Freedom to be jerks
by Tom Sullivan
The Kochs, the NRA, and Randians of the right treat the word freedom as a conversation stopper. (What, are you against freedom, commie? Game Over. We win.) But just as creating the T-party pushed the GOP so far right that party regulars now are stuck with trying to reign in the monster they created, turning freedom into a worship word may be backfiring too:
A Florida man set up a gun range in his front yard, but police said there’s not much they can do but keep an eye on him.
Other residents are livid that 21-year-old Joseph Carannate set up targets and plans to fire his 9mm handgun in his residential Saint Petersburg neighborhood, reported WFLA-TV.
“I don’t know if this idiot is going to start popping off rounds,” said resident Patrick Leary. “I’m furious.”
Yeah? Furious commie.
But since by law the Gunshine State prohibits local governments from restricting gun rights, freedom means fire at will. Freedom means telling the neighbors, hide in the basement with your young-uns if you don't like it.
The recent fight over vaccines travels that same road, doesn't it? The teaser headline on the front page of the Washington Post online grabbed me this morning. Gerson: Vaccines and our duty to our neighbors. Whaddya mean "duty to our neighbors," commie? Free-DOM:
Resistance to vaccination on the left often reflects an obsession with purity. Vaccines are placed in the same mental category as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), DDT and gluten. But the problem with organic health care is that the “natural” rate of child mortality is unacceptably high. Organically raised children can get some very nasty diseases.
Opposition to vaccination on the right often reflects an obsession with liberty — in this case, freedom from intrusive state mandates. It has always struck me as odd that a parent would defend his or her children with a gun but leave them vulnerable to a microbe. Some conservatives get especially exercised when vaccination has anything to do with sex — as with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — on the questionable theory that teenagers are more likely to fornicate if they have a medical permission slip (or less likely to without it).
Whether you are blazing away in a suburban front yard, or putting neighbors' children at risk by refusing to immunize yours, or publishing cartoons of Mohammed with intent to offend (France, I know), or strolling into the Burger King with your AR-15, or doing anything else arrogantly prick-ish, because freedom, maybe the radical individual thing has gotten out of hand. Doesn't it seem, at long last, that our freedom fetish is turning us into a nation of jerks?
Michael Gerson dares use the phrase "common good":
In all these matters, there is a balance between individual rights and the common good. This may sound commonplace. But some Americans seem to believe that the mere assertion of a right is sufficient to end a public argument. It is not, when the exercise of that right has unacceptable public consequences, or when the sum of likely choices is dangerous to a community.
Commie.