 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Have you ever defended freedom against an apologist for the State who looked down his long nose at you and pronounced in disdainful, slightly amused tones that, "Well, I used to believe such things when I was a teenager and idealistic"?
Ah, such world-weary "wisdom." Such savvy "insight."
Such B.S....
One representative individual I dealt with was a former "law enforcement officer" who -- regardless of how outrageous the police actions were -- consistently sided with the cops against the citizens they are supposed to serve. In a discussion about police who had accosted a man in a park because he looked "suspicious," this guy sonorously advised me that I should always "apologize" to a cop if and when I was ever pulled over in my car or questioned by one at an airport or a park or anywhere else.
I told him that if I did something wrong -- really wrong, as in violating someone's rights, not just "wrong" as in "illegal" -- then I would quietly accept the consequences. But to "apologize" to a cop for non-rights'-violating actions such as having a car license plate light out or not having a shoulder belt on or having a one-inch long scissors in my pocket or simply driving down a street late at night, then, no. Uh-uh. I said that when I interact with cops -- officious ones or otherwise -- in similar situations I say as little as possible. I know myself well enough to realize that if I begin talking, I'll go too far...and the police are the ones with the guns. Other folks can speak up to out-of-line cops and retain their cool -- which is great -- but that's not my forte.
The irksome thing today, of course, is that the whole relationship between the State and citizens has been turned topsy-turvy. We are the ones expected to swallow our justified indignation, to meekly and resignedly submit to intrusive searches, questioning, and abuse, to accept that as "the real world." Such a travesty of proper civil society is sick.
I told the other person that the older I have become, the more I have learned the truth about politics and ethics and rights, the more principled I have grown. Indeed, after a lengthening list of unpleasant encounters with agents of (or apologists for) the State, I have become less and less able to suffer fools gladly or to make excuses for jerks who want to enslave me.
My antagonist then shifted gears by telling me that I would have little luck appealing to the First Amendment if I confronted my employer and told him to kiss my...nether regions. Of course, this mental midget apparently was innocent of the knowledge that the Bill of Rights is a prohibition against State actions, not those of private individuals. The difference between the State's relationship to me (which should solely be as defender of my rights) and that of my employer (who can fire me at will...just as I can quit whenever I like) did not register on his radar. Like many pseudo-intellectuals, he was incapable of recognizing that the power of the State is different in kind from that of a business owner.
Sadly, his statement revealed a real and widespread problem among average individuals about our rights and the State: people simply do not (or do not want to) understand the situation. Guaranteeing our liberty from coercive interference by government is a far different critter than recognizing how our actions can properly be constrained whenever we visit the property of other private individuals.
When I have told various bosses to cram it...I have quit. But that boss -- no matter how angry he might be at me -- can legitimately do nothing to me but order me off his property. A cop, however, who doesn't like my attitude can throw me in jail or, if he is one of the really unscrupulous ones, ultimately see me dead.
Then my opponent smugly delivered what I am certain he believed was the coup de grace: "There is the ideal world, then there is the real one."
Ah! Plato raises his Ideal head again...
As usual, this fellow was dead-ass wrong.
People who cynically dismiss principles as "unrealistic" do far more damage to our freedom and our lives than do those who may attempt to improve things but fail. In an earlier century, I imagine a lot of abolitionists were looked down upon with scorn by those who derided their "idealism" and their failure simply to accept the "real world" of slavery, an institution that had existed for thousands of years. Indeed, in this country, at least, the abolitionists never directly achieved their goal. It took a bloody war waged by a racist, statist president to reach that end.
To this former cop, however, daring to "talk back" to a police officer who has overstepped his bounds is a recipe for abuse that the target of State interest deserves. After all, in the "real" world, some people (who are "in charge" of other people) will "get you" if you anger them, so if you do tick off a cop, then too bad for you, idiot. Besides, he informed me, police would never hassle someone unless that person had done something to rile the cop. (Like stand up for one's rights? Verbally complain about abusive behavior? Dare to forget one's "place" in the order of things? Walk down the sidewalk minding one's own business? Sleep in one's own home during a misdirected drug raid?)
But even acknowledging that there are jerks -- and many basically good people -- in uniform hardly means we are supposed to agree docilely with whatever any one of them wants and that we have no right to verbalize our displeasure. I can just hear the echoes of the self-righteous yet timid and passive Virginia burgesses tsk-tsking when Patrick Henry had the "idealistic" gall to declare that he wanted freedom or death and that the king could go hang. Luckily for us, not every American in the late Eighteenth Century clung to the kind of attitudes expressed by this ex-cop. If such arrogant, condescending beliefs had been prevalent among the colonial leaders, we would all still be colonists of England.
There is no necessary dichotomy between "idealism" (i.e., having and upholding principles) and the "real" world. Indeed, without the former, the latter would be an even more cramped, miserable, and dreary place than it now sometimes is. Only by standing up for what is right -- and for our rights -- is there any chance, at all, of improving life for ourselves, our neighbors, and our descendants. People who are willing to take significant risks to do so deserve our praise, not our censure or, worse, insolent ridicule. Such brave individuals are our only real hope for freedom.
And that's as real as it gets.
For the record: my brother-in-law was a chief of police for twenty years. His daughter and her husband are cops now. My personal relationship with police officers, however, does not change the fact that there are too many cops out there -- now, today -- willing to throw their weight around to intimidate innocent people who resent being hassled. (Consider the "crime" of driving while black.) And, unfortunately, I have little doubt that even my relatives would -- if ordered -- remove me from a sidewalk where I protested the president. Or march into my home and confiscate my weapons if guns were prohibited. Though some might think we have banished that hoary old excuse of "I was just following orders," it is painfully obvious that the number of police officers who would defend our rights by disobeying the directives of their superiors is vanishingly small.
