Opinion

By Sean Dietrich Sean of the South Commentary

A small town. The kind of American hamlet that causes you to start looking around for the Norman Rockwell signature. Hanging begonias. Storefronts with colorful awnings. A cute downtown.

There was a loud party happening on Main Street.

I followed the sound of distant music and many voices. I suddenly realized I was still wearing my pajamas. I shuffled into town barefoot, with sleep crusted in my eyes.

The sun was shining. Birds were cackling. People were everywhere. It was a veritable town-wide hoedown.

I saw women positioning casseroles on card tables. I saw children playing tag. Old men in aprons were deep frying hunks of fish.

There was music playing at the hardware store. Good music. The kind with twin fiddles. People were dancing before a plywood stage. Each front porch was crowded with people drinking lemonade and sugary tea.

Everyone was there, the whole gang. I saw them all. All my loved ones who died and left me behind. All my friends who met untimely ends. All my relatives who were called home too early. All my kin.

They were all right here, holding plates of hot food, mingling with one another. Everybody was smiling, throwing their heads back, laughing until they couldn’t breathe.

I saw grandparents, deceased uncles, departed aunts, and cousins who died before they were old enough to know what life was about.

I saw multitudes of unfamiliar children, dancing while the musicians played “Turkey in the Straw.” I asked an old woman nearby who all these children were.

“Those are the babies who died in the womb,” the woman said. “Aren’t they precious?”

We were interrupted when a large pack of dogs came running through the town, careening up Main Street. They came stampeding like a herd of bison. Among them, I saw six of my own dogs.

I saw Lady, the cocker spaniel who died in my arms when I was a teenager. I saw Joe, who was hit by an SUV in a hit and run. I saw Boone, the collie-mix who died in a veterinary office while gazing into my eyes. I saw Ellie Mae, the bloodhound I’ll never get over.

In a nearby park, I watched old friends play baseball. Mister Reginald was pitching— the retired Methodist minister who once lived on my street.

I saw my grandmother, standing at home plate, holding a hickory bat in her hands. Lord have mercy. She was a teenager, long and beautiful, with raven hair and Hershey’s Kiss eyes.

After the ball game, I was hungry. So I found a paper plate and stood in line at one of the food tables. A guy in line said, “Sean! Don’t you remember me?”

I stared at him, but didn’t recognize his face.

“It’s me!” he finally said. “James!”

“JAMES!” I screamed. James and I were friends as kids. He died driving home from his very first job. He wrecked his car on the interstate. I sat on the front row at his funeral and wept alongside his sisters.

Mid-hug, I saw someone else familiar. She was standing behind a food table, serving people. I knew those two fiery eyes, flecked with tinges of playfulness. It was my motherin-law.

She was behind a crockpot, wielding a long spoon, wearing an apron that said “KISS ME, I’M METHODIST.”

When she recognized me, she shouted my name and came running around the table to hug me. It was a colossal embrace that made my ribs squeak.

“You have no idea how much we all miss you back home,” I told her.

Next, I saw Aunt Judith, Uncle Tommy Lee, the Williams boy, my old Little League coach, Cousin Elroy, Cousin Rose, Cousin Ray, and dear Mrs. Betty Lamb, who taught me in elementary school. I saw hundreds more familiar faces. Maybe thousands.

Then an old woman grabbed my arm and said, “There’s one more person you need to meet, sweetie.”

She led me to the edge of town, to a meandering river. There, on a shallow wooden bridge sat a young man, feet dangling over the edge, trousers rolled up to his knees. He was holding a long fishing rod like a grown-up version of Huck Finn.

He saw me.

He stood.

My God, he was so young. He was so very young and so very lean. He had a mess of red hair atop his head, and his patent pending matinee smile was unchanged. He was wearing the same shirt he died in.

We embraced and I heard myself say his name. A word I’ve been waiting to use for a long time.

“Daddy.”

I could smell his deodorant, a scent I haven’t known in years. I could feel his lean trunk beneath my arms, and his beating heart only inches from my own.

“What is this wonderful place?” I asked my father.

“Does it matter?” he said

“Yes, it matters. Because I don’t ever want to leave.”

He smiled. “Neither do any of us.”

Then I woke up.

Phil Williams: When our mayors – and governor! – provide cover for breaking the law

By Phil Williams 1819 News Commentary

A few years ago, I realized that I had never read the classic book To Kill A Mockingbird by Alabama’s own Harper Lee. How did that happen? Apparently, this world-renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning classic with Alabama roots was not required reading anywhere in my educational journey.

