Where Personal Responsibility Ends, the Real Tragedy Begins

Writing for an automotive Web site gives one a rare opportunity to have his or her opinions read by millions of people. As you might expect, these opinions usually revolve around such life-altering topics as "How supple are these leather seats?" or "How responsive is that steering feedback?" Not exactly earth-shaking stuff, in theory, but it's amazing how much emotion you can stir up by suggesting that the recently killed-off Mitsubishi 3000GT was portly, expensive, and in dire need of an update. Vehicle owners can be frighteningly passionate about the cars they own, but that's a topic for another Views piece.

The point of this column (which, just to reiterate, is an OPINION-based piece) is to discuss a far more pressing issue facing the average American. It came about as a result of an earlier Views article by yours truly, entitled, "Kill the Looky-Loos." Now, before getting to the core of my argument, I want to make clear what should have been painfully obvious the first time around. "Looky-Loos" was not meant to endorse the killing of traffic gawkers anymore than Shakespeare's famous reference was meant to initiate the widespread slaughter of lawyers. I suspect old Billy was, like myself, getting fed up with a certain segment of his society that the he saw causing undue pain and suffering on society as a whole. The difference is that, during the 1600s, a reference about killing lawyers could be used to make a point, today it would be seen by some as an irresponsible call to violence. It is for these people (along with those foolish enough to think that killing Looky-Loos would actually solve traffic problems) that I make the following argument.

During the past few decades an undeniable shift has taken place within American culture. Where once the concepts of personal achievement and responsibility were the basis for measuring an individual's success, we have slowly, but surely, deteriorated into a country of victims and scapegoats. This decomposition of moral and behavioral standards is evident throughout our current society, but the trend is most visible in our treatment of criminal behavior by the popular press and political establishment. Rather than identifying individual delinquents like Columbine High School murders Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as the societal anomalies that they are, we focus on them as unfortunate, but completely expected, by-products of our unsympathetic and violent world. Several factors have been targeted as playing a role in the creation of such evildoers, but acknowledgment of their personal responsibility for their actions is generally not an issue raised by the aforementioned popular press or political establishment.

As troubling as this decline in personal responsibility is, it pales in comparison to the frightening limitations being placed on those of us who continue to live as upstanding, hard-working Americans. Whether you want to own a gun, smoke a cigarette, or write a thought-provoking article, if it is at all conceivable that your actions may somehow damage the "innocents" of our society, than those actions will certainly be frowned upon and very likely be outlawed. Forget about the fact that the overwhelming majority of gun owners operate their firearms in a safe and responsible manner or that the damage to your lungs while driving in rush-hour traffic makes second-hand smoke akin to B.O. And God forbid that anything you ever read, listen to or watch should contain messages other than peace, happiness and love. For, my fellow Americans, we are no longer free-thinking human beings able to discern right from wrong, but mindless zombies waiting for our next queue on how to behave. And regardless of where those influences come from, or how outlandish their nature, we will be unable to resist the mind-warping nature of items we encounter while listening to the radio or watching TV or surfing the Net.

Personally I am disgusted by the philosophy of letting the worst Americans decide what we can and can't do or say. It disturbs and puzzles me that we are so willing to embrace this infinitesimal minority as the standard by which the rest of us can live. Do we really have to stop and ask, "What if another Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold sees/hears this and decides to go on a murderous rampage as a result?" every time we open our mouths or put pen to paper? Is that honestly what this country has been reduced to?

While we may not want to accept it, the truth is that another Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold does exist out there right now. So do another Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. And they certainly are by-products of society, but not specifically our society and not specifically at this point in time. Elements like Doom or Marilyn Manson or "The Matrix" don't create these people. These individuals exist because WE, as a race of diverse humans, exist. Just as we like to celebrate all the ethnic, social and religious backgrounds that make up our American melting pot, we must also acknowledge the range of mental and psychological health that is endemic to the human race. We could no sooner be a race of Hitlers than a race of Gandhis (both whom, I might add, existed outside of America before Doom, Marilyn Manson or the TV/movie-rating system designed to protect children did).

Like any rational adult, I don't celebrate the fact that there always have been and always will be human monsters walking our planet. And I certainly would like to reduce both their numbers and their ability to do harm. But if you take away their guns they'll use knives and swords (Ever heard of Jack the Ripper or Attila the Hun?). And if you take away their computer games and violent movies and Internet access they'll use newspapers and books for inspiration. I believe that in the history of mankind, the Bible has been the most frequently quoted manuscript for justifying widespread murder. Maybe we should outlaw its existence...

And, speaking of widespread death and destruction, let's not forget that most capable of weapons: the car (or, to be more '90s specific, the truck and/or SUV). Every year more people are killed in automotive-related incidents than were killed by the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima. Now here's a device that greatly contributes to our world's pain and suffering and makes gun- or computer game- related deaths look like small potatoes. As is always the case, it is a tiny percentage of irresponsible operators who cause the overwhelming majority of traffic "accidents," but let's not target those people. Instead, we'll throw all automobiles onto the Outlaw List, along with semi-automatic pistols, cigarettes and Marilyn Manson music.

I can hear the response now: "That's not a fair comparison because nobody needs a semi-automatic pistol." Uh-huh, right, but those 300-horsepower Lincoln Navigators or 450-horsepower Dodge Vipers, now those are absolutely vital to keeping society afloat.

The tragedies of modern society are not to be taken lightly (even though crime in general and violent crime in particular has been dropping for the past 14 years). When individual citizens commit individual crimes, we should look closely at those individual circumstances to see what, if anything, could have been done reasonably to prevent it. What we shouldn't do is outlaw every possible element, from computer games to SUVs to our First Amendment rights, in a vain attempt to insulate ourselves and our citizens from the possibility of tragedy.

The purveyors of suffering are intrinsic to human existence. We can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other. In the meantime, however, we do risk outlawing every semblance of personal freedom and the responsibilities that go along with it. Today it may "just" be your gun or your pack of cigarettes. Tomorrow it might by your music, books or First Amendment rights. And in the 21st century, if a certain presidential candidate has his way, our streets will no longer be overrun with those vision-blocking, internal-combustion-burning, compact-car-crushing trucks.

And, of course, no one will ever die of anything but old age.