It was exactly ten years ago today that Scooter Libby was indicted over the Valerie Plame affair. For those of you who don’t eat and breathe this stuff, top people in the Bush White House leaked Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA agent to the press in order to soil the credibility of her husband, Joseph Wilson, who had questioned some of their claims about Iraq. It’s notable because it shows that Republicans, who claim to be the most patriotic party, are actually willing to commit low level treason in the name of power.

But let us not focus on that. I want to talk about Scotter Libby. He was given 30 months for his crimes. But President Bush commuted that part of his sentence. So he still owed a fine, had to be on probation for a couple of years, and had to complete some community service. But as anyone who has studied the criminal justice system knows, none of that — including the 30 months in prison — is the worst thing that happens. The worst thing is being labeled a felon and basically never being able to get a good job ever again.

Did that happen to Scooter Libby? Did he have to lie on employment applications? Did he have to cringe at the idea of a background check? Of course not! I don’t know what he’s doing now. There’s nothing much about him other then a bunch of articles about him getting his voting rights back, because he lives in the vile state of Virginia where they think people should be punished for the rest of their lives. But I assume that one of two things are going on with Libby: (1) he’s rich enough that he doesn’t need to work; or (2) he was set up in a cushy job paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by his friends.

It is this kind of thing that shows most clearly that we live in a class based society. This kind of conviction would largely destroy the life of a normal person. For Scooter Libby, it was just a bump in the road.

On this day in 1881, the Gunfight at the OK Corral occurred. It’s famous because it has been mythologized. It didn’t become a thing until Stuart Lake’s 1931 fictional biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. This led directly to a number of films, ultimately, Gunfight at the OK Corral, which solidified the name, even though it didn’t take place at the OK Corral.

It’s also famous because things like that didn’t much happen: a group of guys facing off against each other and just firing. The whole thing took 30 second during which time about 30 shots were fired. I assume it had more to do with panic than anything else. The same thing happens to nervous police officers all the time.

Basically, the whole thing was just a conflict between rival gangs. The Earps might have had the cover of law. But when Morgan Earp was killed, Wyatt took out a personal vendetta when the legal system didn’t provide him with the justice that he considered his. I don’t bring it up because I think that Wyatt Earp was an especially horrible man. It’s just that, as usual, history is written by the winners.

On this day in 1760, George William Frederick became King George III. He is probably most notable for being king during the creation of the United Kingdom. But it is hard to take kings of this period forward all that seriously. From the 17th century onward, the monarchy lost more and more power. Certainly by the reign of William and Mary at the end of the 17th century, monarchs understood that their grasp of power was weak. And Parliament clearly had the power by the time of George III.

There has been much written about George over the years — much of it bad. But it doesn’t make much sense to me. Nothing would have been much different if someone else had been king. As it is, the man was crazy as a loon in 1788, which is depicted in The Madness of King George. And despite the way it might look in the film, he stayed crazy until his death in 1820. So for well over half his reign, he was insane, and the country did just fine.

I can’t help but quote my favorite line from the film, “Who can flourish on such a daily diet of compliance?” The monarchy exchanged the constant threat of death for the life of a much beloved pet. But even at the time of George, they still hadn’t fully accepted that idea. So they got compliance and maintained their delusions of power. But the truth is that had it come down to it, Parliament would have destroyed George III and the future George IV.

On this day in 1720, Calico Jack was captured. He was a notorious pirate of the Caribbean, whose real name was John Rackham. His is an interesting story. In general, pirate ships were democracies. He was quartermaster on Charles Vane’s ship. When Vane ran from a fight, Rackham called a vote and had Vane deposed. Rackham then took over as captain of the ship.

Rackham is also noted for having two crew members who were women. The first was Mary Read — who was pretty much forced into a life of piracy. The second was the much younger Anne Bonny — who was also Rackham’s lover. It’s interesting when you learn the unvarnished histories of long ago, you see a whole lot of sex. And you don’t see women as the gentle creatures that we’ve been taught about. That seems to have been largely a creation of the Victoria period (although certainly women had never had much power before the law).

In 1720, the Bahamas’ governor named Rackham a pirate, and so Jonathan Barnet went off to capture him. He seems to have succeeded thanks mostly to a large fraction of the crew — Rackham very much included — being too drunk to fight. So the attack was led by Mary Read and Anne Bonny. In fact, legend has it that Bonny’s last words to Rackham in jail were, “Had you fought like a man, you need not have been hanged like a dog.” Rackham was indeed hanged soon after.

Both Read and Bonny claimed to be pregnant. By British law, they would be allowed to live until giving birth. Read apparently died in prison from a fever brought on by her pregnancy. Bonny, on the other hand, just disappeared from history. There is no record of her release or execution. According to Wikipedia, the primary theory is that her father (she was illegitimate, but her father was well connected) bought her freedom and married her off in Virginia. By this theory, she went on to have eight children and live into her eighties. I want to believe that.

On this day in 1466, the Thirteen Years’ War ended. It was fought between the Prussian Confederation and the State of the Teutonic Order. In other words: the Germans. The Prussians were trying to get out from under the thumb of the Teutonics. And in this regard, they got the help of the Kingdom of Poland, and they won the war. But here’s the funny thing: it set up the War of the Priests, which I don’t entirely understand, but pitted Poland against the Prussians. There were many other parties. It was a mess. It lasted almost as long the Thirteen Years’ War.

The only reason I bring this up is because the Thirteen Years’ War didn’t actually last 13 years. It was close — certainly close enough to call it that. But there are two other conflicts that are at least as deserving of the name. First, there was the Long Turkish War, which took place from 1593 to 1606. It is often called the Thirteen Years’ War, but also the Fifteen Years’ War because of skirmishes for the two years prior to that. It was a much more impressive war regarding the number of people involved.

The second was the Russo-Polish War from 1654 to 1667. Russia defeated Poland decisively. This war marks the beginning of the rise of Russia as a major military and political force in the world. But we don’t care. The Germans had their war first, so I suppose they deserve the name of the war. But the other two wars are super important. And I’ll bet there are other wars that ran this long. If only we had withdrawn from Afghanistan last year, that could have been another Thirteen Years’ War.

On this day in 614, the Edict of Paris was formally proclaimed. Or maybe it was 615. It’s always amazing to me that we can know the day and month of something but not the year. Regardless, it is considered the French Magna Carta — although almost exactly 600 years earlier. When I was first introduced to the Magna Carta, it made no sense to me. The idea that the king was above the law was so foreign to me. But that is the way things were traditionally. People get upset about the Nazis, but they are actually pretty typical of the history of humanity.

Just as the Magna Carta only applied to the barons, the Edict of Paris applies to the nobility. It also, as is always the case for these things, determines who is included. For example, Jews were not allowed to hold royal office. But they were allowed to take Christians to court — for all the good it would do them. The thing about rights is that who is included is always critically important. Look at just how limited the group was that included “all men” that were created equal.

It’s also interesting that the Edict of Paris was all about creating a stable society. Yet the libertarians will tell us that all we need is commerce and the magic of the free market. The Edict was all about shoring up support for the weak monarch. Why was that necessary? After all, libertarianism is “natural”! It is supposedly the way people lived before modern political systems corrupted them. It’s a wonder that any of this was necessary, except maybe the human tendency to build armies and just take what you want. But all that doesn’t matter because in the libertarian utopia, humans will be perfect!