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
