A Confession of Personal Shame
Driving a taxi is not as interesting as some people seem to think. It's for this reason that I haven't posted much about my new line of work. The job is mostly routine despite what True Taxicab Confessions would have you believe. You pick people up, engage in a bit of conversation, collect the fare, drop them off, and then pretty much forget about them. Last Saturday was different in ways that still have me rattled.
Every cab in our small fleet is on duty when the bars close in Santa Fe on Friday and Saturday nights. The hours between midnight and 3 a.m. are inhabited by obnoxious idiots, most of whom are heavily intoxicated. Fortunately, the sober workers at this late hour are tough. I'm talking about the barmaids and bartenders, bouncers, cabbies and cops. Our job is to clear the bars, then the streets, and to make sure everyone gets home with a minimum of mayhem. Last Saturday things took a turn into the surreal.
There's one particular bar and dance place that generates trouble every weekend. I won't mention the name, but some kind of fight at closing time is guaranteed. The trouble is so routine and so regular that the cops don't even wait for a call. They mass up to five squad cars around the corner in anticipation. I arrived for a pick-up just before the cops got a call for a fight in progress. There is nothing more undignified that two women dressed in short skirts and high heels going at one another in the manner of cats. The cops gave the order to cease and desist then opened fire with tasers. Booyah!
Today, I'm deeply chagrined by my reaction. The cops' response was a clear overreaction. There must have been a half ton of muscle available to separate two chicks, but the cops decided to act with the maximum force allowable. And my heart reacted without a morsel of pity. It took me time to work out the reasons for my reaction. The cops were inflicting a collective punishment on every jerk who had ever given me trouble coming out of that place. I'm embarrassed to discover that my emotions got the better of my judgement. But there's more.
Perhaps you know the shrieking terror of a person suddenly caught in a situation out of control? The sound is a primal scream like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a predator. And if the truth be told, I took pleasure in that moment. To my deep shame. But there is a recognition in this that I think all totalitarians understand. Even the most rational man retains a capacity for violence based on resentment. If you can stoke those resentments, you can create an army. Such an army is capable of any atrocity imaginable. It lives in me and I am shamed because of it. It lives in all of us and I am forewarned. The impossible nightmare is all too possible.
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Jul '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Yer posts are the awesomest, ~Paules.
The people You taxi may not be interesting to You, but they may be to Us.
I'd love to hear more stories of Yer travails[?].
May '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Yes, an excellent, honest, thoughtful post.
Beyond that, I'm not sure your quick condemnation of these women is a pure case of guilt by association. How likely is it that they chose to visit that establishment completely innocent of the knowledge of what kind of place it is? You should always keep in mind the possibility that they were, of course. . .but how possible is it? Not much, I'll bet.
Was your delight completely malicious? Can't we make room for a tiny bit of rejoicing when bad things happen to bad people? --when the feedback loops are short and sure, and consequences rebound with precision?
Sure beats the alternatives, methinks.
Edited on Oct 16, 2011 at 7:55pmMay '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Paules, this is a point Mark Steyn has been making too. If the West doesn't deal in an open, just and lawful way with the crises runaway liberalism has foisted on our societies, there's plenty of suppressed violence ready and waiting to handle it a different way--a way none of us will like.
I've come across it in myself too.
Thanks for an honest post.
Edited on Oct 16, 2011 at 8:41pmAug '11
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Every cop knows that under these sorts of circumstances, the key is to subdue the miscreants as quickly as possible. If they start rolling around on the pavement with the two adversaries, it's entirely possible that one or both of them will turn on the cops with some sort of weapon, or that inebriated onlookers will join in against the cops.
Immobilizing these women was the safe and prudent thing to do.
Dec '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
It lives in Zucotti park in New York City, amassing support, waiting for the chance to turn a protest into an uprising.
As soon as a cop tazers a college kid with a heart condition, or pepper sprays a union organizer with an allergy, I expect this to turn into the London protests. They are resentful toward a world that didn't deliver on their childhood dreams and their inability to change it. They have a target, and as soon as they realize sitting around smoking pot and complaining all day is no more effective outside their parents basement than in it, someone has a bad trip, declares themselves "Tyler Durden" and they try to burn it all down.
By the way Paules, your are a great story teller. I always look forward to your posts.
Dec '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Is not control over the individual exercised by society's enforcers meant for exactly the scenario when the individual has lost control of himself?
Sadly, I now have Beavis (of Beavis and Butthead fame) running through my head about using the tazer...
Aug '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Since I nearly lost one of my eyes trying to deal with a kicking, scratching hellcat of the female persuasion, I do not hold a grudge against the 'muscle' who did not intervene. Tasering seems to be a just way to end the immediate confrontation and get on with other legal stuff.
Cheering the tasering I'll leave to your conscience - I would have cheered too, likely.
May '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Paules - Thanks for the post I have missed your wit and charm as you commence your next career as Taxi driver. Your Schadenfreude is universal I am afraid, so don't feel too bad.
Was no capsicum spray available instead of the Taser, I guess the effects in a crowd could be spread beyond the miscreants? If I was an officer involved, why would I put myself at personal risk, when I can given the slatternly drunkards a few well placed electric shocks to subdue them.
