I couldn't help but notice the similarity between Chigurh's surname and that of the real-world criminal Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra. If you were living in Texas - El Paso or San Antonio specifically - during the late 1970s and early 1980s (and oddly enough, McCarthy's novel is set in 1980), Chagra is a name you will remember. In 1978, Jimmy Chagra was arrested on charges of trafficking in marijuana and was brought before Judge John H. Wood, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, located here in San Antonio. If you were involved in drug trafficking, Judge Wood was the last federal judge you wanted to deal with, for he had a reputation for handing down maximum sentences in drug cases, earning him the nickname "Maximum John".
Facing this dilemma, Chagra hired a hitman named Charles Harrelson, paying him $250,000 to kill Judge Wood. On May 29, 1979, Harrelson did so, shooting Judge Wood fatally as he left his home at Chateau Dijon, an upscale townhouse complex along Broadway Street in the San Antonio suburb of Alamo Heights. Harrelson was eventually apprehended, his involvement with Chagra was revealed, and both men were sent to prison, with Harrelson receiving a life sentence for Wood's murder and Chagra receiving a thirty-year sentence for the drug case.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but consider this: in the 2007 movie that was adapted from McCarthy's novel, the character of Carson Wells - a hitman hired to retrieve the drug money from Chigurh - was played by Woody Harrelson, Charles Harrelson's son. Hmm.
And having grown up in El Paso, there is a personal connection between me and the Chagras. Whenever my family would take an extended summer vacation, we would leave our pets at a kennel along Doniphan Drive called "The Spa for Paws". At the time, it was owned by a member of the Chagra family. Small world.
I'm just not a big believer in coincidences and it isn't hard to see malevolent design behind many of the problems our society faces. Take our public schools, for example. There is no doubt that public education in this country has been a massive failure, and has been so for the entire thirty-four years I've been alive. Yet year after year, politician after politician, Democrat and Republican, promises to reform the system. But the system is the problem. A few days ago, Robert Stacy McCain said it best:
The problem with the public education system is the system itself. Parents who send their kids to public schools are constituents of the world's largest welfare program. Whatever the total federal expenditure is on K-12 education, every dime of it is "waste, fraud, and abuse," a stupid idea with stupid consequences.A-freakin'-men. I remember my own experiences with public schools as a kid, growing up in El Paso and later Laredo. The hare-brained teachers blaming everything on Ronald Reagan, the description of anything liberal or Democratic as "good" and anything conservative or Republican as "bad," the factually inaccurate nonsense taught across the curriculum, and the inability of teachers and/or administrators to impose any sort of discipline on the student body - making the schools seem more like prisons than educational institutions.
You cannot defend public education and call yourself a conservative. The entire history of public education shows that it has been, from Day One, a liberal project aimed at achieving liberal policy objectives that have nothing to do with actual education.
More than anything else, public education is a propaganda vehicle for teaching American children falsehoods, including the belief that government can give you stuff for "free." Let the government give people something for "free," and you automatically guarantee two things:
- It will be ridiculously expensive.
- Whatever it is, will suck.
I was glad to leave public education behind in 1989, when I enrolled in a Catholic high school. Over the course of the four years that followed, I received one hell of an education and was able to hit the ground running when I started college immediately thereafter. Would that have been the case had I attended a public high school? I'm not so sure.
In my years as a history professor, I've been questioned by many a student who was taught that the Cold War was just a fabrication of the military-industrial complex of this country and that Communists were really just misunderstood nice guys who wanted equality for everyone. No understanding of the tens of millions slaughtered by Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot. No understanding of the principles of Communism that drove those monsters. How pathetic and disheartening, and no wonder that a historical ignoramus like Barack Obama could get elected president. His lack of knowledge, which I pointed out in a previous post, simply reflects that of so much of the general population.
Look, I understand that not every private school, be it secular or religious, is wonderful. But I have personally experienced the difference between the two, and it is monumental and undeniable. So what would I replace our public schools with? Nothing. Stacy McCain is right, public schools are a colossal waste of time and money. Time to dispose of them altogether.
Common sense, though, is in short supply these days. But one prominent figure in the entertainment industry who is firmly rooted in the real world is Ted Nugent. Take a look at this video of an interview he gave to Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith (a different interview than the one I referenced back on July 6):
I often find myself conversing with people who are reluctant to consider the possibility of using deadly force to defend their lives, family, or property. When I tell them that I will use deadly force to protect me and mine, their reaction is often one of horror, as if I am some kind of monster. I don't get it. Is it morally better to simply allow one who intends me or mine harm to simply have his way? Absolutely not. That sort of pacifism - any sort of pacifism - is simply foolish. And I don't suffer fools gladly.
To close things out, here's clip from the 1959 film Rio Bravo, where Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson sing a western tune called "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me":
Why is it that movies like this are no longer made? I'm thinking that Cormac McCarthy was slightly off with his title, No Country for Old Men. Perhaps today's society is better described as No Country for Good Men.
