those wlio confronted Michael Westerman.rnThe mother of the alleged gunman,rninterviewed in her Riverdale, Illinois,rnhome said: “The problem thatrnbrought this about was racism.” Sherndoesn’t know how right she is.rnWhile we should not condone crossrnburnings or other rash and violent actsrnto avenge Mr. Westerman’s death, wernwould be well advised to exercise ourrnSecond Amendment right to self-protectionrnbefore we go about exercisingrnour First Amendment right to displayrnthe Confederate flag or any other Southernrnsvmbol. In the meantime, we canrnwait and see whether the United StatesrnJustice Department is as zealous inrnGuthrie, Kentucky, as it was in RubyrnRidge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. Shouldrnthe heads of the American Empire’s civilrnrights and law enforcement establishmentrncontinue to consider cross burningsrna more serious offense than murder,rnthen we of the Confederate persuasionrnshall have to defend ourselves, as DonaldrnDavidson wrote, “with the valor ofrnour own arm.rn-Michael HillrnJ O H N PAUL II has fmally made it.rnHe’s right up there with Adolf Hitlerrnand The Computer. On January 2, hernjoined the ranks of heroes and villainsrnhonored as Time magazine’s “Man ofrnthe Year.” Oddly enough. Time did notrngo out of its way to portray the HolyrnFather as you would expect. Actually, itrnpresented a rather reverent profilernmarred onlv bv the obligatory curtsev tornapostate liberals. Indeed, it championedrnthe Bishop of Rome as a profoundly holyrnman trying to reform a profoundly sinfulrnworld.rnTime called the Roman Pontiff a manrnof “rectitude” who has “demonstratedrnthroughout the 16 years of his papacyrn[that he] needs no divisions. He is anrnarmy of one, and his empire is both asrnethereal and as ubiquitous as the soul.”rnThe magazine gave John Paul II creditrnfor derailing President Clinton’s shamefulrnpopulation control proposal at thernU.N. conference in Cairo, and it used nornimmoderate adjectives to describe hisrnapostolic letter on the ordination ofrnwomen. The magazine simply reportedrnthe truth. “His answer, in brief, was no.rnThe document disappointed and outragedrnmany Catholic women.” Can’trnargue with that. Time even found spacernto praise the insights in his best-seller.rnCrossing the Threshold of Hope.rnIn short, the magazine portrayed JohnrnPaul II as a “warrior” Pope, which is whatrnhistorian Paul Johnson called him in arnconcluding, comparative profile of thernHoly Father and another Man of thernYear, the author of the Second VaticanrnCouncil, Pope John XXIII.rnOn the down side, the profile wasrna bit silly. Time sought the opinions ofrnother religious leaders such as the DalairnLama and Billy Graham, who agreed thernPope was an important fellow. That’srnnice, but who cares what they think? IfrnTime can bestow the award on its own, itrncan certainly produce the profile withoutrnseeking help from the Asiatic spiritualrnequivalent of a Navajo medicinernman.rnThe magazine also included the obligatoryrnprofile of a Roman Catholicrnpriest who really is not a Catholic at all,rnwhose services are “more like a campfirernsing-along” and at any given momentrnmight feature a dance performance byrnchildren and a skull session on feminismrnor divorce. And the editors did not forgetrnto include the mandatory “surve’,”rnwhich reported that 56 percent ofrnCatholics do not believe the Pope is infalliblernwhen he speaks on matters ofrnmorals and that 89 percent believe “it isrnpossible to disagree with the Pope andrnstill be a good Catholic.”rnStill, the profile was positive and, leftrnat that, would have been fine. It is therndubious distinction “Man of the Year”rnthat rubs you the wrong way, especiallyrnif you are Roman Catholic. DubbingrnRobert DeNiro “Best Actor” is onernthing, but a few editors at Time decidingrnwho the “Man of the Year” is bespeaksrnhubris of Shakespearean magnitude,rnespecially if the “man” is the Vicarrnof Christ. Presumably, when the millenniumrnarrives. Time will name a “Manrnof the Century.” Will the winner bernStalin, Hitler, or John Paul II, Successorrnto the Throne of Peter? Ironicallvrnenough, Time’s photo editor found exactlyrnthe right words to describe thernHoly Father, perhaps because the captivatingrnand moving images that accompaniedrnthe article really were worth arnthousand words apiece. “His picturesrnradiate like the man himself,” she said.rnOf course they do.rnHappily, who the Pope is. Whom hernrepresents, and what he teaches are eternal,rnnot ephemeral, and he transcendsrnthe banal awards of any secular institution.rnQuestion is, what’s next? ThernNobel Prize?rn-R. Cort KirkwoodrnMURRAY ROTHBARD, R.I.P. if arnman could be judged only by the friendsrnhe has kept and the enemies he hasrnmade, Murray Rothbard was one of thernbest men produced by the Americanrnright. Some of Murray’s friendshipsrngo back, without interruption, to thern1950’s, and his collection of personal enemiesrnconstitutes a rogues’ gallery ofrnconservative turncoats and con-men.rnHe was the declared enemy of everyrnform of tyranny, including the tyrannyrnof fashionable opinion, and from the beginningrnhe was hated by the magazinesrnand newspapers that are so many basesrnfor the occupying army that has beenrnimposed upon a once free people.rnWhenever one of the locals dares tornspeak out or paints a mustache on thernLeader’s posters, they dispatch their littlernband of character assassins to haulrnthe dissident off to “the booby hatch,”rn(What style these latter-day Goebbelsrnhave!) From a thousand miles away Irncan already hear the Manhattan slanderrnmachine cranking up, clearing its collectivernthroat to muster enough saliva tornspit upon a good man’s grave.rnOf course, it was easy for good conservativesrnto take issue with Rothbard’srnstrong opinions on, for example, thernVietnam War, the Federal Reserve System,rnor the privatization of everythingrnfrom lighthouses to armies, and RussellrnKirk could never bring himself to appreciaternthe value of Rothbard’s anarchismrnor the purity of his commitment to thernprinciple of liberty. But his criticismsrnwere ideological, not personal, and conservativesrneven more traditionalist thanrnDr. Kirk—the late M.E. Bradford, forrnexample, and Paul Gottfried (alive andrnstill kicking)—got to know Murray andrnesteemed him both as a scholar and asrna friend.rnProfessor Rothbard was well-knownrnfor his economic history and libertarianrnphilosophy, although to the press he wasrnmostly cited for his polemical expressionsrnon every subject under the sun.rnHe read everything he could get hisrnhands on, knew an enormous amountrnabout a great many things, and althoughrnhe moved from alliance to alliance likernEliza hopping across the ice floes, hernnever deviated from his central commitments:rna defense of individual libertyrnand a lifelong war against our enemyrnAPRIL 1995/5rnrnrn