Gay Today: Pen Points

If Liberty Means Anything At All

By Scott Tucker

Ever since Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli were arrested and jailed in San Francisco, an ad hoc coalition of liberals, anarchists, anti-authoritarians, health activists and yes, indeed, "arm-chair activists" has reached passionate consensus on precisely one point of unity: They all hate the accused. So what else is new?

Both men are not just tenacious and obnoxious in the proper realm of politics, but are also guilty of bad manners in personal relations. You've heard the stories, haven't you? Some amount to no more than phone and email rumors, the equivalent of burying the accused alive in a ton of kitty litter for every ounce which was once poured on one unfortunate head.

San Francisco Director of Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention and Control Services Dr. Jeffrey Klausner ...

They've been accused of hating women, blacks, gays, people with AIDS and even themselves. For the record (and for example), I think no good cause is served when members of ACT UP San Francisco call Dr. Klausner a Nazi, nor when Dr. Klausner calls members of ACT UP San Francisco anarchists and terrorists. For every abusive word the accused have spoken, their enemies now speak and write many more in kind, on and off the record.

But why does karma keep coming around nowadays in the name and form of our local District Attorneys? And why do so many District Attorneys end up running for Mayor? All we need next is Attorney General Ashcroft running for President. Ashcroft has already stated that any person who asks for a little less Law and Order post-9/11 is already soft on terrorism.

... and how he is protrayed by ACT UP San Francisco

The prosecutors against Petrelis and Pasquarelli have already floated the idea that "domestic terrorism" is a wide enough net for their own fishing expedition. The case for the prosecution, which now includes a small chorus of Bay Area liberals, does beg certain questions: Do liberals believe in liberty, or only in voting by rote for New Democrats? Do liberals still wonder why the Supreme Court won't count any votes but its own? Do liberals still fail to connect the dots between their own party and the bipartisan passage of the Patriot Act? True, the Patriot Act is not their personal fault; it is only their political responsibility. And not only theirs, but ours, no matter what party we do or do not vote for, no matter whether we fly the black flag or the stars and stripes.

Many of the best and brightest youngsters are now anarchists; and then, as one judge noted drily in a Philadelphia court not long ago, some become corporate gears in five years. That's the power of class. At twenty or even thirty it's nice to think you'll rise above it. The wheel of the state, however, is there to remind us that we are all bound upon an awful wheel of fortune. A few rise to the very top, an anxious middle class is gripping the spinning spokes, and too many folks go under. The spectacle, on a global scale, is ghastly.

Naturally, the smart and sensitive young will always wonder: How do we get off this wheel rather than make it go round again? There are some ancient answers to that question, but these require a kind of saintly discipline; and then there are the modern answers that are considered revolutionary. Real saints and revolutionaries are fairly rare; and that is just as well. They have small but critical ecological niches in society and in history. They, too, go round the big wheel no one gets off. Not in this life, not on this earth.

Right about now some folks might wonder what that last paragraph has to do with the present case. Nearly everything, I think. Even if the personal is political, a little distance from both "I" and "We" may still help once in a while. Philosophy is really another word for perspective.

One person has already said that the whole Petrelis-Pasquarelli affair is a tempest in a tea-cup. In the big scale of time, that has to be true. When the twenty-first century adds up to a big book, then this case is not likely to be a footnote. In the present scales of justice, however, this case does count. Not for everything, but for something.

Whether you care to take a strictly political or a more philosophical view, don't certain contradictions leap to mind in this case? How, for example, do anti-authoritarians in general (I will not say anarchists in particular) propose to take responsibility for the making and breaking of laws? If you depend on tough lawyers to make your case in court, and for a cause you believe is good, then why let the wheel of the state roll over others, even if you believe their cause is bad?

Curious, isn't it, all this enthusiasm for orange suits and iron bars among the loudmouth enemies of loudmouths? Anyone who swears opposition to a police state should also think twice when District Attorneys make loose charges of terrorism, even and especially when those charged have already been politically disowned. Those who think the rights to free speech and assembly should be limited to good people with good causes are, in fact, making a very bad case for their own or anyone else's freedom.

Certain activists may think the only good move in the case of Petrelis and Pasquarelli is to put as much distance as possible between the accused and themselves. Lots of character witnesses against both men are presenting their case in the court of public opinion. They are free to do so.

But whatever the accused may or may not have done in the past, they face particular felony and misdemeanor charges in the present case that do not involve physical assault and violence. If District Attorney Hallinan wishes to pursue the more modest (though still serious) charges of stalking and harassment, then the bails are indeed excessive and his talk of terrorism falls far short of justice. The District Attorney of San Francisco has already served as the chief witness against the prosecution.

