The people versus the experts
In our current age of relativism when people speak of “my truth” and “your truth,” a little absolutism can be refreshing. Not the kind offered humorously by former U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen.
Dirksen’s quote read, “I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”
Dirksen’s playful “unbending principles” were not as unbending as those of my father or of the American patriot Patrick Henry. After a family supper table conversation about a rare robbery that had occurred in my hometown, my father ended the discussion by saying, “Well, starve to death and go to heaven, but don’t ever steal, not even for food.”
That’s absolutism. Patrick Henry’s famous speech that revealed his moral absolutism was more eloquent than my father’s but no more strongly held. Unfortunately we typically quote only the last sentence of Henry’s famous words. His four preceding sentences actually power his famous utterance.
Addressing the Virginia Convention in 1775 and arguing that Virginia “be immediately put into a posture of defense” against England, Henry spoke the following: “What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others may take but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
Not often does one fiery speech catapult someone from obscurity to fame, but this is what happened to the 29-year-old Henry, a representative in the Virginia Legislature. After listening to several speeches that favored compromise with the British, Henry rose to present his resolution to prepare for war. With manifold conviction akin to that of fellow Virginians Washington, Jefferson and Madison, Henry persuaded the Virginia House to take up arms against England.
“Is life so dear … ?” Already Henry is implying that life is not (to him at least) the most precious value. What husband/father reading this column would not rise up at 3 a.m. and defend to the death his wife and children from an armed intruder? How much does his own life matter to him in that moment?
“… or peace so sweet …?” With these words Henry expands his scope of affection. He is not referring now just to his own life or his own brood, but to all Virginians. It is civil peace that Henry mentions here.
Decisions that America’s president and governors now face are not too dissimilar to those of the colonies who were being oppressed by the British. Though ours is not a military war, it is a war still and voices of reason and courage are needed. Instead of 13 rural colonies against the western world’s third greatest empire, we now have the people versus the powerful proponents of consensus science. Consensus science has its experts, numbers, charts, graphs, and prognostications. The people have common sense and arithmetic. But they lack a Patrick Henry to point out that small business owners and employees are suffering most. Those with microphones and power — the media, politicians, government officials, and corporate heads — are doing quite well. The “little man,” the real creator of wealth and the sustainer of our economy, is the front-line foot soldier in our current war. What will he go home to?
Our president and governors are receiving counsel from doctors and numbers crunchers. The people are hesitant to criticize doctors, realizing that medical workers are sacrificially saving lives. Still, our health care system is a distinct part of our free enterprise economy and indeed flows from it. Yet, the two have been pitted against each other: saving lives versus saving the economy.
What a false and dangerous dichotomy the president and governors have embraced. Let’s recast Patrick Henry’s questions. Is life so dear that the world’s most successful anti-poverty program — capitalism — must now be socialized? That’s what government largesse leads to. Is peace so sweet that we cannot speak out against the statistical calisthenics of medical experts? Is our collective intelligence in such throes of death that we cannot figure out how to medicate the sick and allow those well to go to work? Whence comes health care if the well from which it is drawn runs dry?
There are different kinds of death, financial and emotional among them. As for absolutism, we are absolutely causing deaths of different kinds, all because we have shut down the country. Many livelihoods have already been destroyed. The “little man” is sick and suffering, all because of a wrongheaded war strategy.