Three from Herschel Smith.
Guns And Obamacare
The Stark Divide Over Gun Laws
Notes From HPS
John Lott is a jerk. I’ve known this for some time now. I interacted with him on an article I wrote about cases involving firearms in national parks and also so-called “assault weapons” and their ban in D.C. John responded by saying that neither case was good to take to the supreme court and that, basically, me thinking so showed that I didn’t read his blog and should and I’d know more than I did. Or something like that.
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Not especially pertinent to this particular post, but incidents from Vienna March 1938.
G.E.R. Gedye Betrayal in Central Europe (1939) Chapter XXVIII. Abrupt Exit of the Author, page 318 ff.
[Gedye, a British national was a reporter in Vienna, was informed shortly after the Anschluss that he was to be expelled from Austria. He acquiesces, but late that night was surprised to be told to report to the Head of the Gestapo for Vienna the next morning.]
What would have happened had I the privilege of having Jewish blood in my veins when I presented myself at the Gestpo I do not know, as the first question asked me by the guard at the entrance was "Are you an Aryan?" I told him that in my country we had not yet begun to ask one another these riddles, but that, Aryan or not, I had to be in [Oberreierungsrat] Klein's office within ten minutes and if he delayed me playing guessing games about grandmothers he would presumably hear the answer from the Oberregierungsrat himself. On that the question of my ancestry was held in abeyance and I was given a guide to the presence. ...
[after a two hour wait, he meets Klein]
Last night you were given an order of expulsion. You know, of course the reason.
[Gedye tells him he does not know it]
[G.E.D. Gedye, continued}
K: You were among the journalists confined in the Chancery o on the day of the Fuehrer's visit. On that occasion you sent a message that a German officer had threatened to give an order to fire on Austrian staff officers unless they retreated into the building. What impression do you imagine the publication of such a message made in Berlin?
G: I should imagine an even more unpleasant one that the spectacle of distinguished Austrian officers being treated in this way by a German comrade-in-rrms and 'liberator' made on me. I told him,.
Not even the fact that these officers had - in my view - dishonored their uniforms by putting on your Swastika badge and had prepared themselves to take part in the parade of your Fuehrer saved them from this public humiliation befor foreign journalists. ... ...
[K. asks if the motive for the report had been G.'s dislike of being imprisoned in the Chancellery to prevent him from seeing the Fuehrer. G. denied, this, saying he had seen the Fuehrer an was not that keen to see him again.]
G: My reason for sending the story was that it was far too illuminating an illustration of the real position to be either modified ro suppressed
K: And what in your view ... was the real position in the Chancellery that morning?
[After further prodding, G. tells him.]
G: I should imagine that your people felt unsure of themselves and of the willingness of the Austrian army officers to acquience in your seizure of the country. probably there was a supscion, rightly or wrongly that these officers were preparing a protest or a revolt and the officer who gave these orders took the very natural military precaution for anyone in the position of an officer of an inading amry unsure of its ground and surrounded by hostility of thratining to shoot anyone who left the buidling. Had the thread merely been made to the journalists it would have been worth recording but of secondary importance. The fact that it was made to Austrian officers in uniform threw a very valuable light for the world on the actual position between the German and the Austrian armies which were supposed to be celebrating a fraternal reunion. That is why I sent it; the story is true and I stand by every word of it.
K: It was not quite true. In a way you are right as to background - a sudden emergency arose, there was reason to suspect sudden danger, and immediate and ruthless measures had to be undertaken to counteract it. Someone perhaps went too far in detaining foreign correspondents so long in the building. What is untrue, accourding the the investigations I had made, is that the order was given by an officer. It was given by an ordinary S.S. guard weaering a black uniform like mine.
G: There I must contracdict you, Herr Oberegierungsrat. I told him. I saw and heard the order given quite distinctly. ... He certainly had not a black uniform like yours, but military field-grey with officer's badges of rank....
K. asked G. if he could swear to this and I told him I could.
[There's more interesting exchanges in this incident, but my hand is getting tired -- cycjec] [The upshot is that Gedye is permitted to stay in Vienna "as long as he likes"; which order is later countermanded a week later.]
[Another atypical moment of levity, Vienna 1938 from G.E.D. Gedye's
(1939)
Chapter XXVIII, Abrupt Exit of the Author, page 322 ff.
[Gedye, like many others must leave Vienna. A final order of expulsion is given him by one a stranger who identifies himself as being in the secret. police. Gedye nevertheless goes to a Press Conference summoned by the new Nazi Press Chiefs, one Baron von Stuumm and a Herr de la Trobe, although he was not invited]
G: I guessed that de la Trobe would be holding me up as a horrible example to the survivors aomon my colleagues and thought it would be fun to cover, as my last story from vienna the announcement of my own expulsion....
It was fun. With no idea that the criminal sat opposite him, the Nazi press chief told us that there were some three hundred foreign correspondents in Viennna, but that to this one he had invited "only the real journalissts." ... The "real journalists, I ascertained from a quick glance round, numbered about twenty....
[de la Trobe dismisses reports of plundering arrests and murders]
La T: Today, another order of expulsion is being issued against a well-known journalist. Those colleagues to whom I had imparted my news grinned at me and somebody murmured: "Get up and bow, Gedye"
La T: I hope that this will be the last example we shall have to make and that those of you who cannot make up your minds to write in reasonable way will leave Austria of your own accord. We will not allow you to lie and make mischief.
G: It could hardly have been put plainer and we understrood him perfectly.
Lott is no exception to the rule that in academia, as well as show business, politics, and banking, when some one gains a little notoriety, fame, wealth, or power, they are both loathe to share any of it, or allow anyone to upstage them, or allow any one to even get in the game. Lest the new comer, or old veteran, as the case may be, shine a little, and thereby diminish their own stellar position. I have seen this happen enough times to make me vomit, and I still marvel at mans' greediness and lack of humility. People can be forgiven murder, robbery, even rape and assault. Jealousy and avarice are two things that infect many, like Lott, and have no cure, but the grave. One thing Lott could do to remember, is that at the cross, Christ forgave our sins, and absolutely rejected our arrogance.
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