PAUL writes:

I insisted on Sunday on confronting an idiot driving a highly-expensive (my bet is $75,000 at least) huge new pickup tricked out with enormous tires and a horn used by tractor-trailers. He ran a red light as I was waiting at the light a few blocks from my condo. It was red when he passed in front of me, speeding at least 40 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour road.  About fifty feet later he blew that horn as if to say, “Eat your liver.” (See Catch 22.)

I was going his way but not following him. I was returning to my condo.  I noticed he turned into my church’s parking lot.  So in an effort to get a good look at his truck, so that I could confront him another day, I walked toward the church’s parking lot which is directly across the street from my big condo building. As I began walking, I got more and more mad.  I was nearly killed recently by a driver who ran a red light. An idiot totaled my vehicle, but I was unharmed except for some minor pain that night.

The driver, in coat and tie, was meeting a bunch of people dressed in coat and tie and nice dresses, about fifteen or twenty.  It must have been a Christening.  So I kept walking with my little Bed Bath & Beyond plastic bag filled with reliable steel sheet straps.  (I had called earlier to make sure they had them after looking at hardware stores, which in the olden days would have carried them.  Pretty silly for a bachelor you might think but essential considering the plastic types always tear.)

I could not discern how big he was because of the hugeness of his truck.  It would not have mattered.  I walked up to him in front of all those people and said calmly but firmly, “Hey mister, you ran a red light.  I was almost killed recently by someone who ran a red light.”  All the while I was poking my key at him.  (It turned out he was about ten years younger and an inch shorter.)

He said, “It was yellow, but it doesn’t matter.”  I walked away.  When about ten feet away, one of his company guffawed to others in their group, not to me.  I kept going because I swore off fighting when I was about 20, unless I am attacked (and have not been).

But now I know what he looks like, and if I see him again, I will approach him with my hand out and say he handled the situation well, though he was misleading: he did run a red light (though it might have been yellow the last he looked) and he was speeding.  I will mention his speeding. I know it is a cliché, but I expect with his gaudy truck, he was trying to make up for his physical inadequacies or lack of courage.  I don’t know whether he has money (considering the tony neighborhood) or is truck poor, as so many crackers are.

It isn’t easy.  But we must do it, especially when our traditional values (thou shalt not kill) are attacked.  That crowd of people now know people are out there to confront them no matter their numbers or location, the decisive reason I approached him.  I had an audience.  These societal chastisements are essential to a civilized society.

— Comments —

A reader writes:

I read the post submitted by Paul regarding social chastisements. In principal, I do not disagree. In reality, however, what he suggests is a good way to get dead. Unfortunately, in our modern world, such a public upbraiding (or, in ghetto-speak, “dis”) may well result in a bullet to the head of the upbraider. Following a stranger(s) to initiate a confrontation carries a high risk. If one chooses to do so, he should do so with extreme caution. Perhaps a disclaimer should be added?

 Laura writes:

Absolutely.

What Paul did is not a good idea except in rare circumstances in which one is sure that the other driver is not angry or violent.

Alan Alexis writes:

I have to chime in on this.

As the “reader” commented, this is a great way “to get dead”

Paul should be able to do as he wishes, but given our current, Post Christian Culture, he takes his life in his hands when he does so.

Just because the fellow was wearing a suit and in a Church parking lot means little.

I have recently decided that I’ll not get involved in anything that happens outside my house.

If Members of my church or members of my family are in trouble, of course I’ll be happy to help, see what going on, whatever.

Strangers?

Nada, Zip, Nothing.

My value to my family as head and breadwinner is far too valuable to risk in these fallen times, for folks who maybe be just as apt to turn on me for “interfering”, as being grateful for the help. That means that I’ll not be the White Knight, for anybody but my own kith and ken.

Am I a coward? I suppose I am.

Am I being “Un-Christian”? I suppose, again, that I am.

But, That’s how I see things, in this world where, people are killed for simply being at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

 Laura writes:

I should have given this entry a different title —  something like, “A Small, Potentially Suicidal Confrontation.”