So, I found a copy and commenced reading and quickly saw why it is a classic. It’s a fictional tale filled with the reality of things that should never happen in any society, not the least of which is the abuse of the justice system. In one excerpt as the main character, Atticus Finch is defending a black man in a trial against false claims, he makes an impassioned plea to the jury. Allow me just to quote it directly:

“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal – there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country, our courts are the great levelers and in our courts, all men are created equal.”

I actually believe that to be a true statement. I know that some want to say that our justice system is rigged against this person or that one, but I believe wholeheartedly that the even application of law in our society sets us apart from so many others in the history of the world.

But what bothers me most recently is when those laws are flagrantly ignored by those whom we have entrusted to enforce them. There is a new trend in our society – the open and deliberate onset of activist prosecutors and politicians who choose to ignore the law.

Case in point: have you heard about the activist prosecutors who are filling out the ranks as District Attorneys in major cities? Most recently, aside from the already egregious cases of the DA’s in Los Angeles and San Francisco is the activist DA in Manhattan, New York. Recently elected Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg has intentionally directed his staff to reduce any pursuit of prosecution of multiple felonious crimes at no more than misdemeanor level. Regardless of state sentencing guidelines or, for that matter, the desire of the city’s residents to have a safe and prosperous community, DA Bragg has chosen to enact what the new Mayor has dubbed a “hug a thug” policy.

But let me bring it home for you. What about Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham, who has determined on his own that municipal court drug possession charges should not be prosecuted? Woodfin went so far as to issue blanket exonerations of prior convictions in April of 2021, calling it his “Pardon’s for Progress” program.

Is that his role? The laws are on the books and enacted by the legislature. Should a Mayor of one of the largest cities in the southeastern United States be able to just choose to disavow those laws?

Here’s another one: Did you hear that the Mayor of the small town of Springville is running for Governor? In his own words, Mayor Dave Thomas is running for Governor and he smokes pot. What? Apparently, he wants to see the decriminalization of marijuana but so lacks an understanding of the process that he isn’t aware that as Governor he would not be the one enacting the laws. He would apparently espouse a position that the Chief Executive of the state is allowed to pick and choose which laws to enforce. Never mind that, Thomas apparently served in the State Legislature in the past … why not? Mayor Woodfin does it.

But then there’s the case of Gov. Kay Ivey and casino gaming. You may have heard that the legislature is once again considering the expansion of casino gaming across the state because surely that’s the most important thing for us to be focused on in the age of COVID and federal overreach. Put aside how any of you might or might not feel about casinos being placed around the state and recall that the bill that was considered just last session (and likely again this year) literally proposed to write into state law that the several gaming interests in this state who have been breaking our laws – literally breaking our laws – for years, would now be rewarded with a monopoly and the divvying up of our state to give them ground to build more casino’s.

I thought “surely not. Ivey wouldn’t stand for that, would she?” Apparently, she would, as evidenced by her own statement last year that enforcement of the laws on gaming was too

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hard.

You heard me: the Chief Executive of our state thought that it was just too hard to enforce the laws, so as a result she was prepared to sign the legislation if the legislature could get it done.

In her words in April of 2021: “Right now, gambling is going on. Much of it is illegal and it is done in the shadows. We need to put laws on the books, control gambling, enforce it and be sure the people of Alabama are the beneficiaries of the proceeds.”

Let me translate that for you into the language of non-politicians: ”Gambling is illegal but I don’t have the will to enforce the current laws. So let’s just legalize it and I’ll try to be better at enforcing the laws once I know we can make some money off of it.”

I guess we could say that about prostitution, or illegal drug use too. Heck, let’s just open up the floodgates to anything we’re uncomfortable with having to enforce.

I’ve got news: You have one job! Just one! And that job involves the enforcement of the laws of this state duly enacted by the legislature.

The laws of this state are to be enacted by the legislative body and enforced by the executive. Prosecutors may enter into plea deals but they cannot choose to openly disavow laws that they have no right to ignore. Executives such as mayors and governors cannot choose to provide blanket cover for the abuse of our legal system by perpetrators from the smallest drug possession case to the largest gambling operation.

If we are to be a nation of laws, then the laws must matter. It really boils down to that.

Phil Williams is a former State Senator, retired Army Colonel and combat veteran, and a practicing Attorney. He has served with the leadership of the Alabama Policy Institute and currently hosts Rightside Radio M-F 2-5 pm on WVNN.