Angry? Me? Who am I to be angry?

Let’s talk about experts: the people we trust to have delved deeply into a certain topic because it interests them more than it does us. Besides, none of us has the time to learn everything about everything. These experts might also be beyond us on the scale of brains but I often wonder about that.

I’m thinking right now about Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA School of Law, espouse to be expert on the 1st and 2nd Amendments (freedom of speech and the right to bear arms). At least other experts say he’s an expert. He was probably a brilliant baby because he graduated from UCLA at age 15. He now teaches while contributing his expertise to the Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and more. How could anyone, especially me, doubt that he’s an expert? This guy has earned our attention and our trust. Well, he certainly has my attention.

While reading an article on Guardian.com, regarding Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee County and his call for violence, I choked on what the professor offered as his take on the sheriff’s true intentions.

What do you think Sheriff Clarke is trying to get people to do? Is he trying to get them to spear someone with a pitchfork and burn down their house, or is he trying to motivate someone to vote for Trump or support conservative values? It seems to be quite clearly the latter.

I assume you will allow me, non-expert that I am, to disagree and to call your comments, Professor Volokh, egregiously naïve.

Sheriff David Clarke, an elected official of Milwaukee County, which includes the largest city in Wisconsin and one of the most racially divided cities in the U.S., posted a tweet, saying:

It’s incredible that our institutions of gov, WH, Congress, DOJ, and big media are corrupt & all we do is bitch. Pitchforks and torches time

Professor Volokh assures us that Clarke’s remarks were intended to be figurative. How Volokh knows what Clarke’s intentions were, apart from his words, is a mystery to me, but Volokh is the expert. He continues:
I don’t think anyone looking at this would say, Wow, he’s really asking me to show up with pitchfork and torches outside of the newspaper and burn it down. I don’t think anyone would interpret it that way, especially in light of the photo.

The sheriff attached a picture of a mob brandishing pitchforks and torches, in an attempt to communicate with all of his constituents, I guess. But contrary to what Volokh says, many people responded to the sheriff’s post with comments such as, Isn’t this inciting violence? Aren’t you, by definition and by self-pronouncement, a law and order kind of guy? As it turns out, what the sheriff wrote is not criminal. The U.S. goes a long way to protect freedom of speech. And that’s a good thing.

And of course the sheriff was speaking figuratively. Pitchforks and torches? Come on! We’ve got M16s. A few of us even have grenade launchers. Although, historically, mobs have used fire effectively so we shouldn’t rule out torches. And a pitchfork is always good in a pinch. Perhaps your education, Professor Volokh, being focused on becoming an expert, didn’t allow you enough time or energy to read history or, preserve us, literature. From what I’ve read, there are a number of instances where words have driven people into mobs and driven mobs to commit horrors. Words pack enormous power. Proverbs 18:21 goes something like this: The tongue has the power of life and death.

Nathaniel Hawthorne said, “Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

Sigmund Freud said, “Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men’s action.”

Rudyard Kipling said, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

You, professor, by calling the sheriff’s statement mere hyperbolic rhetoric, bat the words off as if they’re nothing more than 140 troublesome gnats. But more frightening than that is the arrogant manner in which you dismiss any objection to Clarke’s behavior by saying that if we liked him, we would give him the benefit of the doubt. But those of us whom he has offended take it “seriously because they don’t like the guy who’s saying it.” I guarantee that when Michelle Obama or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Anderson Cooper or Warren Buffet say anything this inflammatory, I will be offended. I will not give them the benefit of the doubt. I will object with my strongest language and loudly. But they don’t speak or write in an effort to incite people to do harm or even think violently. That’s the reason I like their politics and the reason I don’t like Clarke’s. I don’t like Clarke’s words because through them he incites contempt and violence. Not the other way around. When you, Professor Volokh, discredit criticism of Sheriff Clarke’s comments, by saying that anyone who takes his words seriously is only doing so because she doesn’t like him, you are taking a weak, condescending, and reprehensible position.

Words aren’t cheap, Professor. They cost, in one form of geld or another. If that weren’t so, I doubt Goebbels, Hitler’s PR man, would have been given a room in the fuehrer’s bunker.