Theory Versus Real Life

Aristotle famously wrote that man is a political animal. In his day, political had a different meaning. It was not ideological affiliation or social activism; rather, political concerned itself with the daily occurrences of life - the common activities within the Greek city, or polis. Going to the market place to buy the day's bread and fish was political. It was also the group of men standing in the city's center praising the Gods for an abundance of wheat and olives.

Now, we're too busy yapping on our cell phones to notice the peripheral goings-on of life. And as a result, politics is what happens in Austin or D.C. And it is invariably linked with greed, corruption, and graft.

Some 2000 years later, Rousseau clarified and added to Aristotle's idea about man's relationship with all things political, in the original sense. He posited that there is at least one seminal moment in each person's life that helps shape one's perspective of the world, which in return shapes one's political leanings. His defining moment occurred when he was about 12 years old.

His father's maidservant set her lady's expensive combs to dry out in the common room by the fireplace. As Rousseau was but a lad, he would sometimes play in this common room when he wasn't outside. When the maidservant returned to retrieve the combs, some of the teeth were broken off; as he was the only one to have entered the room, he was presumed to have broken the combs and was severely punished for the act he did not commit.

Partially because of that injustice, Rousseau became a writer, focusing on social criticism, ultimately penning that "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." He is best known for writing The Social Contract, the idea that a bond, or natural agreement, exists between government and its people. If that government fails to protect its citizens' life, liberty or property, they are duty bound to revolt against tyranny.

As our Declaration of Independence is based on this thought and as the French Revolution of 1789 was an echo of the American Revolution, it is easy to trace the origins of small "r" republicanism back to Rousseau and his broken combs.

You read Rousseau's defining moment. Mine wasn't too dissimilar.

Our junior high school had a policy that one could not go to his or her locker during lunchtime. Normally, this would not have been a problem. One day, however, a friend and I remembered that we had not done our homework assignment due the very next period. We snuck back to our lockers and as we were ready to go back to the cafeteria, two other kids came running and screaming down the hall. They ran away, as we should have, before the sternest teacher in the school came out to see where the noise came from. He saw an empty hall - then me and my friend. To the vice principal's office we went.

Unfortunate for us because our vice principal was in the middle of a severe roid rage that day. He never once listened to our pleas of innocence. Everybody accused of a crime denies it, why should we be any different? So, we got a couple of licks for not only running and screaming down the hall, but also for lying about it.

I also remember him saying it was punishment for all the things we did but never got caught doing.

Since then, I have always taken the side of the defense in criminal matters. I can look at the most disgusting and horrific of crimes and logically conceive a scenario where one might be innocent of the accused crimes.

To be fair, prosecutors have their own perspective, probably formed my some injustice thrust upon them in their formative years. Nancy Grace for instance. Her fiance was tragically taken from her when all she wanted was a teacher's degree and a wedding ring. But since her fiance's murder, I suspect she has never trusted the presumption of innocence. Innocent people don't get accused of crimes, I have heard her say before.

I bring all of this up because of Hussein's current trial.

At first, even I was disgusted that Ramsey Clark is acting as lead council for the former dictator. If anybody on this Earth deserves an execution followed by a quick trial, it's Hussein. But for a United States citizen to defend him, much less one who was Attorney General for several years and whose father was a Supreme Court Justice? I was honestly flabbergasted.

Then I distanced myself from my base emotions and realized that while Hussein may not deserve the protections afforded to a citizen of the United States, he may deserve the minimum protections afforded to a human being put on trial by his own government. I also was able to laugh at the irony of his situation. A faux-theocrat who gained his power and riches denouncing America, its economic system, and its citizens who has now put his life in the hands of an American. It's almost as if Hitler had been captured, tried at Nuremberg, and defended by Alan Dershowitz.

So while I sit comfortably in front of my computer knowing the verdict and sentence at the end of this trial, I also wonder if Hussein doesn't on some level feel like I did in my vice principal's office twenty years ago.

Not that I'll lose much sleep in deep thought of his present or future.