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Principles are amazing things. By recognizing the abstract linkages among seemingly unconnected events, a person can achieve a level of understanding that, at first blush, appears rather remarkable. No longer do the actions of the people we see, meet, and hear in person or via the media present a bizarre visage of chaotic confusion. What at first presents a face unique and startling is transformed, instead, into yet another opportunity for integration and a deepening of one's powers of observation and analysis.
One simple example of this process would be to examine the history of slavery in this country and juxtapose that with the legal prohibition on the selling of body parts. Both are expressions of the erroneous belief or "principle" that the State ultimately owns us and can dictate what we may or may not do with our selves.
Another aspect of this phenomenon, of course, is that events that initially come across as similar are, in fact, quite different. Applying principles to such superficial twins can unearth deeper truths that would otherwise lead us astray.
An illustration of this would be to observe that both the State and Big Business enjoy large amounts of power and exert enormous influence on how people act. A closer scrutiny reveals, however, that fundamentally separate principles underpin these divergent kinds of power and influence. The State's power rests on coercion, i.e., physical threats to your personal safety and/or property; the State dictates what you will or will not be permitted to do. In stark contrast, the power of Big Business lies solely in persuasion. All it can do is make you offer. Unlike the "offers" from the State, Big Business's enticements are ones you can easily refuse. The only power Big Business ultimately has over you is the power you grant it.
No choice vs choice. Involuntary vs voluntary.
How simple. How straightforward. Yet how prevalent the case that average people are unable or unwilling to make the intellectual leap to bridge the gulf between their misinterpretations of the world around them and the reality that ultimately constrains and guides their lives.
Recently, I witnessed a classic example of the potency of principles connecting disparate controversies, one on the local level, one on the national scene.
In a town near here, a small-business entrepreneur -- and, yes, a few of those yet remain in this country -- wanted to stage a paintball tournament. He wanted to bring paintball enthusiasts -- and their money -- to the city. While I've never played paintball, I can appreciate its appeal: the chance to engage in a modern version of "cops and robbers," "cowboys and Indians," or "war" in a semi-controlled venue evokes images of the kinds of games my brother and friends and I indulged in as preteen boys. With teams vying for supremacy over one another, paintball feeds into the competitiveness that is one of the hallmarks of male entertainment. Rather than simply enjoying "blowing away" enemies vicariously via the insubstantial electronic images of a videogame on a television screen, you can face your foe mano a mano and actually shoot him in person.
Depending upon the distance between you and your opponent, I suppose the paintballs might sting if they struck bare skin. You might even suffer bruises from such an "assault." Most paintball enthusiasts, however, wear heavy clothing, a mask or goggles, and perhaps even a helmet. The likeliest thing to be injured, though, is your pride, should you be eliminated too quickly or lose the "battle."
So. Harmless fun. Right?
Well, you would think so. Last time I checked, no one is drafted into fighting these messy play wars. That isn't sufficient, though, for the "anti-violence" activists that sprout like weeds whenever someone, somewhere, somehow seeks to have fun in a non-PC fashion.
The paintball promoter soon discovered that it was illegal to shoot any kind of "gun" in the city. Having a bunch of guys dashing about flinging propelled balls of paint at each other apparently fell under this ban. The businessman was forced to appeal to the city council for a variance that would grant him permission to stage his event.
His quest was not without opposition. One woman interviewed by the media vehemently opposed paintball, in general, and this proposed tourney, in particular. Why? Because paintball did not project the kind of "image" she thought impressionable young men should be exposed to. This mock combat glamorized "violence," she contended, and might lead our malleable youth astray from the narrow path of proper behavior.
Luckily for the promoter and his potential customers, he was given permission to hold his event.
Hard on the heels of this tempest in a teapot, I watched a "debate" on a morning television show between an airline pilot representing an airline pilots association and a woman who was an "expert" on the airline industry. The bone of contention concerned a recent law passed by Congress making it legal for pilots to carry handguns aboard planes after undergoing extensive training and scrutiny. President Bush and Secretary of Transportation Mineta both oppose implementing this provision of the bill. Stun guns, maybe. Real weapons that might actually do some good, nuh-uh.