My hometown has the same sorts of issues, but we have 24hr licensing so the wave of vomit, and assault goes on, and on; with frequent deaths from groups of drunken thugs beating and kick a person into brain death.
It appears that Gen Y types believe they have a right to get drunk in public without need of any restraint. The serving of alcohol to drunks is expressly forbidden in law, but rarely enforced. A closure for a weekend of the offending venue would ensure compliance.
(Yes I have done pub crawls, martini races, and so on when I was in my late teens/twenties but never did we engage in acts of violence and assault)
Edited on Oct 17, 2011 at 7:58amSep '11
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Nowadays it seems the police would have to worry about being sued for sexual harassment if they attempted to physically separate the women. Maybe they were instructed to go straight for the taser.
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Of course it lives in us all.
Jun '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Salute to you in recognizing this in yourself, Paules.
Thank you for reminding me I have to be on guard.
May '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Well said, Paules, as usual.
My favorite quote from Steyn's new book was not written by Steyn (sorry, Mark):
I don't think our culture can right itself until more Americans acknowledge just how unexceptional we are in regard to our collective capacity for ruin and evil. The stakes are much higher than most pundits and citizens recognize.
Sep '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
I think there's a non-trivial gap between guilty pleasure at seeing miscreants get a painful comeuppance, and mob violence borne out of misplaced resentment. I would agree that the proper emotion in this case would be dismay (toward the drunk barfly combatants and toward the over-reacting officers), but a bit of guilty glee is understandable.
At the other end of this false equation stand things like Rwanda, midnight rides of the Klan, the French Revolution. The emotions are related - distant cousins - but not the same.
I agree with Beasley that this kind of dangerous irrational resentment is currently being cultivated in various places around the country. We would do well to understand the complexities of human behavior that lead away from rational thinking and toward hot-headed reaction. I'm encouraged by various commenters who are carefully picking out the reasonable rhetoric from the OWS haystack. I'm discouraged by the unqualified endorsements coming from Democrat leaders.
May '11
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
There is something troubling here. "They mass up to five squad cars around the corner in anticipation."
Question: If the police were outside the club, in the parking lot, outside their cars, ready for action, do you think the 2 women would have gotten physical?
There is a corollary to Rudi Gulianni's broken window rule: If the force is there to stop a fight before the fight starts, there will be no fight.
Does this ring true?
Edited on Oct 17, 2011 at 9:30amApr '11
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Before you start smacking yourself with liberal cliches, reflect on whether your response is valid. Leaving aside the possibility of excess, you were experiencing the moral intuition that the fighting is not just an individual phenomenon but a group one, which is the basis for deterrence. The two brawlers this time spent the week affirming the people who actually disturbed the peace last week, last month, etc. and declaring I wouldn't take no xxxx from no sorry xxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx-xxxx like that. Your reaction was not unjust but rather the recognition of the justice involved.
As previous posts have pointed out, this was not a singular event whose participants needed guidance more than restraint. This was part of a phenomenon with well-known risks. It is asking a lot to say the police should run those risks for no practical gain other than to salve the sensibilities of morally warped Liberal Fascists.
Just remember that Liberal Fascists are nominalists/individualists when that suits them and realists when that suits them.
Edited on Oct 17, 2011 at 9:49amApr '11
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
I agree that with the commentators that the cops were probably acting according to their protocols.
30 years ago the cops would have physically separated physically the women with the minimum force needed. However, a cop does not want to get into a wrestling match; the chances of getting a gun taken or hurt are high and police forces have moved away from physical contact when possible.
Many police used to use batons and while they were abused at times, the good cops knew how to immobilize somebody with a moderate blow in the right spot. That is no longer allowed in many police forces since Rodney King.
So, the Taser comes down to the least bad option.
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Three thoughts:
1. Claire's right -- it lives in us all. It's so easy to tune out the suffering of others. I sometimes catch myself, when I'm racing through an airport or something, silently cursing the people in front of me for being too slow. And sometimes they're just slow because they're old, or disabled in some way. Kindness and humanity are things we need to nurture in ourselves. They don't grow on their own.
2. We see so much of that kind of thing on TV. Does that make it easier to ignore or even enjoy when we see it in real life?
3. More stories, Paules! Wonderfully written and observed!
Nov '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Not to belittle your shame, sincere and heartfelt as it obviously is, but if that's the worst you ever do, you will have lived a kind, charmed, and well-examined life.
Masterful how you tied it to the totalitarian impulse, though. Well done.
Jan '11
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Just saw this - well done.
My first reaction? Anyone who has that "wait-a-minute" reflex, as you have, and who pauses to consider whether your response is appropriate ... is not someone I'm worried about. You're fine.
Oct '10
Re: A Confession of Personal Shame
Don't beat yourself up.
"Even the most rational man retains a capacity for violence based on resentment...it lives in me and I am shamed because of it...it lives in all of us and I am forewarned."
If that's all true, then you might as well be ashamed of the fact that you can grow facial hair, or the fact that you can laugh and cry. If it lives in all of us, then it is a part of our nature. It's just who we are, and we have no choice in the matter. Thus, why be ashamed of something over which you literally have no control?
What you do have control over is whether you act on that nature. And you didn't. So be proud of that - your personal choice - rather than being ashamed of your involuntary humanity.