Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [112]
Another time I brought in Dean Barkley, my campaign manager in Minnesota. He was very knowledgeable about how the two parties are destroying our political process. One of the interesting things that Dean pointed out was the way they’ve used redistricting, or gerrymandering, to eliminate competition. Out of 435 congressmen, there are about 400 “safe seats,” where nobody but the incumbent has a chance; in 2002, eighty-one of the representatives even ran unopposed by another major party candidate!
I decided to do a class on terrorism, because I felt that, today, terrorism may have to be dealt with at the local level as much as at the federal. Here, I brought in my buddy Richard Marcinko, the “rogue warrior” I’d called for some insight after my meeting with the twenty-three CIA agents in the State Capitol. I introduced Dick by saying, “You’re gonna hear it today from a guy who was a shooter. This is the man killing the terrorists, not the one pushing papers around authorizing it. You’re about to meet the trigger man.”
Dick was phenomenal. And he brought up something that terrified me. “I’ll tell you what,” he said to the class. “You give me Governor Ventura, myself, and eight more of my fellow Navy SEALs—and we could paralyze the entire country of the United States of America.”
First I thought to myself, Come on, Dick, you’re talking about ten guys! But he went on to describe how the two snipers in Washington, D.C.—who weren’t even that good—had intimidated 24 million people, making them afraid to go to the gas station or sometimes even leave their homes. So, if you consider a coordinated effort of, say, five sniper pairs located in different parts of the U.S.—one in New England, others in Florida, the Midwest, L.A., maybe Seattle—who are well-trained and randomly starting to blow up bridges, or fire semi-automatics, I realized: He’s right, this could bring the country to its knees. It was eye-opening, and chilling.
My last classes were the ones on President Kennedy’s assassination, and how wrestling prepares you for politics.
People don’t realize that, if you have time on your hands, you can get a Harvard education without paying any tuition. Officially classes aren’t open to the public but no one ever took attendance or asked, “Should you be in this class?” You would not get a degree, but you could learn a lot until you got caught.
As a fellowship professor, I had several students serve as my liaisons and arrange everything. If there’s a particular class you want to attend, they find out when and where it is, and lead you right to the door. The one that intrigued me most was over at Harvard Law School—Alan Dershowitz’s course in Criminal Law.
Unannounced to Professor Dershowitz, I just walked in and sat in the back of the room. With my new beard, he didn’t recognize me. I couldn’t get enough of Dershowitz; he’s a remarkable teacher. He’s so engaging, and has a phenomenal memory for cases of law. You wonder how anybody could remember the name, the number, and the year all of these happened. But Dershowitz can.
The topic that first day was “The Crime of Rape.” The question he posed was, can a husband rape a wife? As Professor Dershowitz pointed out, there is an unwritten contract in marriage, and part of it has to do with sex. Just because one partner is in the mood doesn’t mean the other one is. In light of this, does it have to be consensual? Or can a rape occur?
I thought about this for a minute, and an answer popped into my head. So I raised my hand, and he called on me. I said, “Professor, in light of what our society has deemed rape, I would have to say that, yes, it is possible for a husband to rape a wife. Because our society describes rape not as a sexual act, but an act of violence. In light of that, you can’t hit your wife, or that can be deemed assault. I would think sex could