Hollywood, using the latest computer generated animation cartoon techniques, finds it profitable to juxtapose the age of reptiles, dominated by its gigantic vegetarians and ferocious two-legged carnivores, with the age of mammals, in which the mildly rational little Homo sapiens has lately starred. The viewer is reminded of a predation threat that might have been, but was not. Or almost not, because there are still beasts quite capable of taking human life. Tigers and lions openly roam the plains of Africa and the jungles of Southeast Asia. Humans are still being taken in the world’s rivers by those remaining dinosaurs, the alligators and crocodiles. In the oceans sharks are a risk not always accepted by swimmers. When combined with the potential for losing an argument with a lion or a tiger, these unpleasant facts reveal that predation is a fact of daily life in more areas than is generally supposed, so it cannot be said that the species Homo sapiens has no predators.

Life is not free of fret. For most the automobile is the major menace. Much distress comes directly from other humans. There are people who are capable of killing you for the little cash you carry. They don’t hate you. They don’t even know you. These predators are called criminals. Generally they are not intent to cause a commotion. Unless provoked they will not carve your carcass. They are causally unconcerned, even innocently indifferent to your discomfort. The thief usually just wants your valuables with a minimum of fuss. Perhaps his children are hungry and he is too proud to ask for help.

Other humans will kill you because they need your mortality to make a morbid message for others. Your death is just a means to their end. There is nothing personal. They don’t hate you; they just need some deaths as theatre to create an unsettling fear in others. It draws audience to their play. The intent is to influence behaviour or attitudes which are considered intransigent. For lack of a more accurate and descriptive term they are called terrorists. Please focus, for the moment, on the suffix, the ‘its’ part of the label.

Another type of human who will kill you is the dictator. It is safer to escape their attention. If you object to their behaviour, they might kill you. They don’t hate you. They don’t even know you. They kill you because you have become a threat to them. You may expose their crimes and lies. They don’t their crimes and lies exposed. They especially do not want such exposure if it threatens their position of power. The dictator is thus a form of predator, preying, so to speak, on other humans. The term cannibal is apt.

It can be convincingly argued that such creatures are out and about, more here than there. The intended prey is we, and that is mildly disturbing. The Earth of late has suddenly become filled with more predators.

It is no longer such a safe place to live. There is now no place to hide, and everyone is required to line up and sign a loyalty oath saying we support the local ism, along with the dictator who heads it. We must also denounce the anti-ism, and indicate a willingness to be an anti-ist. The pros and cons are interchangeable, depending on geography and cultural history, almost all of which is beyond the individual’s control. Lack of control or responsibility is not an allowed excuse for refusing to sign. Refusal is tantamount to membership in the opposing faction. “'Tis a puzzlement,” as Anna’s King said.

The rights of the criminal are reasonably well defined by the criminal code, and it is generally agreed that the man who is to be labeled ‘criminal’ must be shown to have contravened that code. A defendant has a right to reject the charges brought against him, and must be allowed to offer a defense through a competent legal representative. Unless the evidence convincingly favors guilt, it cannot be asserted, and no punishment is meted out.

In the interests of maintaining basic human rights for all, some parties who are actually guilty will inevitably escape deserved punishment. The failure of the law to convict them does not mean they are not criminals. It does means they cannot be proven to be guilty, and thus are entitled to benefit from the lack of evidence. This is the proper legal procedure, must it be maintained as a manner of principle to avoid injustice to the innocent.

Though a known criminal freed is a continuing threat to others, freedom of movement must be allowed, even though there is a known at risk to society. The interest of the public in human rights for everyone is deemed to supersede the desire to provide absolute security through preventive detention. This prevents injustice to the innocent. The alternative, preventive detention, proves too strong a temptation to the dictator, who always abuses the executive given to him to enforce the law. He always argues against it the maxim that requires a defendant to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The safeguards are not rigorously in place. Recently in separate cases, each of two men convicted of rape were released when new DNA evidence established their innocence. They both had served over twenty years imprisonment. This shows there is always a chance that an innocent person will be labeled ‘criminal’ and given a punishment that fits the crime. Society tries to minimise these mistakes, and when error is found, the innocent are freed, frequently with redress. There is no redress that can repair the damage done by time spent in unfair incarceration.

