What we're now seeing in the United States of America is the result of a gradual blurring of relevant moral distinctions. There was a time when people were taught right from wrong in their youth, when journalists and academics didn't feel it necessary to place quotations around any mention of good and evil. An inability to reason, purely theoretically or practically, is bringing us as a society to the point whereat mobocracy is becoming a reality; i.e., we're coming to the point whereat pure democracy is determining the course of our society.
No doubt, a commitment to pure democracy will be welcome in many quarters, for in my experience very few today even understand why our founders regarded democracy as the "Devil's own government", very few recognize that our nation is not a democracy but a constitutional democratic republic. There is an enormous and very important difference between the two, namely, that the former is nothing more than mob rule while the latter involves an inviolable committment to a particular set of principles enshrined in various founding documents.
Perhaps the most obvious illustration of my point is supplied by the controversy surrounding illegal immigration. I believe it was Sono Bono who, when asked what might be done about it, responded essentially that there was nothing to discuss because it is illegal. But these days, the law is no longer something that is taken to be objective, it is no longer something that is taken to have coherent meaning on its own. Rather, it is taken to be something that is designed for judges to interpret in any way they see fit in order to suit whatever sociopolitical agenda seems prudent.
Governor "Gray-Out" Davis, in a blatantly scurrilous and cheap political maneuver, recently signed into law a bill that grants illegal immigrants an identification card that allows them to drive legally in California. Some hail this as a victory for civil rights. The majority, from the polls I've seen, recognize it for the slimy, dirty trick it is to garner more votes and stave off the current recall attempt. Whatever the case, it's the first law that I know of that implicitly affirms that breaking the law is absolutely valid.
You don't find too many laws passed, after all, that allow, say, twelve year olds to get a license to buy beer, just as you don't find too many laws that allow suspected murderers to acquire a permit to remain legally in another state and avoid extradition. The new law on the books in California doesn't merely wink at the illegality of immigration; it sanctions it wholeheartedly by supplying benefits to those who break the law. Seriously, the permits that illegal immigrants are now eligible to receive are tantamount to licenses for felons to buy guns, permits for pedophiles to molest children, or mandates for hitmen to ply their trade. The new law literally endorses breaking other laws.
What the hell kind of "reason" could possibly be offered to justify such an absurdity? Those in favor of it point to various instrumental benefits. For example, when illegal immigrants are involved in traffic accidents as uninsured drivers, the various parties involved would be able to locate them were they registered with the state. The same applies for aiding police in any investigative procedures with illegal immigrants as suspects. In short, those who support it point out that many potential benefits accrue if the state knows where to find illegal immigrants, who without the registration card would be far more likely to live beneath the societal radar.
But it takes only the briefest of moments to recognize just how unsound this line of reasoning is, dear reader. For if the state did its job in the first place and deported the illegal immigrant—as the law requires of them, mind you—then said illegal immigrant would not be present to be involved in any traffic accidents or criminal affairs. Obviously, the state cannot stop all illegal immigration, and just as obviously the state therefore cannot prevent all illegal immigrants from being involved in car accidents, crimes, etc. But by sanctioning the presence of illegal immigrants, the state absolutely guarantees more such incidents due to a higher population of illegal immigrants.
To be perfectly blunt, there is nothing acceptable about illegal immigration. That's why it's called illegal immigration. Any illegal immigrant should be deported immediately. Doing anything else, particularly in these security-concious days post-September-11 is madness, or at least completely intellectually untenable. Of course, I'll immediately be branded a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, and all sorts of other ridiculous and irrelevant labels, but that's the price one pays these days, I suppose, for actually applying reason and taking the law seriously.
Consider another example, that of file "sharing". It's funny how powerful rhetoric is, right? We were told as children, after all, that sharing is always a good thing, right? Sharing your toys with other children is part of being a good little boy or girl, right? But so-called file "sharing" isn't sharing at all. It's a ridiculous misnomer, for the simple reason that nothing is shared.
