Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization (Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1985, 1994) ("Thus, it is myth, as much as any other aspect of reality, that creates the 'fatal environment' of expectations and imperatives in which a Custer or a war correspondent, or a whole political culture, can be entrapped. [] The present forms in which our myths appear embody not only the solutions to past problems and conflicts, they contain the questions as well, as they reflect the conflicts of thought and feeling and action that were the mythmakers' original concern." Id. at 20. "If we can understand where and how in history the rules of the game originated, what real human concerns and social relationships the rules conceal or distort, and what the historical consequences of playing the game have been, we may be able to respond more intelligently the next time an infantry captain or a senator or a president invokes it." Id. at 20.
The analogy of war with crime deserves further attention. The war/crime distinction is crucial first of all for registering the level of perceived threat associated with a particular group. But it has practical significance as well when applied to the making of policy. The consequences of the difference are suggested by the responses of a popular newspaper like the New York Herald to the phenomena of actual KKK violence against blacks and the threat of a new uprising by Plains Indians in 1874. The Herald placed the Klan's lynching of blacks under the rubric of 'crime': in the first instance, the 'crime' was that a black man against a white man or woman, and in the second, the summary murder of the black accused by a mob was in the nature of a crime of passion or temporary insanity. The Herald would not entirely exculpate the lynchers, but would take a liberal view of their motives and offer a general pardon, ;telling them to "go and sine no more." ' At the same time it urged the doctrine that acts of pillage and murder committed by individual Indians should be punished by attacking the tribe as a whole: 'there should be but one policy [in such a case]--Extermination.'" Id. at 322. Query: One the one hand, black men shot and killed by police are often characterized by their alleged or actual criminal history (regardless of how minor). While, on the other hand, the police are often, then, characterized as, at worse, being under a great deal of pressure, needing to make quick decisions, being in fear for their safety, etc. And, therefore, if their actions are not totally acceptable are not condemned (i.e., not held liable). Terrorists (or at least those now being called "Radical Islamic Extremists) are to be exterminated, or so it is advocated. Of course, since contemporary American policymakers speak in terms of the "war on crime" (or, in the case of Trump, "the war on the police), the crime/war distinction is less meaningful. It is all war. It is all just extermination. Exterminate the criminals, the terrorists, and whoever is next. Moreover, on December 15, 2015, Trump "was asked by the hosts of Fox News' "Fox and Friends" how to fight ISIS but also minimize civilian causalities when terrorists often use human shields." He said: "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families." He went on to say that he would "knock the hell out of" ISIS, and criticized the U.S. for "fighting a very politically correct war." (Citations omitted.) I am not sure Americans will get behind target killing women and children even if a family member is a terrorist. Then again, Americans are weird and inconsistent when it comes to family values.).
