butterflies, gnats, dragonflies, bees, earwigs, spiders, or any other creepy crawly that might come within 1,500 yards of your "property" (ha! Not for long!). (See section 101996, subsection 493B, Paragraph 337 of Senate Bill 190774372 for a complete list, or donate $1,500 to your local Democrat politician and you’ll receive a copy free of charge).

I point out that the aforementioned insects and whatnot are Gaia's creatures who have every bit as much right to be on this planet as you do. Please keep in mind the Regime’s admonition to all white people and Republicans in particular: You are no better than a common slug, and it is the height - the height, I say - of species-centrism and Caucasian-fed, testosterone-induced arrogance when presumptuous little cogs in the Machine of State like you have the temerity to even occupy this planet in the first place. You really ought to be on your knees thanking us. Or don’t you care if we decide your mother has lived long enough?

I'm guessing you don't have Form A-4123-7796-2274-4079-stroke C-B. You probably don't even know what it is. It's the State-issued form that gives every subject in Obamaland permission to be born in the first place, but until we can grandfather that requirement in, I’m chagrined to admit that we can't nail you on that.

But believe me, you're on the list, so watch yourself, bub.

Please be advised that, in the eyes of the aforementioned all-knowing, all-seeing state, you were acting as an oppressor when you built that garage in the first place (or purchased it, if you engaged in such an odious and seedy capitalist power ritual), a structure that has no doubt already compromised the sacred habitat of those creatures who were here long before you were, and whose existence is now threatened because selfish old John II wants to park his evil gas guzzling SUV in a sheltered structure that most poverty-riddled victims of American Greed and Racism would consider a mansion. Tsk, tsk.

Did you mention whether your garage might be located near 1) a one-time Native American habitat (going back only 600 years) ; 2) a wetland; 3) an intersection; 4) a public power line; 5) a Mosque; 6) an ROTC recruiting office? If so, I can send you the appropriate forms for any of those, and you can contact the offices in your sector, Sector Six, to arrange receipt of permission request forms from those ministries that apply. A representative will then contact you within six months of your filing.

Under the new Garage Reform Act, an entirely different department now exists to evaluate the impact of your repainted garage on the natural habitats of birds, mammals, rodents, reptiles, marsupials or bacteria that might frequent your neighborhood; as you know, our planet is ever-so fragile, and even the squashing of an ant under your feet could cast the entire planet into existential peril, raise the oceans to overflowing, melt the icecaps and grant Joan Rivers her own TV series, so I hope you've submitted a report listing all of the species in your neighborhood that might come into contact with this alleged "garage," how they might be affected, and a lengthy essay as to why you think you deserve to go ahead and paint it anyway.

I'll address plants (flowers, trees, shrubbery, weeds, pollen) under separate cover.

No doubt you've already made the proper arrangements for the disposal of any hazardous materials you might (in your selfishness) produce over the course of painting and downloaded the proper instructions for sealing the containers and dropping them off at your local HazMat/Health Care Monitoring center.

I might point out, though, that you'll have to stop by your local electricity provider and pick up a Co2 monitor (only $99.95) and report all Co2 emissions created by you in the painting of this structure. Your report must match exactly the hourly readings that are automatically transmitted to the Monitoring Center, so I wouldn’t advise fudging the numbers, which would result in steep fines and probably incarceration. You will be taxed on a per-BTU basis, but there may be package deals available to you, so check with your local Co2 Management Advisory Council for details.

And if a ladder is involved, oh my god. We'd better reserve, say, a dozen OSHA bureaucrats to enter your property to supervise this process ASAP. I confess the paperwork there is a bit daunting.

No need to worry, though. Once you’ve received training on how to use the ladder and filled out the proper forms – and taken the proper safety training curriculum - it should be smooth sailing. With the help of the on-site consultants and our online wizards, I’m certain the GaragePolize will have you up on that ladder within the decade.

Now for some labor force guidelines: As you know, with respect to the painting of a single-car garage, the Greater Diversity In the Workplace Act passed by congress last year requires you to employ one black, one transgendered Latina, half a Somalian, half a disabled Pakistani refugee, three lesbians, a brace of hermaphrodites and a trained seal, its trainer, its personal veterinarian and its fitness trainer. Additionally, you are required to supply a 1,000 gallon tank, fresh water, three sunfish (not to exceed four inches in length each) every hour for her to eat. All of the aforementioned laborers belong to separate unions, which means you'll have to get registration forms, 1099s and a fee schedule for each. And of course you have to have one PETA representative on site at all times the seal is engaged in assisting with the painting of this alleged structure, even if said assistance comprises balancing a ball on its nose and clapping.

