Most Politically Incorrect Novel of the Year?

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Michael P. Tremoglie, a Frontpage columnist since 1999, ex-cop from Philadelphia and author of the new novel A Sense of Duty, a saga of loyalty and integrity - and one's obligations to others. He can be contacted at nattybumpo1981@yahoo.com.

Tremoglie: Thank you very much for inviting me. I always enjoy reading Frontpage Interview.

Tremoglie: Just as Heterodoxy and Frontpage have debunked many myths about race, crime, the role of men in modern society, and working class America, I wanted to do the same thing. But I also wanted to write an exciting tale that people would enjoy reading and find interesting. This is why I am using fiction as the vehicle.

I began writing this novel in 1994. I did so after reading, yet again, another newspaper account of a homicide where the murderer was portrayed as a victim of racism and poverty.

These “They Made Me a Criminal” themes I can trace back to the late 19th century folktales of Jesse James. They are very prevalent in our culture. So often in books, movies, TV shows, and songs, the cops are criminals, criminals are victims, and crime victims are just unfortunate dolts. While very entertaining. they only convey one perspective.

I wanted to write a compelling novel where the cops are not racist criminals, criminals are not victims of society, and crime victims are not clueless fools. I think I have done just that.

I realized how there was a dearth of certain values in the popular culture. The beliefs of loyalty, integrity, etc. that I, and I feel most others, would characterize as conservative and that used to be frequent themes in books. This was not only true about novels, it was true about music, movies, and TV shows.

Now, there is not only a lack of these ideas in the popular culture, but they are actively ridiculed.

Tremoglie: For sure, somewhere along the line the popular culture changed. These principles about duty to family, country, and other similar notions, once praised, became targets of disdain by the bien pensants.

The world of fiction – whether it was in the form of movies or novels – made it a point to pervert these principles. They became associated with a class of people who were bigoted, cruel, and bellicose.

Tremoglie: Ok. Do you remember the characterizations of the police officers, Lt Schrank and Officer Krupke, in the movie West Side Story? Schrank was a racist. Yet, he was the only person – other than Maria and Doc – who was trying to stop people from killing each other. Krupke was an idiot.

Take the novel Seven Days in May, which was made into a movie starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. A popular general, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is some lunatic who wants a military coup because the president signed a nuclear disarmament treaty. He is portrayed as some warmongering, religious fanatic, paranoid about communists.

These are just a few examples from a generation ago, yet, the same is true in modern fiction. The 1990’s novels Freedomland and Clockers both portray cops as racist. The 2005 Oscar winning movie Crash also has a racist cop as its main character.

The popular culture is rife with these stereotypes. There is very little available to refute them.

This occurred in the academic world as well. The ideas of less government and free-market societies were demeaned and replaced with big government socialism. The nonfiction literary world published many books extolling the virtues of communism, etc.

However, the world of nonfiction responded to the anti-conservative campaign. Conservative non-fiction has been very successful. There are many best-selling books from authors that span the continuum from Russell Kirk to Ann Coulter.

While there are publishers of conservative nonfiction, Regnery for example, there are virtually none for conservative fiction, a venue that will reach a wider audience. It was not easy to get this novel published. I was told that “men’s fiction” was not popular except by established authors such as Griffin or Clancy, and “conservative men’s fiction” was not commercially viable.

I also want people to understand that this novel is not an encomium to law enforcement officers. There is criticism of cops in this book. As an ex-cop I know that there are good and bad cops. The problem with the liberal media, the popular culture and the civil rights leaders is that they want to present the bad cop as the norm.

FP: Can you talk a bit about the exploitation of racial issues in law enforcement by certain “civil rights” leaders?

Tremoglie: Well there is a good example of it occurring right now with the Duke University case. Immediately, “civil rights” groups traveled to Durham. NC and started claiming racism is involved in the case. The mainstream media followed suit.

A Time magazine article stated, “The fiasco at Duke reminds us of the vulnerability of black women, of most minority women in America who have never been protected from sex crimes by (white) men.” An editorial about the Duke case in the April 13-19 2006 Wilmington Journal said, “The racism …is beyond denial.”

Now these “civil rights leaders" and “civil libertarians” are supposed to be people who believe in civil liberties. Things like the Bill of Rights. Well where is their adherence to the right to a jury trial. Where is their commitment to “innocent until proven guilty?”

It doesn’t exist. They are doing the very thing they condemn. If the accused were black and the victim white, this kind of reaction would evoke the specter of white lynch mobs.

This was evident during the Rodney King incident as well. The ACLU, the self-anointed guardian of civil liberties, essentially pronounced the cops guilty and they also stated they were racist. Even after the police officers in the case were acquitted the ACLU said it was a travesty of justice and maintained the cops were racist brutes.

