A ROCK OR A MARSHMALLOW?

Which is more dangerous?  A marshmallow that is loaded with marijuana or a rock the right size to throw at a train?  Alarmed story about the marshmallows in the paper today.  You can get the recipe for marshmallows from Martha Stewart.  It makes a change from brownies.  The rocks are right there by the train tracks.   They call them "ballast." Seven people dead.  From a rock deliberately thrown at a high speed train, aimed at the engineer.  I expect the thrower thought he was causing dents, not deaths.  Or is he proud that he "brought down the railroad," though all he really did was kill innocent people on their way to work.

I’m reminded of the old fairy tale about the tailor who was plagued by flies but managed to swat seven in one blow.  He felt so triumphant he embroidered himself a sash that said, “Seven with one blow.”  Then he went on a little trip, proudly wearing his sash.  People who read the boast  on his sash thought he meant people, so he must be a deadly powerful person, a kind of Samurai who would be able to rid them of their oppressors and criminals.  Oh, that tailor was in trouble.  And so are we.

Law enforcement can do little or nothing in these real life cases of rocks and marshmallows.  So far it’s obvious that the mighty leaders had no idea that rocks were thrown at trains all the time, that three or four were hit just about the same time as the one that crashed, or that an engineer with a sudden concussion can not control a train.  There were things that COULD have been done.  Impact-proof windshields had replaced wire mesh shielding, but weren't as effective.  High fences had been erected along the tracks, but they weren’t maintained and had big gaps.  The area on both sides of the tracks were inhabited by people with no place to go because of poverty, and delinquent destroyers full of rage.  Ingenious high-tech safeguards were capable of controlling the train in case the engineer went blank or crazy, but because of lack of money they had not been installed.

What is most dangerous is clearly legislators who play to the wealthy political crazies, who never have the real facts, who believe in procrastination and luck, and who are simply living in a world with no relationship to real life without even the excuse of being hopped-up on marshmallows.  They must be mostly lawyers who see everything through a self-protecting wire-mesh windshield -- useless in a train wreck.  Or maybe the focus is on appearances -- don't scare the public.

Openly labeled.

I have every confidence that if a law against marijuana marshmallows were proposed, it might pass.  The problem is enforcement.  Do we send out tasters to sample all the fluff?  It’s about as likely as removing all the rock ballast from the train tracks.  It’s about as likely as people pelting trains with marshmallows.  If an engineer were to ingest a marshmallow with marijuana in it, accidentally or on purpose, he (are there female train engineers?) would be harshly punished.  The person who threw the rock that knocked Brandon Bostian unconscious will never be found.

Brandon Bostian, the engineer

The mayor was quick to blame the engineer.  He’s red-headed: to some people that a sign of an erratic temperament.  I suppose we could forbid any more redheads being railroad train engineers.  There are already people who want to outlaw sugar, the main ingredient of marshmallows.  This would be no more foolish than banning needles or condoms, which we do in the fantasy that it would prevent HIV infection.

Other people would probably like to demonize the homeless who find survival along the tracks in abandoned warehouses.  Round ‘em up, truck ‘em out, and then what will you do?  Kill ‘em?  We can’t even find an efficient way to kill really bad people one-by-one.  Better to use the methods that were so efficient when clearing the land of Indians: chronic disease and the elimination of their food.  Around here that was buffalo.  The politicians and military agreed that if the buffalo were eliminated, the Indians would soon follow.  It sort of worked.  They could operate can-openers to get commodity peanut butter but chronic hunger made them really cranky.  

They’re still upset.  Which is not a good thing when tribes occupy the headwaters of major waterways -- except, of course, for them.   The bargaining has begun.  And the sentimental are always pushing to bring the buffalo back.

I was reading some political stuff that mentioned the “social contract” and realized that I didn’t really know what it said -- what was the fine print?  Did I ever sign it or is it another of those damned metaphors?

“The social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, (1650 to 1780) that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.  Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique) is also the short title of a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau on this topic.”

What if every high school student took a course called “the Social Contract” which consisted of writing out specifics and at the end of the course formally signing the document the class has composed.  What would you include?  What freedoms, what prohibitions, what safeguards?  The Blackfeet are about to rewrite their Constitution.

There’s a lot of talk these days about “rights.”  Do you have a right to kill if you’re forced to drink Clamato juice?  Do you have a right to enough food to sustain life?
Do you have a right to cannabis marshmallows?  Do you have a right to shelter? The United Nations have drawn up lists of rights, but the line between natural and legal rights are always blurry and swapping places. 

“Natural and legal rights are two types of rights. Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system. Natural rights are those not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).”

When I was doing research for Animal Control, I did a lot of reading about the use of deadly force, because there are always officers who think they need guns to keep the peace.  But in law deadly force is justified only by potential or actual deadly outcomes to oneself or others.  For instance, arsonists can be shot.  Should people who throw rocks at trains be shot?

Treaties are also social contracts.

Quite apart from officers and weapons, when people’s ability to survive is threatened over a long period of time, they will become rock throwers regardless of any natural or legal rights.  Such a situation becomes a natural outcome, a different kind of natural law -- like gravity.  It’s grave, sure enough.  When the people who make laws and devise budgets and taxes are oblivious or uncaring about people trying to survive, then you’ve got a train hurtling towards tragedy.  No amount of cannabis and sugar is going to help.  

By then there is no social contract -- just social bondage and derangement.  Derailed justice.  Those who have guns will shoot.  And now we know what society will do to bombers, no matter their claim to rights.

Tsarnaev did some of this damage when he ran over his brother.

The results of deadly force can't be predicted.