A West Wing-related thought

[avevale_intelligencer]

I've moved on to the West Wing now, and am watching episodes and reading such scripts as have been published (not enough I say) and I came in my reading to the bit where Ainsley Hayes is justifying her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment by saying that as a Republican, she believes that every time the government passes a new law, it leaves people with a little bit less freedom. I take that to be an accurate statement of one of the planks of Republicanism, and address it as such after this wise:

Laws are passed to deal with specific things, and should be dealt with specifically. "Freedom" is a fuzzy generality and doesn't exist in that form. The law against murder means that one is not free to kill someone else, at least not and get away with it. A law against paying a woman less than a man means that one is not free to pay a man one dollar and a woman seventy-nine cents for doing the same work. A law against abortion (to cover all extremes) means that one is not free safely and legally to have a foetus removed from one's body. If that freedom is important to you--if you want, or need, for people to be able to shortchange a human being for their efforts in your behalf, or if you want, or need, for people to be able to murder someone with impunity, or if you want, or need, for women to be able to terminate an unintended pregnancy and live through it--then you fight that law. You don't fight it because you looked at the gauge and there's less freedom in the tank than there was when you set out. Looked at in that way, all laws should be fought, even the ones that you might think make sense, and no new laws should ever be passed, even ones that we find later on we sorely need.

There are laws that should be fought. There are laws that should never have been passed. But "because they take away our freedom" is a stupid reason for fighting them. Of course they do. That's what they're for, mostly. The question is, is that particular freedom that is affected by that particular law...a freedom you want people to be able to exercise? And are you willing to stand up and say so in public?

EDIT: to sort out phraseology in the middle there. You should fight what you believe to be bad laws and fight for what you believe to be good laws whether they affect you directly or not.

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

No man's freedom or property are safe. That's what the legislature, whatever you call it, is supposed to be for, and if there's another way that works, I've never heard of it. And I'm sure Twain knew that.

We do the best we can with what we've got.

[howeird]

Let me start off by saying we agree, and there is some imp in me which insists on looking at as many possible sides to an issue as possible. The imp is reminding me of a bumper sticker on a friend's way-too-huge Ford pickup truck, just below the gun rack, which said "A well-armed society is a polite society". Some people prefer to protect their rights and property the old-fashioned way.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I have that same imp, only these days I have him fairly well focussed on looking at all sides of an issue and picking the one that makes me least sick to my stomach. :) I don't play with ideas that much nowadays. Too many of them tick.

I like the idea of a well-armed society. It is indeed true, I think, that a society equipped with strong laws founded in a consensus of decency, an effective yet not oppressive enforcement agency, an impartial and yet humane judiciary and other such nice things is likely also to flower in courtesy and other virtues. I hope one day to see such a society upon the earth, though I'm betting it won't be yours or mine.

A collection of individuals each of whom has a gun isn't a society, it's just a collection of individuals who are scared of each other. I realise that for some people that's the ne plus ultra, and I'm talking about people whose idea of "protect[ing] their rights and property the old-fashioned way" hasn't altered since they did it with a bone club...but I'm not one of those people, you're not one of those people, and I don't believe (unless you tell me differently) your friend is either.

Down here, when we talk about our rights and property, we have a somewhat more developed idea of "rights," "property," and for that matter "our." Our rights are not something we can defend by blowing the head off anyone who comes within ten feet of the barbed wire around our bunker. Our property is not defined as whatever we can grab and keep hold of by the same means. And "we" are not "myself, my family and the rest of the world can go to hell."

We could, if we're not careful, end up back there in the swamp, but it would be a real shame after all the centuries we've spent trying to find a way to move forward and out of it and build ourselves some solid ground, a place to stand so that we can move the world. We can do great things when we have time to think and space to breathe, and we do not have those things when all we are thinking about is survival and building a more devastating bone club.

Anyway, that would be my answer to your imp. If he were my imp, the answer would be much shorter and involve a fly swatter and a jam jar. My imp knows me better than to try that one.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"I have that same imp"

So is it the imp that gives us an impulse? If so, what kinds of ulse might we get from other mythlogical creatures that hang around near us?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Oh, something entirely ulse.