Buck writes:

I assume that Paul is armed and ready to defend inside his own home. Concealed carry wouldn’t be a bad idea, if he envisions himself “Paul Kersey” in a fantasy version of Death Wish VI. Ready or not, he needs to check his priorities. Because, unless he’s carrying a weapon and is experienced and thinks that a citizen’s arrest is a serious priority, then he better be ready to otherwise defend himself, or to suffer or die for whatever principle he believes he’s defending. As a vigilante, he is the aggressor.

Speeding and running a red light is a criminal violation. Crime fighting on the street is for the cops. Be ready to defend yourself, your family and your home. Armed and ready, or not, I wouldn’t be looking to confront law breakers. Take a tag number and call the police. Exercise some common sense.

I’m curious as to what exactly Paul was prepared to do if his perp turned out to be an angry Michael Brown or any kind of armed and ruthless thug? Admonish him?

FF writes:

In light of Paul’s comments and the warnings of other readers to Paul, I refer you all to a set of rules on the Auster website.

The rules are in reference to a new reality, in which Caucasians find themselves trying to apply the old rules of a more civilized and moral time, and instead possibly facing death or severe physical injury.

But as your readers have pointed out the dangers risked in confronting others not personally known to us, I think it is highly useful to apply the rules against engagement so well compiled on the Auster website.

Paul responds:

The posts have excellent advice. I inherited a fighting instinct, was told to fight, and won’t back down unless faced with insurmountable odds.  I am a calm, shy person who stands up for himself when confronted with bullies.  And this character was a bully.

The surroundings were not threatening.  This was obviously a group of white people attending a Christening at a Catholic Church in a tony neighborhood.  There was no reason to expect a deadly event.  I was not approaching a gang of blacks on the street.  If he had tried to move against me, I would have attacked him no matter his size.  I have special skills.  So I might have suffered a beating verbally or physically—that goes with speaking up.  Of course anyone might have a weapon, and that is why I gave up fighting unless attacked, something the posters ignore.  I was calm and not threatening or demeaning.

One must speak up when civilization is threatened.  After Katrina, I had to get medicine for my mother, and there was only one drugstore available, and it had no electricity.  It had a huge line.  So we were waiting, and some young woman cut in line ahead of us.  Apparently she knew someone in line.  My mother (73) was mad as heck, as was I.  So we both went up to her and told her off.  She cried and offered the pathetic defense that she was pregnant (but not showing).  So her unborn child was more valuable than my mother?  We backed away because we are not bullies.  Almost every signatory to the Declaration was killed or ended up penniless.

An ancient close friend told me recently about the time he attended an academic function with his doctorate wife, a dean.  Some intellectual kept making cleverly disguised negative comments about her.  The intellectual did not even know her.  As they were leaving, my big friend took the guy and threw him into the pool.  I would not have.  I would have told him off at the first or second comment.  My shyness disintegrates when an attack is noticed, though I am slow on the uptake because I like people and want them to like me.  My combat-Marine-Corp father was the same but tougher.  He was wounded on Guam and island-hopped until his last battle, Iwo Jima (with steaming hot volcanic foxholes), the bloodiest battle in American history.  His stories are so awful that he told them almost exclusively to my brother, a combat Medic in Vietnam. We are a blessed family.  His tough Sicilian mother had a nervous breakdown because of his deployment; but she quickly recovered and made a fortune during the war with her grocery. Meat.

I am not stupid.  A sample incident occurred at a local mall.  In high school, my big friend (above) and I were chatting up a lovely gal (Merrill) that he knew.  Suddenly I was approached by a puny punk with about five thugs.  He was dressed in the New Orleans punk style: blue jeans and a white tee shirt. As a jock, I was in a football jersey.  He said I had “looked at him the wrong way.”  I had vaguely recalled him.  And maybe I looked at him and turned away with disgust at him and his fellow punks.  But I did not recall at first.  The line of punks were looking the other way.  So I played innocent because I did not want to face six guys.  I could have lifted the punk over my head and slammed him into the ground or a bench if I had been evil.  Merrill was dissing him the whole time.  I was thinking, “Merrill, shut up.”  My friend later told me he was thinking the same thing.  We did not know whether these thugs had weapons.  If we had known they did not, I expect we would have attacked them. Finally, one of them said, “It was someone else.”

Maybe some people can understand my motivation.

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