The Tawana Brawley case is another example. “Civil rights” leaders immediately stated that the officers were guilty of racism and brutality. Did they once ever bother to consider the evidence? Did they ever once say that people should be calm and wait for a trial?

Al Sharpton, who incredibly was a presidential candidate and is an expert commentator for the news media – including the allegedly conservative Fox News Channel – was one of three “civil rights activists” who made incredibly horrible allegations against police officers and a prosecutor, all of which were later determined to be false.

Yet this never discredited him with the media. Why? Because the culture is such that no matter how outrageous the claims, there is a segment of our society who will believe them.

FP: Crystallize for us the ways in which the liberal media is bias and exploits racial issues in law enforcement.

Tremoglie: Capital punishment is one. The liberal media is determined to make executions a racial issue. Consider the Tookie Williams execution. The media always obtained a quote by anti-capital punishment groups – especially with a racial angle. Yet there were never quotes from pro-capital punishment groups.

I wrote an article for the Philadelphia Daily News and FPM that the media did not spend as much time bemoaning the execution of a white guy in MS who was executed the day after Williams. I also said that anti-capital punishment groups did not complain nearly as much.

Ironically, I received an email from the director of an anti-capital punishment group saying he was just as vocal about the white guy’s execution; however, the news media was not interested.

There is an excerpt in the back of the book of a true incident concerning the use of deadly force. How I almost shot a little kid who I thought was a gunman. I wrote about this for Frontpage magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer six years ago.

I wrote about this for the Inquirer after I complained to the editor of the commentary page that they were only presenting one side of the Amadou Diallo case. This was an incident where cops in New York City shot and killed an innocent man by mistake.

Of course, the media and the civil rights leaders acted as if the cops intentionally executed the guy. The Inquirer editor asked me to send him something relating to the other perspective and I had him contact Frontpage about the piece I wrote.

FP: What are some Conservative perspectives of the causes and solutions to crime?

Tremoglie: Conservative perspectives of the causes and solutions to crime begin with personal responsibility. Ultimately a person is responsible for his actions. Yes, economics, family environment, and other things all play a part. However, ultimately the individual is responsible and must have accountability for his actions.

This is not the perspective that is presented in the popular culture. That is the liberal perspective of society forming the individual and economics playing a primary role.

For example, most people will say that poverty causes crime, or that capital punishment does not deter murder, or that gun ownership increases crime.

The public thinks these are all irrefutable, established, scientific facts. They think, due in large part to the popular culture, that the scientific evidence affirms this.

They haven’t the slightest clue that there are scientific studies that state that poverty causes less crime not more, that capital punishment deters 18 murders per execution, that gun ownership deters crime, incarceration prevents crime.

These conservative ideas are rarely, if ever, mentioned by the opinion forming entities of society – books, movies, music, TV, academia, and news media.

This is why I wrote my novel – as an effort to counter balance these cultural myths in our society.

FP: Michael Tremoglie, thank you for joining Frontpage and congrats on the novel.

Where is it for sale? As a writer, I'm always interested in how someone can successfully self-publish. That's not so easy and there are many scammer publishers/agents out there who are only too happy to take your money and not sell your books.

No setup fees.

Ah, Lulu, of course. That publisher is well-known in writing circles.
http://www.writers.net/forum/read/13/10285/10285
http://www.writers.net/forum/read/13/10342/10342

They will indeed print whatever, but you have to promote the book yourself -- being interviewed by Front Page was a good start. I suppose that given how there are few traditional publishers who will financially back a 'conservative' novel, a place like Lulu may be the only option. The trick is being listed on Amazon, so that it will come up on a search -- and be reviewed. Otherwise the sales will be overly modest.

My name does mean "three wives." The dean of my college told me it was derived from the Muslims who conquered Sicily (my ancestral homeland). They were allowed to marry four wive yet never more than three at one time.

The Muslims conquered Sicily in the 9th century and then the island was conquered by the Normans starting in 1072. I doubt that many present-day surnames date back to that era (before 1072), and I've never heard of Muslim men being restricted to three wives at a time--the rule was four at once, but it was easy to divorce one of them, and men could have "concubines" in addition to the four main wives.

Given the short life expectancies and the hazards of childbearing, it wouldn't have been that unusual for a man to have two wives in succession die young and then marry a third one...I know of two ancestors in the US who married for the third time because their first two wives had died (one in the late 18th century, the other in the early 20th century). That may be a more mundane explanation of the name Tremoglie but I would guess more likely.

Sicily is beautiful. I've been to Siracusa and Palermo.

Thgis is from "bestofsicily.com marriage sicilian style

Thanks to extensive Saracen colonization and a high birth rate among the Sicilian Arabs (many of the Sicilian Muslims had three or four wives), Sicily's population doubled during her Arab period.

Yikes, Geocities has exceeded the data transfer level for the site where the book info is.

Better bookmark this so I can go back and get the book later.

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