The whole reason sharing is a virtuous thing is because it involves the giving of something to another at the cost of that something to one's self. I'm not claiming that denial of self is inherently virtuous, mind you, but I am claiming that there is positive moral value—both in the action itself and in its benefit for a child's character—when a child offers his toy to another child for a time. The child doing the offering is learning both to be kind to those who have less than he has and how to engage in appropriate self-sacrifice for the greater good. These two lessons are terribly important for a child's moral development, and I personally find it disgusting that the same label is applied to the breaking of copyright law.
For that's what it is, dear reader. File "sharing" has nothing to do with sharing. If it did, then it wouldn't involve any breaking of copyright law. It's not a violation of copyright law, for example, for me to loan a CD to a friend. That's genuine sharing because my friend gets to enjoy the music I have purchased, while I temporarily forgo that benefit. What file "sharing" involves, however, is the deliberate duplication of copyright-protected material so that my friend has his own copy. There is no sharing whatsoever because there is no limitation of use. I have shared nothing with my friend if I give him a copy; rather, I have broken the law to give him what I have no right to give.
To draw these distinctions and recognize the difference between genuine sharing and breaking the law isn't difficult. But to be perfectly honest, many (if not most) Americans these days are completely incapable of doing so. And the reason is simple: they've been virtually brainwashed from their youth in the most untenable sort of moral relativism that enables them to see nothing but shades of grey when it comes to moral matters. I'm not a big fan of the RIAA, to be clear, but I can hardly fault them for the recent round of lawsuits that has earned them nothing but contempt. Under the law, they are well within their rights to sue those who violate their copyrights.
And yet many people consider themselves almost heroic for continuing to "share" files, they see themselves as a sort of modern Don Quixote, I suppose, jousting against windmills. Or in more contemporary language, they see themselves as the "little guy" battling the powerful evil of the faceless corporation. What it seems they miss, however, is the larger picture, for if the RIAA has no business protecting their legal rights of ownership, then on what basis can the individual protest any usurpation of his own property? If one is to be consistent there is none, but of course, the folks who "share" files have never been rife with consistency, save for their underlying implicit belief that no law should prevent them from doing whatever they wish to do where music is concerned.
Perhaps the greatest example of mass insanity I have personally witnessed, however, has got to be the ridiculous reactions of the anti-war crowd where the recent conflict in Iraq is concerned. During that war, I was still working at the University of Southern California, so I had daily experiences with student views on the subject. What stunned me most was the degree to which said students were capable of the most blatantly ridiculous blurring of relevant distinctions, as well as the degree to which neither facts nor reason meant anything to them.
Case in point: I saw and heard President George W. Bush compared to both Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler as being their moral equal at least once a week—and I should point out for sake of comparison that I was on campus a mere two days each week during that term. And bear in mind, dear readers, that these sorts of ridiculous comparisons were not coming only from mere students; even some faculty members (whom I shan't name in order to protect their reputations) were involved in the same comparisons! As Dave Barry might say, I am not making this up. I honestly, heard faculty members at rallies comparing our President to Saddam Hussein for the purpose of demonstrating that the former was just as morally bad or worse than the latter.
Honestly, it doesn't take more than a second's consideration to recognize how ridiculous this is. Answer a simple question: how many Americans has President George W. Bush had killed? How many American women has he personally raped and killed? How many innocent people has he had rounded up at gunpoint and sent to death camps? No doubt, the more extreme of my readers will be prepared to respond that I just don't know the truth, that the President has somehow been involved in the murders of millions. That sounds insane, of course, because it is insane. But insanity seems to be part and parcel of the anti-war movement these days.
Suffice it to say that it is an absolutely crystal clear comparison between President George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Our President is surely not a saint, but anyone who is tempted to draw moral equivalence between him and those two mass-murderers is willingly blinding himself to all facts and reason where this matter is concerned. On today's campuses, however, it happens everyday. And those who so willingly blind themselves are considered courageous for doing so. Such is the place of reason in America today.