Brian W. Firth

THE SCHIAVO AFFAIR advertises how decadent the republic is today: if the citizens no longer understand how their society works, that is decadence.

The woman’s parents deplored the fact that their daughter was out of their hands – understandably – and appealed to their neighbors for support – understandably, again. The neighbors gave all proper attention to their plea, according to the settled practices of the community, and found that they had no case with which all could agree, none which conformed to the principles of a long-established society. And having heard the decision of their neighbors, the parents sought – and found! – support from outsiders, strangers!

This is a manifestation of the widespread misunderstanding of the term equal. If all men are equal, how can one man have the power to choose life or death for another? Is not the right to life inalienable?

Granted that all men are equal, how do they give effect to that claim? The statement means that no man is “more equal:” thus the problem narrows down to putting a stop to any assertion of power, of irresponsibility. One has nothing to fear from one’s neighbor, as long as one knows that any trespass will be redressed by the courts. The threat that matters is not from the neighbors, it is from outsiders: the reason for “organizing,” for calling a convention, is to be able to deal with any intruder.

If we are organizing to defend equality, then it goes without saying that we cannot hope to find a superman among us. But we can hope to find someone who will be willing to serve the remainder as a sentry and security guard – and that is what a governor is, a public servant. (Democracy means that the many agree, the few accept – or at most are allowed a veto.) The very last thing we want is a governor who believes that he knows as much, or even as well, as we do.

No, perhaps that is not the very last thing; perhaps even worse would be if hoi polloi, the mass too numerous to meet in council and debate, dominated. And apparently that is the way our nation is going today: the parents went outside their own State with their appeal, and the pandering hirelings in Washington listened to the polls rather than to the judges – although the courts actually have a method of solving cases, namely stare decisis, following precedent. (I remark again, ad nauseam, that the judges might enjoy more credibility if they abandoned their fatuous pretence that a decision reached over a dissent constitutes evidence of law.)

And that time-honored method – which originally revealed the fact that all men are equal – also determined that those who are not competent to choose and to command the governor, such as infants and imbeciles and incompetents, are not equal: they can be heard only through having a guardian. And the ideal guardian is an individual, created in the image of God, possessed of a conscience: a group, a fictitious person, would be expected to have several incompetents to care for, and to give correspondingly degraded care to each one.

The worst guardian would be a group which has other and competing, possibly more important, concerns – that is, the government. If you believe that a government is capable of managing any asset, look out of your window: I suspect that you will see a public highway on which the vehicles carrying passengers and the vehicles carrying freight are all rolling at the same speed – although the passengers are aging and the freight (except in the refrigerated trucks) is not.