I first wrote this in 2010, as a warning to Democrats that they were running with outlaws, and that certain natural laws apply when they do that. Well, today, ten years later, the Democrats have all but acknowledged that they know they’re running with criminals, and now several “blue” Democratic governors have even shown they have acquired a taste for the criminals’ ways of doing things.
The Hanging of Jake Spoon, a Notice of sorts.
Since it’s almost 35 years old now, it dawned on me there’s a whole generation, actually two, (Millennial and Gen Z) both under 50, who never saw this classic or learned the lessons it taught. Older members on the Democratic side may never have seen this film, or read the book, and maybe never even have heard of it, since by 1989 it culturally clashed with many Millennial (1981-96) and Gen Z (1997-2012) perspectives and attitudes about the two generations that had preceded them; their (our) histories, and their moral and cultural impact on America, and the sense that the handshake that extended to them back from the Greatest Generation of World War II, even into the 19th century, that had shaped the United States since the Civil War. In that period several of foreign cultures were dropped off along our shores, then had melted into one, over a cultural process that I have always called the Three-Generation Rule.
There was a sense of justice that still resided deep inside the American middle classes, when they still owned 80% of our population’s soul, and just largely buried 40 years ago, buried but now arisen, and being honed as we speak by the blue states. big cities, (and at least one slow-to-move Republican) coarsing through the veins of free American everywhere.
Thanks to Hollywood’s and Main Street’s stories and music, we all got to believe we were just one seamless people. Today, that is being lost…by design, our new management classes receiving their grounding from the old country, likewise the tech sectors,
So, let me set this up.
Jake Spoon was one of the original Texas Rangers, having ridden with Captains Gus McCrea and Woodrow Call since before the Civil War. A good lawman and cowboy, personable as all get-out, Jake was, well, a cad, always looking for the easy fix, shirking hard work, and peeping up every skirt he could find. In other words, Jake was a lot like Bill Clinton, with a “screw ’em where you find ’em, leave ’em where they lay” sort of attitude about women, a “Taker” (from the Kris Kristofferson’s song).
Jake reunited with Gus and Woodrow in time to be a part of a cattle drive north, then was stranded by a girlfriend who was carried off into Indian slavery along the way, then joined up with a band of bandit-killers “just to get across the territory” who proceeded to kill three drovers, steal their horses, then hang and burn two sod-busters just for the thrill of it.
Jake didn’t like this one bit, mind you. Nor did he participate. But you see, neither did he ever do anything about it. Weighing his options of maybe having to shoot his way out of this gang’s sight, then having to wander across part of the prairie alone, he decided to wait it out. At every crossroad where he could’ve chosen a higher path, he didn’t.
Sound familiar?
Then they killed some ranchers and were captured by Captains McCrae and Call.
There were several symbolic aspects found in that hanging, but I want to raise only one here. The operative clause of the dialogue, you see, was after Jake, sitting on a horse, a noose around his neck, along with the others, pleaded his case of innocence. Captain Gus McCrea answered,
“You ride with outlaws, you die with outlaws. You crossed the line, Jake.”
Let that sink in.
Lesson: Many of you are riding with outlaws and many of you have decided to become outlaws without looking yourselves in the mirror.
Yes, I know, many of you lawyer-types will say, “Well, yeah, so prove it.” My reply to you is, “No, disprove it to yourselves, only from the perspective of a saddle with a rope around your neck in your mind…and consider the instincts and natural laws of survival.”
That may be the part you don’t understand here.
Did you see a trial, or a judge and jury in this scene? Jake Spoon’s only defense was “I didn’t see no line, Gus…” Then his face gave away his knowledge that he couldn’t talk his way out of what was about to happen. The others didn’t even get that much of a hearing. In the end, Jake chose to die with dignity, which made everyone tear up, but his attempt at last-minute nobility belied the far, far greater lesson here, and that is of the absolute inevitability of his fate, and the unbending duty of his friends to carry it out.
Most of you think that that sort of thing is a quaint remembrance of a time past. You can act as if you don’t know anything about the criminals you’re running with. You can parse the language all you want to show there was no crime, much less criminals. You can lean back and snooze, relying on the system, and your pals, to make sure no guilt attaches to you if it ever does come out.
Well, a man ought to do what he thinks best. (Davey Crockett)
What you need to know is that once you cross the line, everything else becomes a crap shoot. There are no certainties. When you commit or abet a crime you can never be sure it’s just going to be a smooth march to the courthouse; arraignment, bail, lawyer, trial, community service, etc..
You have a duty to yourself 1) to find out if in fact you have fallen in with bandits and 2) take appropriate action to protect your own hide…and kin, if they are included..
I doubt what you see in this film will occur again, but you must understand, a native justice is about to rear its head again in America that hasn’t been seen since frontier days, and you will have no say about it if you do get caught in the sweet loving arms of frontier justice.
It will have no sympathy for the process you hide behind and only for the justice you no longer believe exists.
We will win. The only question is which side of the line will you be on?
