One of my favorite novels is a book written by Tennessee Williams towards the end of his life, called “Moise and the World of Reason.” In this book, the protagonist, for various reasons, throws a party specifically to announce that he is leaving the World of Reason. 

I thought of this title recently when I saw a story in The Shreveport Times on “Operation Exodus,” a project of the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Department, headed by Sheriff Larry Deen. The Times reports that “Bossier Parish Sheriff Larry Deen's policing plan involves "a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a .50-caliber machine gun" and was inspired in part from the Book of Exodus in the Bible.”

Funny, I don’t remember my Bible’s Book of Exodus mentioning anything about a 50-caliber machine gun…

The story gets better… “The volunteers will be equipped with shotguns, riot shields and batons, the newspaper says. A .50-caliber machine gun will be mounted on what the sheriff's office calls "the war wagon."

This being the Age of Media, the story has a video to go with it. The video shows about thirty middle-aged, balding white guys, who would generously be described, as Paul Simon said, as being “soft in the middle.” These terrorism-combaters are shown doing the sort of Karat-tay moves that young kids use when they think they are being Bruce Lee.

In the words of Doyle Dempsey, Chief Deputy for support services, if the project is successful "we will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fighting Islamic extremists." In the video he states that the purpose of the operation is to create “an overwhelming show of force prior to any (terrorism) event taking place, so we can hopefully prevent it before it ever happens…”

Now think about this for a minute. Sheriff Deen is talking about ‘Islamic extremists’ who have repeatedly shown themselves willing to blow themselves to smithereens, to fly themselves and passenger jets into tall buildings, and he is maintaining that 200 pudgy white guys are going to prevent them from… from what? Attacking Bossier?

Well, says Sheriff Deen… “"The buck stops with Larry Deen… I am the chief law enforcement officer in this parish, and it is incumbent upon me protect all of the people in it."

Oh really, Sheriff Deen? And you don’t think that repelling ‘Islamic extremists’ might better be left to the FBI or Dept. of Homeland Security? You think you and 200 Barney Fife’s armed with shotguns is the right response? Is that a hookah pipe you’ve been smokin’, Sheriff?

This is the sort of thing that makes the Yankees up North snort with derision at the yahoos in the backwoods. This story has it all – good ol’ boys, guns and fightin’.’bad guys’… Could there be a more compelling demonstration of provincialism? Wouldn’t this make a hilarious episode of ‘Mayberry R.F.D.?” Is that why USA Today picked up the story on their On Deadline website – are they laughing with us or at us? Doesn’t Sheriff Deen’s “Operation Exodus” seem to discredit the very idea of professional law enforcement?

But then I thought a bit more about this farce when I read about the Hutaree Militia. Looked at through that lens, the Bossier story did not look quite so tinhorn funny. A law enforcement officer, taking a bunch of “volunteers” and arming them with shotguns, war wagons and 50-caliber machine guns certainly seems to qualify as creating a militia to the good liberals citizens of my blue patch of suburbia.

No, no, says Sheriff Deen, nothing militia of the kind. "We run from that word," he says. "We're just the opposite of that word," says Sheriff Deen. Well, I guess that's true… if you’ve left the World of Reason…


Ps.     I have a friend I’ve known all of my life who is a deputy with the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s office. Through my friend, I know the hard work the Sheriff’s department does – the crazies they have to deal with in the name of keeping the peace. I don’t mean to dishonor or disavow any of the fine law enforcement activities the department delivers for its citizens. But this is one ‘Operation’ that seems like an ‘Exodus’ from good public policy.