The woman unabashedly sided with the administration on this issue of security. Terrorists be damned, but allowing pilots -- many of them ex-military -- to bring a loaded gun aboard a plane with passengers... Whoa. That passed beyond the realm of common sense and into the foggy landscape of right-wing fantasy. Come on, her smirking expression seemed to say. Get real!
Clearly not enthused about interacting in this hostile forum with this person, the pilot managed to wedge a few words in amidst the fount of verbiage spewing from this woman's mouth.
Though she did not say so directly, this "expert" thought the whole notion of pilots carrying guns absurd. With breathless speed, she rattled off a long string of objections that, obviously, this uninformed and naive man had failed to consider in his rash request for an effective means of self-defense.
How much would the training cost? How would the pilots deal with security when arriving for their flights? How would they "secure" their guns in their lockers? How would they "secure" them in foreign airports. (This lady was big on the word "secure"...) What about non-American pilots? There would be no way to prevent them from having guns, too. What if terrorists seized the guns? How could the pilots fly and fight at the same time? After all, they are pilots, not police officers. What if the gun discharged and damaged a critical system on the plane?
And on and on and on...
Paintball and pilots. A game and an antiterrorist measure. An situation that has strictly local effects and one that has national or international repercussions. One appeal successful and one denied.
Yet each of these news stories reveals something very basic about a selective rot that has infiltrated certain segments of our society. So deeply has the anti-self-defense, antigun hysteria permeated our society that such people as that paintball promoter and these pilots must ask for permission to be granted them to exercise an option that is theirs by right...and no one even dares to question that absurd state of affairs! The businessman was allowed to conduct his event, one that in no shape or form violated the rights of anyone. The pilots, meanwhile, continue to complain while they remain forbidden by the State from arming themselves.
All of the airline "expert's" objections were ones that would not even exist if the State had not meddled where it had no authority to intervene in the first place. The State has no legitimate authority to regulate airlines and airports, let alone firearms. Enumerated powers. Shall not be infringed. Pretty clear language. But not, it seems, for statists and collectivists.
So, as it has in countless areas of our economy, of our lives, the State's bungling interference creates "problems" which it then uses to justify still more interference that leads to yet more problems and more interference. What a beautiful, self-contained scam!
Both of the situations I described help to solidify the unspoken assumption that the State does have a legitimate role in deciding such controversies. Yes, on some occasions, it favors one side. Other times, it shifts to the other side. But -- just as with the notion that guns can only be purchased by permission, only carried by obtaining a State license and then only where the State decides you may carry them -- the principle is set into the foundation of the American psyche: that the State's gross rights violations, its immoral posturing are the "way things ought to be."
From that smuggled premise, we get our history of escalating self-defense violations: the banning of machine guns; the elimination of mail order gun purchases; limits on magazine capacities; prohibitions on "assault" weapons; records of gun and ammunition purchases; de facto gun registration via the NICS system; mandates for fingerprints and training; drives to eliminate cheap ("Saturday Night Specials") and expensive guns (.50 caliber rifles) alike; total bans on firearms in local jurisdictions; and national calls for gun confiscation.
"Zero tolerance" nonsense in our State-run schools further promulgates this warped mindset among innocent children. They see themselves suspended or arrested for drawing pictures of guns, for pointing their fingers at friends and saying "bang," and for bringing plastic soldiers with one-inch "guns" to school to show their buds.
The threads of the "principle" that the State has the "right" to dictate to us in any peaceful, voluntary aspects of life penetrates and constricts, grows and kills like an obscene cancer upon the body politic.
Yes, ideas do have consequences. For every step forward, our society takes two back. Paintball. Pilots. Play guns. Doesn't matter. It's the principle that counts. Always has. Always will.
Seven months after the WTC and Pentagon attacks, I still see U.S. flags waving from porches and cars and lawns. While the colors comprising the symbol of our nation have no official significance, the meaning attached to the Great Seal's colors are frequently associated with those of the flag. White represents "purity and innocence." Red means "hardiness and valor." Blue means "vigilance, perseverance, and justice."
But unless we reverse the perversion of the American spirit, the weakening of the American soul, and purge from our collective mindsets such nonsense as accepting State violations of our rights as natural and uncontroversial, we will soon be left with only one course of action that accurately reflects the ideals our flag increasingly represents.
Soon, we will -- if we are honest -- have to take Old Glory...and paint it black.
