Voting in defense of adulthood

I just voted, and the only tussling I had with my conscience (touched on in a previous post) was whether to vote for Rick Santorum or Bob Casey for Senate.

Sean Kinsell wrestled with this too, and decided to vote for Casey. I agree with much of Sean's analysis, and in all honesty, my vote could have flipflopped either way. In fact, I was going to vote against Santorum before I was going to vote for him, but when I went into the polls I saw the "straight Republican" button. (A hot button, to be sure.... But how straight is a hot button?) Anyway, before I'd had full time to reflect on the Santorum implications, I'd pushed that hot, straight Republican button, and then I heard a little electronic trilling noise, the curtain opened, and the closet was laid bare.

While I always experience what feels like "buyer's remorse" after voting, I'll try to explain what made me push the button with so little hesitation. The answer lies in my daily morning dose of MSM.

Not to knock the Inquirer (everyone in the Philadelphia area should subscribe), and there's nothing wrong with the way this piece is written, but the facts just supplied a reminder that often it's the little things that matter. The little thing was another school shooting:

A Chester High School ninth grader has been arrested and charged with attempted homicide and other offenses for allegedly shooting a pistol into a crowd of students outside the high school from a school bus at the end of the school day Friday.

A 14-year-old girl was grazed on the chin by a bullet; she was treated and released. "Someone could easily have been seriously hurt," Chester Police Chief John Finnegan said yesterday.

Chester Upland school district superintendent Gloria Grantham said it appears that the student, Michael Sterling, 15, had the gun inside the school during the day Friday.

Sterling, who was charged as an adult, was arrested Sunday after a search warrant was served at his home in the 200 block of Hayes Street; a gun with a filed-off serial number was found hidden there. He remains in the Delaware County prison, with bail set at $25,000 cash.

I don't seek out stories like this, but it just so happens that for much of the weekend (on KYW traffic radio), I was unable to avoid hearing about the shooting, over and over again. At every news break, the radio would play the following angry question from a parent:
It surprised me a lot because I don't believe this is happening, where are they getting these weapons from?
Where are they getting these weapons from?

Yes, it was accusatory in tone, as if she thought the guns were someone else's fault. It's one thing for a parent in denial to ask such a question, but I heard that scolding question repeated all weekend as "news."

The scolding tone of the question was still on my mind when I opened the Inquirer this morning and read about the "gun with a filed-off serial number."

Where are they getting the weapons? The posing of that question by an adult assumes that someone else should be overseeing "the children" who don't know any better, and are hapless victims of gun suppliers. Any idea how many felonies that gun with filed off serial numbers hidden in the kid's house might represent? Even if this had "just" been a school shooting, the question would have been woefully inappropriate. Not only is shooting someone an adult activity, but guns with filed-off serial numbers are deliberate, carefully committed adult offenses. Yet you won't hear a question like "Why are they stashing guns with filed off serial numbers in their parents' homes?" being asked. It certainly wouldn't get much radio play.

I know, it's just a little story, another minor school shooting. Committed by a wholly innocent child who had "a gun with filed-off serial numbers" stashed at his parents' house.

But for me it just served as yet another daily reminder there are a lot of people who don't believe in such a thing as individual responsibility and who would treat all people like children. (A child is an adult is a child.) Much as I might abhor this mindset, those who share it would rule my life.

It's why I voted Republican.

Not that there's a huge difference in philosophy, but in balance, I think there's more of an acknowledgment of the right to be treated like an adult in the Republican Party, but barely. That plus support for the war. (Again, barely.)

But what about the Republicans who believe in treating citizens like children? (Arguably, Santorum falls into that category.) Those who would treat us like children deserve to be treated as children, and children don't deserve to hold office, right?

The problem with that is that this election is so close that it isn't about candidates. It's about which party gets to put people on what the president's father called "these committees":

"It is more than party vs. party," Bush said. "It is the idea that if we have some of these wild Democrats in charge of these committees, it will be a ghastly thing for our country. They just have a very different view of looking at the United States of America. They will be pushing for all kinds of crazy legislation; they will be issuing subpoenas."
This "very different view of looking at the United States of America" not only includes treating adults like children, it also includes an inabilty to fully appreciate the dangers posed by an enemy which treats adults like children. I think this inability is the inevitable result of the condescending doctrine known as "identity politics" which, by failing to recognize the dignity of the individual, treats adults as children.

While it's a close call in certain individual races, in balance, I voted against this "very different view of looking at the United States of America" in order to vote against being treated like a child.

posted by Eric on 11.07.06 at 08:43 AM





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