Please note that if you have a two-car garage, the labor force guidelines double; HOWEVER , you cannot thereupon hire one whole Somalian or one whole disabled Pakistani refugee; you must hire two half-Somalians and two half-Pakistani refugees. It is very important that you follow these instructions to the letter. Do not mess with us. Our auditors will be watching you from Mrs. Henderson’s pumpkin patch across the street, and they are equipped with night-vision goggles. Resistance is futile on this point.

Well, I think that about covers it for now, but remember, congress is in session next week, so I think it’s safe to say there will be additional regulations requiring you to play by the rules, pay your fair share and give back to your community.

Have a nice day.

John II| 7.29.10 @ 10:20PM

It's a two-car garage, and it's got one of those multi-paneled roll-up doors instead of a single-sheet swing-up door. And what a pain THAT is to paint.

Last time I did so was 10 years ago, when Clinton was still President, but it hadn't all caught up to me yet. I think I'd best put the project off a while longer.

But there's plenty else to do meanwhile. Keep posting, and I'll pass it all along to my grandkids. My generation's got a lot of "splainin' to do.

grzmlyk| 7.30.10 @ 10:36AM

A multi-paneled roll-up door, John II?

Why the hate?

Well, I don't envy you. I'm about to paint the master bedroom, and the hotels are already filled with bureaucrates each seeking his/her/its pound of flesh.

Speaking of painting, we've painted ourselves into a corner when it comes to the bureaucracy (and, thanks to Obama, we ain't seen nothin' yet).

One need look no further than Ground Zero to illustrate how bureaucratic wrangling, litigation and regulations can paralyze all progress.

Like every aspect of the cancer that is liberalism, the bureaucracy succeeds when it creates such a tangle that nothing whatsoever can get done at all.

Alice-in-Wonderland's got nothing on the USA circa 2010. And it's a tragedy.

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.29.10 @ 4:49PM

GRZ,
Once again, thank you for defining a facet of our situation...brilliantly.

Heh...but...(smile) in which part of the country do you reside? Perhaps more important...where did you grow up?

(Smile)...my favorite Texas Ranger is number 2 on my speed dial. He is a hardcase. He does truly ascribe to the old Texas Ranger slogan..."one fight...one Ranger".

I keep my phone handy. I don't call 911...I call him.
You folks in other parts of the country...God bless....and seriously consider a move.

Grzmlyk| 7.29.10 @ 6:22PM

Well, Ken, I live in Vermont right now - one of the many liberal meccas I've lived in (the others include Chicago, Boston, New York and San Fran).

I am acquainted with the enemy up close and personal.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, where a work ethic used to stand for something even amid the original Mayor Daley's machine.

The same machine that was the blueprint for Obama and his fellow thugs.

Albert| 7.29.10 @ 11:07AM

"Why can't our urban teens simply challenge one another to a bout of old fashioned fisticuffs? Why is the yellow-bellied act of shooting an unarmed boy in the back of the head seen as the proud and manly thing to do?"

The answer is simple. We have now multiple generations raised in "projects" with no real family ties to speak of. No one taught these people respect for life, and the entire gang subculture teaches them to kill for petty, even manufactured, reasons. There is no saving most of these people. The only real solution is to shoot back. Arm yourselves. If gangs bring violence into your neighborhood, give violence back to them. Terminate the violence by terminating the violent offenders. A duel was an affair of honor, a challenge amongst civilized men, as evidenced by the simple fact that duels had rules that were followed. Gang bangers have no honor and are not civilized. They follow no rules save the ones they make up as they go along to justify their own pointless violence. There is no reasoning with such people.

MacDaddy| 7.29.10 @ 12:50PM

+1, Sir. Time to thin the herd....Civilized people have a right to protect themselves from the uncivilized. We ought not be made responsible for what they have wrought on themselves.....

MTM| 7.29.10 @ 11:15AM

...in H. S. football when 2 guys would go at it in pads...our coach would stop them because fighting in pads no one gets hurt...later after practice he would make them put on the boxing gloves & duke it out...now you'd see how tough they really were...

Tish| 7.29.10 @ 1:07PM

In the South of my youth, male adolescents engaged in spirited bouts of fisticuffs to settle disputes. Other than the occasional black eye or busted knuckle, few suffered more injury than scrapes and bruises. If they were really stupid, an older man might intervene to both participants.

That's now frowned on, so perhaps the modern solution is to give all 14 year olds, male , female or confused, a motorcycle and sent them to wide open spaces for a week. In the first 24 hours they'll learn more about actions and consequences than they ever dreamed of, and the ones who survive it might remember the lessons.