San Francisco District Attorney Terrence Hallinan: Urged to be more judicious

Whatever Petrelis and Pasquarelli did or did not do in the past, and whatever they may or may not do in the future, the present case is only about the present charges. The bail and charges have already been raised against one of the jailed men, Pasquarelli. If the accused are sufficiently hated and friendless, why limit the power of the state at all? Wouldn't the courts be doing We, the People a favor if the many could always shut up and lock up the few? Why would any punishment be objectionable as long as it has the force of law and popular approval?

Folks who should know better are hiding their heads in the sand, or else gloating in the prosecution. Some have speculated upon the sanity of the accused and then gone right on to approve long years in prison. By that fine logic, why make any distinction at all between prisons and mental wards? On the same principle, why make any distinction between "thought crimes" and acts of terrorism?

If any crime deserves the death penalty, surely that would have to be a terrorist crime? But consider this carefully: Since 9/11 and since the undeclared war, some European jurists have stated that even convicted terrorists should not be extradited to the United States if they would face the death penalty rather than life in prison.

Let's be serious about what is at stake in this case, both morally and politically. If the two accused are, in fact, terrorists, then shouldn't ultimate penalties be paid for ultimate crimes? If that thought makes us ashamed, then so it should. In this sense, the prosecution against Petrelis and Pasquarelli is already guilty of an injustice.

In this climate and country, anything less than the death penalty is considered a great mercy in some cases, as though life in prison was not punishing enough. The death penalty distorts all sense of moral and judicial scale; in some cases it weighs like lead against a feather. Public charges of terrorism (with no clear legal charge of violence) likewise unbalance the scales of justice. I sincerely hope that a fair judge and jury will teach the overzealous prosecutors a lesson in this case.

Michael Petrelis

And I sincerely hope that Petrelis will reconsider his tactical alliance with ACT UP San Francisco, which has always been a political case of reckless opportunism. He thought they were a handy tool; they thought likewise of him. Instrumental on both sides. There's an old saying: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." That sort of sophistication gets both individuals and nations in deep trouble.

In this case, some folks eager to stand as far apart as possible from the accused are acting according to a similar principle. They talk of opposing a police state but are content to let the state act like the worst police. Nothing is at stake in this case but two guys who deserve whatever they get? Is that really what some of you believe, or only what you find convenient to argue now?

If I don't respond person by person, and point by point, that is only because I find this whole case sad enough already. A woman whose work I respect is now on the public record saying, in effect, that the courts exist only to defend causes she finds good; the accused in this case can simply go to the devil. And a man whose work I respect is now on the public record saying he doesn't need to think twice about the bail and charges in this case, since judges and prosecutors have already done all the thinking necessary.

Now anyone who asks only for a sense of moral and legal proportion in this case is also subject to character assassination, on and off the record. This is familiar and sinister. The charge of "arm-chair activism" has come from no less than a hired arm-chair activist within San Francisco's City Hall, an irony we might savor but for the fact that irony always comes too late.

Some of those who hate the accused in their own hometown advise other citizens farther afield to mind their own business. This is my business because I'm a citizen of the United States. And what I can expect next? The charge of writing without a license? Yes, indeed, that's how I spend much of my life as an "arm-chair activist," especially as I grow older.

There is a spectacle even sadder than the sectarian devolution of one small group on the other coast, and that is the hurricane of chickenshit sweeping over the entire country. The two men in jail are not my friends, and they are not my comrades. Is that the preface necessary now before anyone is allowed to demand justice for the accused?

No, on the contrary, our personal and political sympathies should not even be secondary in this case, but near last. This is one of those cases, and one of those moments, which makes nonsense of the usual political categories. First and foremost, "anti-authoritarians" should take legitimate (and limited) authority as citizens, "progressives" should wonder what progress they are making in this prosecution, and "liberals" should think twice about liberty.

"If liberty means anything at all," George Orwell wrote, "it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." I do not want to hear abusive calls to my home at three in the morning, nor do I truly want to hear another word from the man in the White House, at any hour of the day or night. Can the Commander in Chief of an empire be charged with an act of terrorism without inviting the Attorney General into our homes? Are we going to find out soon?

Author Scott Tucker and his book The Queer Question: Essays on Desire and Democracy

Finally, to ask one more "rhetorical question" (as we like to say in the land of the free), should we defend the civil liberties even of people who do not fully understand their value? Of course we should, or else the value of civil liberties is neither taught nor learned. Creating democracy, one generation after another, is always an "unnatural act." Civil liberties don't fall like rain nor grow like grass.

Sometimes the Bill of Rights has to be dug up from stony ground, and forged in fire all over again. That's why this "little" case is bigger than the accused, and should be argued fairly in and out of court.