The guilty are thus freed when there is not by sufficient evidence to convict. This is a failure of prosecution, not a failure of the justice system. Such releases must be allowed to occur, in order to maintain appropriate safeguards to carefully protect the rights of everyone who is charged. When the police and other officers of the court violate the rules of investigation and legal procedure, the defendant must be released. The accused must not be held without bail for purposes of extracting incriminating information, and certainly jailhouse confessions are highly suspect.

Dictators favor preventive detention because it presents a ready opportunity to dispose of major political foes. If the dictator is himself a criminal, as is usually the case, and those who have evidence to prove this guilt cry out loudly for justice, the dictator can silence them by incarceration. The convenient charge is that the person arrested is an ‘ist’.

The dictator uses the authority of the police to protect his usurped power. Providing a semblance of law and order attracts public support for the police action. The citizen, not wishing to have criminals at large who might act against property in which he has a personal interest, does not object. Thus the dictator is unopposed when he orders the police or military to confine the criminal, and little protection is available to the defendant once arrested.

The arrest itself is proffered as evidence of guilt. This is intolerable abuse. If this is allowed, then conviction becomes instantaneous. The arresting officer is allowed the prerogatives of the judge, and the arrestee has no right of appeal. The ignominy attaches at the time of arrest, with the immediate loss of freedom of action, accompanied by loss of dignity and public humiliation. This procedural system is justified by its avoidance of any necessity to create a purgatory for suspects. Once arrested, guilt is automatic, and in the absence of a judgment and sentence, incarceration can be indefinite. As in the Monopoly board game, you “Go directly to jail, do not pass Trial.”

Dictators abhor public trials, dispensing with them wherever possible. But if there is widespread interest in an arrest, a show trial must be staged, with any missing evidence required for a convincing conviction fabricated by the dictator’s prosecutors. From the viewpoint of the dictator it is a reasonably efficient process and usually there is not much public protest. The dictatorship proceeds smoothly in the absence of any outcry from those convicted. Once locked up in their cages, they are no longer a threat. Only the dinosaur is a threat.

We come now to the terrorist. The ‘ist’ is the suffix attached to someone said to be associated, or in some manner supportive of an ‘ism’. Notice that no ism need necessarily exist. It may be a fictional construct concocted for convictional purposes. Or it may serve as a pretext to move forward some secret ambition. The purported terrorist connection need not be real, or direct. It may be simply an accident of geography or parentage. If a country or family has a trace of the ‘ism’ then everyone who resides within its borders may be officially declared an ‘ist’ without further and closer inspection. Once the label ‘terrorist’ is attached, all further appeal to human rights falls fruitless on fallow ears.

The roaming dinosaur on the hunt does not recognise borders, but snaps up loose ists on sight on-site at will. A dictator is not immune from predation by the dinosaur, and is at pains to divert attention from himself as a deserving morsel by making votive offerings of his citizens. They are chosen at random from among his opponents, coated with necessary identifying garb, and offered up to the dinosaur for mollification and pacification. It is a form of tribute dictators pay, competing with each other for first favors. “My terrorists are more terrible than your terrorists,” they boast. “No, my terrorists were intending to tamper with the dinosaurs toes,” is the retort. “The dinosaur likes me better. Look, he is building a nest in my yard.” “That’s nothing. My terrorists are so dangerous, the dinosaur is staying over to assist me in training my policemen.”

When the local form of ism is dominant and popular, there are strong incentives for all residents to join as card-carrying members,, or at a minimum to keep quiet about any misgivings they may have. Silence is security and survival. The unpopular ism is to be avoided, as its ists become bait for both the dictator and the dinosaur. To the outside observer there is this caution: the label ‘ist’ is an injustice if painted with a brush too broad.

Like the detrimental effects of excessive mala prohibita, too many ists in tow can undermine public respect for the law, interfered with its duty to oppose mala in se. The presence of too many innocent inmates condemns the warden, and degrades the system he protects. In extreme cases the public will revolt, coming to open the gates and release the prisoners. Sometimes they behead the jailers.