JimP| 7.29.10 @ 5:45PM

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Back in the day we boys were encouraged to learn the "manly art of self defense", to stand up to bullies, and as you pointed out, fighting was not treated as if you are a homicidal maniac. Boys fought... alot. In fact in the parts of the South where I lived, if you backed down you were considered a coward. I assume it was the same all over Dixie. Sadly honor and courage aren't valued by the general society anymore.

Rich Rostrom| 7.29.10 @ 3:41PM

Mr. Orlet is behind the curve.

There are plenty of fistfights among "urban youth".

Sullivan High School, in my Chicago neighborhood, is referred to as "Sullivan Fight School", because of the brawls between students which erupted at each day's letting out. It was necessary to flood the surrounding streets with police each afternoon to put a stop to this.

MAJ Mike| 7.29.10 @ 4:34PM

There's a reason that the first two amendments of the Bill of Rights guarantee free speech and the right to bear arms; dueling enforced civility, and cultures with rituals that permit men to satisfy their honor in a straightforward manner are less violent than those that refuse to even acknowledge the concept of honor.

Tom in Michigan| 7.29.10 @ 5:03PM

These events are all too common here in Detroit. It often occurs after one youth “disses” the other or even some distant relative or associate as in, “he dissed my cousin.” Blacks are not the only ones who commit this crime but, it does seem more common in places like Detroit. Why? Well, the untimely deaths of the young men involved is yet another heartbreaking consequence of the dissolution of the family.

What caused this dissolution and the too-early deaths of so many of our youths? As recently as 1970, married-couple households far outnumbered households headed by unmarried women among blacks. Yet by 1993, according to the 1994 U.S Census, among black family households with children present, 53% were headed by unmarried women. Only about 70% of black American females will ever marry. Furthermore, between the periods 1945-1950 and 1975-1980, the percentage of a lifetime that the average black woman spent in an intact marriage declined from 40 percent to 22 percent.

What happened? Did black Americans fundamentally change or was there some intervening effect that led us to this state? The answer put forth by many researchers is; the Democrat’s Great Society and its unmanning social welfare programs did more damage to our society than any foreign enemy could have ever hoped to do.

For example, when I was a youth, even though it’s true black Americans were on the low end of the economic ladder and the Civil Rights Movement still had a long row to how, the black family was for the most part strong and stable. Two parent families were the rule, not the exception. When I went to a friend’s home for dinner; both mom and dad sat down at the table. My friends' fathers were mostly working men (one was a physician) as was my father but, they all commanded and deserved respect because they had earned it.

Compare that to the present state of the black community after 40 years of leftist “help.” Blacks are imprisoned in numbers far exceeding their representation within US society, unwed mothers and single parent families are the rule, black youths without a strong male role model other than rap stars, basketball players and race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson roam the streets and with its drugs and crime. In fact, this “street” culture is glorified. No wonder the drive-by shootings over trivial matters is so common.

Of course, the left in their usual abrogation of responsibility for the evil they do blame all this on “racism.” Well, if that was the case; why hasn’t this changed with the first President with African ancestry?

Thanks to the left, this is the state of black America:

60 percent of black children grow up in fatherless homes.

800,000(!) black men are in jail or prison.

70 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers.

Over 300,000 black babies are aborted annually (the left is all about abortion but, the victims of abortion are among the groups they claim to "help").

50 percent of new AIDS cases are in the black community.

Almost half of young black men in America's cities are neither working nor in school.

Yet, blacks will march back to the polls in November and re-elect the people behind these grim statistics. It is heartbreaking to witness this willing victimization.

We have a radio show here called “Breaking the Cycle” which highlights folks who have escaped from the leftist-created malaise. The only way to “break the cycle” is to get rid of the leftists who caused and who perpetuate the slow-motion genocide of black America

Tom in Michigan| 7.29.10 @ 5:05PM

Sorry, "a long row to hoe."

JS| 7.29.10 @ 5:06PM

Fisticuffs are outdated bc in school, you are liable to get kicked out-everyone in school knows that. Even if you are just sticking up for yourself. Now a drive by may get you stuck in jail for a lifetime, but only if they can trace it back to the killers (which often happens bc how are they to get their street cred if no one knows they did it). So its a catch 22. Can't fight em. Can't kill em. I've often believed if two parties agree to a fight, there should be no judicial recourse if they- oh what am I talking about, there's always recourse...- just go back to the duel and oil up them six shooters. No innocent bystandards- and if the contract for the duel is drawn up right- limited legal recourse. Sheesh!