Shoot Yourself In the Foot, Part 1: Bill Ayers

Today, I was discussing Bill Ayers's ability to succeed despite his being an unreformed political bomber in the late 1960's as part of the Weathermen group.

Ayers and the Weathermen were protesting the US government's actions in and around the world, citing the U.S. as "imperialist," lying to the world and mistreating its own citizens.

In opposition to Ayers' claims that his targets were "only buildings," the Weathermen were caught red-handed making nail bombs (why do you need nails if the bombs aren't anti-personnel?). One of these bombs went off while they were making it in their bomb factory in NYC, setting the building on fire and destroying it. In discussing details of the acts on the phone, Ayers was arrested. His prosecution fell through, however, when it was discovered that the wiretaps forming the core of the prosecution's case were gotten illegally, and therefore inadmissible as evidence. Ayers went free, to later become a college professor at the University of Chicago, where he is today. Ayers believes he and the Weathermen "did not go far enough." He remains unrepentant.

What occurs to me is that the very things Ayers and the Weathermen were against were the same things which saved him. No government hit squads came forward to kill him; no shadowy figures shuffled him off into the night, black bag over his head, never to be heard from again. Unless you are a political slug under a rock, you know that Ayers is still very much among us, very much the same person he was in the 1960s and 1970s.

I'm not sure what to label Ayers. It's certainly worth noting that for all his education and supposed intellect, he is unable to see that the US justice system worked - in his favor. Let's remember that J. Edgar Hoover was very much in charge of the FBI while Ayers was active as a bomber. Hoover's FBI was not your mother's FBI. No agent came forward to put out his lights, or to manufacture evidence against him. Ayers was treated above-board, with honesty, and in the light of day. Something that the Weathermen didn't afford their victims.

Ayers is a lucky man to live in the U.S., where he is apparently free to not only advocate terrorism, but to act it out as long as he covers his tracks well enough. Most other countries around the world would have whacked him and been done with it. But the United States of America is a nation of laws, ones which even our government - to the contrary of Ayers's and the Weathermen's beliefs- holds dear.