Much of the human record on Earth makes sense only if the ism’s and the behaviour of their loyal and motivated ist’s are studied. Once an ism becomes established, with positions of power and privilege attached, local opposition must quietly acquiesce or suffer the unfortunate consequences. Only within fairly recent times has dissent against the prevailing ism become possible, and this is true whether the ism has idealistic or spiritual foundations of humanism and justice, or instead flagrantly flouts the condemnation of history. Pragmatists say, “Nothing succeeds like success,” and nothing is so abominable.

The Earth, so far as the recent rise of Homo sapiens is a matter of concern, abhors the absence of an ‘ism’. The vacuum created by the collapse of the latest ‘ism’ invites a new one to take its place. It is nice to think that the succession is a kindly one, and that there is some improvement in mankind’s battle against disease, famine and injustice. Unfortunately, all ism’s have a poor human rights record, and when a dictator/leader is allowed the additional presumption of infallibility, predation of the potential opponent proceeds apace.

What is apparent at the moment is the lack of sanctuary. The dinosaur, in search of its prey, strides over boundaries with insouciance, snapping up offered ist’s with a casual indifference to previously accepted norms of behaviour. In the absence of evidence of an overt act, or a criminal conspiracy to act, there is no way to know for certain who is an ist and who is not.

Anyone who objects or defends an ist immediately becomes suspect. The ist’s are allowed no friends. Those who counsel caution are immediately labeled with odious terms, such as ‘left wing liberal’, ‘soft on ism’ or ‘fellow traveler’. The alleged ist may be subjected to public vilification and scorn, and accused of having dark powers. Ists are often subjected to imaginative tests to prove guilt or innocence. More often they are just held in some gitmo gulag without representation or trial.

Dunking in water is a favorite from the past, along with burning when tied atop a pile of faggots. Many are subjected to sadistic rituals of corporeal stress, such as being pulled apart by a team of horses, or stretched on a table while the limbs are pulled with a winch. Bystanders do not object, simply because to do so means they will be next.

When a country or group of countries embarks on an its hunt, dictators who fear disfavor come running with an armload of juicy ists, complete with dossiers dripping with confession and blood. This is intended to prove the dictator’s dedication to the ideals of the dinosaur. Dictators are always odious ists of one flavor or another, and this fact must be concealed from the dinosaur. It really doesn’t matter who is offered up to the dinosaur, all ists are welcome, and accepted without question. The hunger of the disturbed dinosaur is insatiable. Even its young are not safe. Room is made for another ‘ist’; such cages cozy and collapsible. Dedicated warders are readily recruited. A few good men are trained for the role of keeper, defenders of democracy through detention. The zeal shown by the scrubbed-clean and shorn short sentinels shows them to be suitably chosen for an innate ability to instill docility in the enclosed ists with a demonic insensitivity.

The great cataclysms of the Earth follow the fateful footfalls of various contemporaneous isms and the inevitable contests that occur between them. The actors mentioned in history are the ists who found them, lead them or oppose them. Some are labeled martyrs, some are labeled great. Jesus was murdered, and is labeled a martyr. His offense was to advocate love and peace among men. Alexander, the Greek general, is called great, which means he was adept at the slaughter of humans.

All people are ists, to one degree or another, caught up in questions of fealty and fear, whether voluntarily or innocently. The labels are sometimes tacit, sometimes supplied by others, often in complete ignorance by all parties. The isms and their ists can be damnable, scattering the hearth and the heart of the family of man. Human rights and liberties won at great price are jettisoned as burdensome baggage when the battle between two isms is joined.

Successful isms survive for centuries, contending with the anti-isms; the ists and the anti-ists, like small mammals underfoot, suffer the insanity of the battle. The suffering is sometimes in silence, sometimes in stealth, sometimes seething below the surface. It is the impotence that rankles and wrinkles the bones. Good men watch to see the dinosaur, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, become morose in the mire with a myriad of miniscule moorings making movement a mighty effort. Women and children then picnic in his pocket, while pretty girls sit on his nose.

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