Book Report
I haven’t written a book report since junior high school, but I feel poised to compose one now. Maybe it’s because last Friday’s book club at the Eureka Springs library was cancelled due to inclement weather. (I actually tried to go—before I got the cancellation message—but couldn’t get my car out of the snowy driveway.)
At book club meetings, we discuss the assigned book, and then we offer brief reviews of other books we’ve read. I was really excited about my offering this time—and didn’t get to present it. So here goes:
I recently finished one of the best books I’ve read in a long time: Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin. I know! Right? It doesn’t sound like anything I’d want to read, let alone actually select for myself from the library’s new titles. I remember Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, but when was the last time these things even crossed my mind?
I chose it because I recognized the author as a very fine journalistic writer, whom I’d read before. And I needed a book. (It’s like heroin.)
The book was gripping. I couldn’t put it down. And I learned a lot.
For those who can’t recall or are too young to have witnessed America in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh was tried, convicted, and ultimately executed for bombing the building at 9 a.m. on a weekday, when it was full of people working, people visiting official offices, and very young children in a daycare facility housed in the building. One hundred sixty-eight people were killed. Another 680 injured. It was an act of terror that shook the nation.
McVeigh was apparently a likable guy. And no dummy. He could recite portions of the constitution from memory, which he frequently did in anti-government tirades. He was incensed about a federal ban on assault weapons instituted by Congress under President Clinton, as well as violent incidents between government agents and private citizens in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas.
Somebody had to strike back. To make a statement. Yes, innocent people would be killed, but so be it. For him, the end justified the means.
Okay. That’s the end of the book report. Now for the philosophical part:
What end could possibly justify those means?
The book actually helped me understand the mindset of people wanting to remain well-armed in case the government, itself, turns against its citizenry. But how does killing innocent people, people just going about their non-political daily business, protect citizens from government intrusion? I couldn’t imagine any situation wherein I would intentionally take an innocent life.
I asked my analytical son if he could. And he produced a hypothetical scenario in which I am aware of the impending meltdown of a nuclear power plant that will destroy all civilization in its environs unless I lock up the site—with one innocent person inside who simply cannot be extracted in time.
Well, that explained to me why I am not in charge of a nuclear reactor.
But I’m still confused about the end that angry armed Americans hope to achieve by attacking innocent people. Or even elected officials whose innocence is questionable. I understand peaceful protests, organized labor strikes, and voting. Encouraging additional political parties for the ballot. Publishing letters, books, articles, and podcasts. Maybe even scrawling messages on buildings and train cars. But threatening ordinary peoples’ lives?
Read the book. Read the news. Vote.