10) RESTRICTING OUR FREEDOMS
At this point I would like to share with my readers my favorite political quote which appeared in The Times (London) on August 11, 1846 and should especially be read by all those living in democracies:
“The
greatest tyranny has the smallest beginnings. From precedents
overlooked, from remonstrances despised, from grievances treated with
ridicule, from powerless men oppressed with impunity, and overbearing
men tolerated with complacence, springs the tyrannical usage which
generations of wise and good men may hereafter perceive and lament and
resist in vain. At present, common minds no more see crushing tyranny in
a trivial unfairness or ludicrous indignity, than the eye uninformed by
reason can discern the oak in the acorn, or the utter desolation of
winter in the first autumnal fall. Hence the necessity of denouncing
with unwearied and even troublesome perseverance a single act of
oppression. Let it alone and it stands on record. The country has
allowed it and when it is at last provoked to a late indignation it
finds itself gagged with the record of it own ill compulsion.”
In this vein, I also like these 1788 remarks of James Madison:
“I
believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedoms of
the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by
violent and sudden usurpations.”
I
cite these out of concern about what I see as potentially serious
encroachments on our First and Second Amendment rights. Addressing the
former, as I mentioned in Chapter Five, we have overcome many past
intolerances often manifested in the use of pejorative and hurtful
epithets such as ,for example, the “N-word” for describing our black
fellow citizens. This I welcome as an improvement, certainly not an
encroachment on freedom of speech. What concerns me greatly, however, is
the stifling effect on free expression inherent in political
correctness which, as I noted, is especially manifest on college and
university campuses where liberals usually hold sway and non-liberal
views are suppressed. This can be documented by citing countless cases.
Now, we have liberals at the highest levels of government which
certainly raises the ante to the political level and which necessitates
constant vigilance and, when needed, vocal expressions of concern. An
especially insidious manifestation of this is in the badly misnamed
Employee Free Choice Act, under consideration as of this writing,
designed to promote union organization of our labor force, in itself a
perfectly acceptable goal, but prohibits a secret ballot decision by
workers whether or not to have a union shop. The Act instead provides
for an open choice rendering workers highly susceptible to union
pressure. As once a factory worker, I can easily envisage how this could
happen. The problem here most certainly transcends the issue at hand,
since elections and choices by secret ballot are integral to a
democratic society. When the U.S. Government in any way mandates against
the secret ballot in any context, we are on the edge of the kind of
slippery slope warned against in the above quotes. Fortunately, as of
this writing, President Obama is not pushing this Act.
Politically
correct stifling of legitimate expression is a much wider and more
prevalent phenomenon. This makes it difficult and often impossible to
discuss some sensitive issues which badly need discussing. For example,
race issues, homosexuality and freedom of religious expression. Tom
Brokaw’s Boom
describes the views of former radical black activist turned
conservative academic, Dr. Shelby Steele, who “insists that the
‘enormous moral evolution’ of white America from the Sixties to the
present is one of the great untold stories of our time.” Dr. Steele has
these trenchant observations on the sensitive issue of white racism:
“Steele believes white America is being conned into believing it is a
racist society, ‘Because [he says] the more you [whites] think that, the
more you’re gonna be open to our [blacks’] demands. It all began in
1968. White America lost its moral authority. That’s the price it paid
for being good, for acknowledging it was wrong. Whites could be
stigmatized, and they’ve been living in terror ever since. The worst
thing that can happen to a white person is to be labeled a racist.”
(This epithet is, incidentally, never applied to blacks who discriminate against whites.)
This
has a chilling effect on race relations since it obviates any frank and
honest discussion of differences. It cannot, however, ultimately
redound to the benefit of blacks to, in effect, be treated as too
immature or insecure to cope with criticism, even that coming from
fellow blacks, such as Bill Cosby, for example. This problem was
intelligently addressed by our first black Attorney General Eric H.
Holder who stated on February 18, 2009, "If we are to make progress in
this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and
tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about racial
matters that continue to divide us." (Washington Post Feb. 19, 2009)
As
I noted in Chapter Five, in which I discuss in detail the growth of
homosexuality in the U.S., the use of “homophobe,” in describing those
who have problems with considering homosexuality as normal, should be
treated with the same opprobrium as we rightly now treat the “N-word.”
Those of us who sincerely believe that it is both morally and clinically
wrong to consider homosexuality normal, especially in school sex
education courses, in the interest of illuminating this growing
phenomenon, deserve the respect accorded those who disagree with us.
Instead, our views and opinions are systematically squelched. When, for
example, have any of you readers read that homosexuality has been
successfully treated in numerous cases? This is not good. The
restricting of religious symbols in public is another example of
restricting First Amendment freedoms. The religion part of the Amendment
was clearly intended to prevent the establishment of a state church,
such as the established Church of England held up by our Founding
Fathers as something to be avoided. This Amendment protecting the “free
exercise” of religion was clearly never intended to ban public symbols
of, for example, our prevailing national religion, Christianity, such as
Christmas crèches, the Ten Commandments, crosses and even
nondenominational prayers.. Litigation, mostly carried out by the
misnamed American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), too often succeeds in
courts in violating our basic religious rights.
Another
basic right, our Second Amendment right to bear arms, which like much
of our Bill of Rights, had an antecedent in the 1689 English Declaration
of Rights, has been under constant assault by those who, under the
guise of gun control, are dedicated to depriving law-abiding citizens of
their right to bear arms. The tack used is exploiting the Amendment’s
language, “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a
free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be
infringed.” Thus the gun controllers argue the right to bear arms
actually refers only to those in a militia. The ultimate goal of the gun
control lobby was nearly realized in the District of Columbia where all
handguns were banned and all other guns ordered to be disassembled and
thus rendered unsuited for defensive purposes. The result has been one
of largest serious crime rates in the nation. As I noted in Chapter
Five, liberal, black Washington Post columnist William Raspberry once wrote, that as much as he hated to agree with the National Rifle Association, it is right in stating that “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
This
certainly described the situation in our nation’s capital. Finally a
suit was brought against the DC government ordering it remove the
handgun ban and other firearms restrictions. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled against the DC government noting, in essence, that “the
right of the people” trumped the militia language. Interestingly,
leading liberal
constitutional law scholar, Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe, had come to the
same conclusion in his writings. The struggle to protect the Second
Amendment is, however, certain to continue. ”Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”
(Usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson.) The DC government is now
defying the Supreme Court decision with continued onerous and
unnecessary gun controls. Incidentally, the NRA strongly supports the
only gun control measure that has actually proven to be effective: the
instant background check to eliminate gun buyers who shouldn’t have
guns. The NRA worked with Congress to strengthen this measure in the
wake of the 2007 killings on the Virginia Tech campus.
