The Right to Play With Fire
By Erik Rush
October 3, 2005

You are at home with your five year-old, and suddenly notice he's playing with a book of matches he found. In fact, he's sitting on the carpet in front of you, about to light one. What do you do?

Perhaps you're at a friend's apartment; they had to run down the hall to talk to a neighbor and you're watching their five year-old. Same situation arises with the matches. Again, what do you do?

Then suppose you're visiting a friend at his apartment; you haven't seen him in awhile, and you're catching up. Without warning, he produces a cigarette lighter and sets fire to one of the sofa cushions. Aghast, you protest, but he tells you it's all right; he knows what he's doing. Then, tittering, he torches another cushion. What do you do then?

Concerning the children, obviously you take the matches away and sternly reprimand the child. In the case of the friend's offspring, you also inform them upon their return from the neighbor's place. Although the scenario with your adult friend may present more of a physical challenge, the solution is essentially the same, except that you subsequently contact parties better suited to handle an individual whose brain has spontaneously liquefied.

In none of these instances do you concern yourself with hurt feelings, the potential for a parent's anger at your having disciplined their child, your friend's absurd reassurance or his right to self-expression. Your responsibility to yourself and to those in the building who may perish when it becomes enveloped in flame supersede all of these.

So why do we accept from others the above rationalizations and allow the effective immolation of our nation and our society? If we resign this analogy to irrelevance since it is indeed metaphorical, we may be engaging in a grievous and potentially devastating self-deception.

It has been suggested by several prominent pundits of late that the thought processes of those on the far left may be everything from naively theoretical to dangerously unbalanced. In fairness, there are those on the far right of whom we might make the same claim, yet the difference lies in the fact that those in the press and entertainment industries -- two groups which have massive influence on American thought and culture -- fall overwhelmingly into the former category. Thus, it has become apparent to many such as myself that the threats we face have been understated and denied at our extreme peril.

The solution some have suggested may be considered severe at this juncture, but it is certainly no more so than distressing extrapolations of current trends that can be made based on history and geopolitical observations. The Alien and Sedition Act, passed in July 1798, authorized the president to deport any alien considered dangerous, even in peacetime, and made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against government or government officials. This, and Article III of the Constitution, which addresses Aid and Comfort to the Enemy, are historical precedents for action that might be taken to penalize those who undermine our duly-elected officials' efforts in the War on Terror as well as incite people both at home and abroad against America.

It is time for a re-evaluation of what constitutes "danger" and "treason" in America at this time. Some may point to the New York Times v. Sullivan and the reluctance of courts to uphold treason and sedition laws as an argument, but such statements are specious in that they are often made by those who would likely be targeted under them.

The catastrophic impact of hurricane Katrina illustrated a couple of important things: the first is how surrealistic and preposterous claims of those on the left have become, such as blaming the president's energy and environmental policies for the hurricane and interpreting the sluggish response of the federal government as a calculated attempt to drown black people.

The second: how tenuous are our "civilization" and security. Strange psychological changes take place when a population goes from what is the norm for most Americans to struggling simply to find clean drinking water in the summer heat when one's domicile has been decimated and everyone around is in the same circumstance. A few years ago, there was a severe snowstorm where I live in northern Colorado. Roads were impassable for at least two days. When I dug out and was able to make it to the local supermarket, supplies were frighteningly scant. Admittedly, this was mere inconvenience compared to what the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi are experiencing, and I was well aware of the dynamic of supply chains. Still, it was a chilling reality to behold.

The more stressed the survival nature of human beings becomes, the more our pretense of high evolution and morality falls away. In the Third World, the need for basic survival requirements tends to be much more acute and the effects more dramatic, and this is one reason I believe we see more extremes there with respect to things with which Westerners cannot identify, the basic value of human life being one which springs to mind.

Here in America, it has been a very interesting summer, with gasoline prices soaring, illegal immigration crises resulting in states of emergency being declared in two southwestern states, and then Katrina. We've seen a dramatic spike in sex crimes against children, terrorist bombings in London, the arrests of terror cells in the U.S. and Europe, and heard rumors of portable thermonuclear devices having already been smuggled into our country.

In my mind, this gives rise not to the question "how bad will it get?" but "how bad will it get before something gives?" Despite the socially-unconscious America cultivated by much of the press and portrayed in films and television, most Americans still desire safety and security -- and the direction in which we are heading indicates an opposite course. It is the American majority -- the vast middle class, race, creed and politics notwithstanding -- who are experiencing the brunt of our social and economic malaise.

Those of us who pray do so in the hope that we will never see anything on the scale of the September 11, 2001 attacks or worse again. Those who do not pray, simply hope. How much worse, however, will it have to become before we begin to see vigilantism as a result of the border woes in the Southwest, or overt child predation, or a proliferation of hate crimes against Muslim-Americans? How much worse will it have to become before Americans, incrementally stripped of their respect for the sacred, their security and comfort, and finally their humanity, are prepared to put a Hitler into power? It bears mentioning that I am by no means the only individual to draw a comparison between Germany in the 1920s and America in 2005.

It can't happen here? I've met enough older folks with serial numbers tattooed on their forearms and whose parents once uttered the same words to know the folly of that platitude.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.