Last week, I saw Lincoln with my dad. I didn't particularly care for the film, but it was interesting to see the debates in the House of Representatives, between the anti-slavery Republicans, and the Southern Democrats. The debate, it seemed, centered upon one crucial parallax:
To the anti-slavery faction, freedom means that one man is entitled to personal autonomy and to be free of undue social pressure in his endeavors; to not be conquered or enslaved by another. In this view, slavery is nothing less than a blight on the American ideal precisely because under the slave system, there are a class of people who are subjugated by men who are free under the law.
The slavers, however, believe that freedom means being endowed with the power to subjugate others: If I do not have the power to exert my will over another human being regardless of consent, I am not free. This is why the Southern Democrats can claim with a straight face that Lincoln is a tyrant. It is, specifically, this perversion of the meaning of freedom that continues to exist and exert its influence on American social and economic policy, particularly in the past 5 years.
The interesting part of this entire dynamic is that the people who believe in this warped notion of freedom completely understand what it means for themselves as individuals, and this enters the equation during the discussion regarding firearms, as we shall see.
The latter concept of freedom has continued to dominate the contemporary Republican party throughout Obama's presidency, and has manifested itself in three key areas: Darrel Issa's hearing on religious freedom and contraception, the laissez-faire reaction to the economic crash of 2008-2009, and, most recently, the gun control debate following Sandy Hook.
In the first example, those who testified regarding the requirement for religious institutions that provide healthcare for their employees fiercely protested the rule that they must also cover female contraception, specifically, the pill. The panel consisted entirely of male religious leaders, and collectively argued that their religious freedom would be jeopardized if they had to provide care for something they themselves did not believe in. This, of course, would put them in a position of power over others and infringe on the rights to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness of their employees. Not surprisingly, this was the exact same argument deployed by medical care providers who happen to be of a certain faith and refuse categorically to discuss reproductive health with their patients. This, obviously, puts their patients' lives at risk simply to satisfy the comfort zone (if not the conscience, if that patient happens to die) of a given healthcare provider. [As a side-note, I don't see how anyone who is particularly squeamish about bodily functions can be a competent healthcare provider. Maybe that's the point.]
On the economic front, we often hear corporate leaders claim that certain economic policies or members of the Senate aim to restrict their freedom or kill their business altogether. They have become used to and entitled to certain privileges that place them in the same kind of position described above, where they do indeed feel entitled to infringe upon the liberties both of their employees and the rest of society (taxpayers), and often go so far as to threaten opposing parties should they fail to get what they want. This has nothing to do, furthermore, with the size of the companies, or how large their cash reserves are: Many of the proposed policies do very little to actually impact the structure of the company, and only seek to curb irresponsible behavior (which also to a great degree prevents board members from having too much power over others' financial well-being; ie using it to trade mislabled subprime mortgage packages and crashing the economy). Obama and Elizabeth Warren are thus tyrants for trying to put more power in the hands of consumers and thus greatly limiting the amount these large financial institutions have over the global economy. Without this immense power over the entire global economy--a power I believe no single person or group of people should ever have--the CEO of AIG (which planned to sue the federal government over the terms of the bailout) can claim that his freedom is being infringed.
The ensuing gun debate following Sandy Hook is an excellent example of this twisted notion of freedom. If gun rights were restricted in any way, someone else would be able to exploit me and I would have no recourse with which to defend myself. Guns rights advocates fully understand that were they not able to possess military-grade firearms, someone else will be able to exploit them. They live in a truly tribalistic, Randian nightmare in which everyone they do not know or is not like them is out to destroy them. This is why the answer for anyone who is not a shill for a paid guns rights PAC is to arm more people. It is interesting, because the South--where the largest guns rights populations exist--knows first-hand how other human beings are subjugated, because they were doing it for so long. They are terrified that it could somehow happen to them in turn.
There was a popular conspiracy theory--I don't know how prevalent it is today--that there would eventually be a war between white people and black people. For the South, a region so dominated by slavery and racism (the latter continues to exist to a great degree). Django Unchained was a terrifying potential reality, and is a latent fear that still exists in some form.
To make this fear at least mildly less racist, they use the pretext of school shootings to vent their paranoia without explicitly mentioning the racial undertones in the history of their beliefs, and appear to totally accept the notion that adults and children should be able to shoot each other in the open. I saw an article on io9.com last week about a South American clothing designer that made Kevlar children's clothing1. We would rather have our children go to school in full plate than to do something about guns.
On the other hand, what is a gun, anyway? A gun is an item of naked power. It represents, in its totality, absolute power over the life and death of another living thing, the power to let live, or to end life. The South is currently losing economic ground, as a series of devastating education measures, a failing Texas government, and devastating natural disasters, from Katrina to the Texas drought, widespread obesity, as well as the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs take their toll on the region, as well as having been dominated in the 2012 election (a trend that even many Republicans fear will continue). What else is a people so disenfranchised going to turn to in order to make a claim to a better life as the rest of civilization leaves them behind? What else is going to get them what they need the fastest? The gun. That is why they are so afraid. A society that once prospered on the backs of slaves is getting exactly what it deserves, and the Second Amendment is the only thing it has left to make a tangible impact on their world.
1) Bulletproof Jackets For Kids
