On Being Sub-Human

What does it say about us as a society that the United States, Britain and Japan sent people and equipment that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions?) to save seven crew members of a Russian mini-submarine? It says that we're a caring people, we humans. It says that we'll go to extraordinary lengths to save a handful of lives that are at risk halfway around the world. And thank God for that.

But at the same time, every day we murder each other, we attack each other in war, we abuse the people we supposedly love in dozens of ways.

A couple of years ago, when the film We Were Soldiers came out, I watched the brutal war movie in a jam-packed theater in Manhattan near a couple of Viet Nam war veterans and their families. As the merciless acts of one soldier to another went on in one gory scene after another, the macho vets openly sobbed. I did too, but mostly I was hit by how cruel we could be to one another. How on earth can we do that to a fellow human being? And how can the same human race react so forcefully and passionately in two such diametrically opposed ways? I truly don't understand.

Train Spotting

Following the July 7 London bombings in the subways and the bus, New York City and New Jersey took instant action. Penn Station was thick with National Guardsmen and city and transit cops. Uniformed policemen appeared on train platforms almost immediately. Even in my little town in New Jersey, three cops appeared at our New Jersey Transit station within a few days. I really never see one uniformed policeman or Guardsman anymore -- I consistently see three to five together. At the Secaucus Junction station, which I heard one fellow passenger refer to the other day as "Memorial Station" because there are so few passengers at NJ Transit's newest station, there were more cops on the platform than passengers.

That was the first week after the London bombings. Then they started random searches of bags and briefcases in NYC subway stations and, later, on commuter lines in New York and New Jersey. At first I wondered if that would impact the train schedules and/or result in some people missing the trains they usually take. It hasn't, from what I know. I still try to be at least a few minutes early to catch my trains, just in case.

At my little station in New Jersey, one day more than half a dozen state troopers showed up, looking tall and stocky and mean, and set up tables near the stairs leading up to the platform. They stopped a few people, pawed through their backpacks and bags and made a great show of force. But one day was it. Have seen nary a trooper there since. (Maybe they were federal officers of some kind -- I admit that I didn't pay that close of attention. Wow, and I call myself a journalist?!)

The debates are about privacy vs. protection...about window dressing vs. really deterring potential troublemakers. (Troublemakers = the bastards who want to kill us and are willing to die to do it!) These are not easy issues to sort out.

I am basically a libertarian, philosphically speaking. I only voted for a Libertaran Party candidate once, in some presidential election a few ago, when I couldn't bring myself to flick the lever for the Republican or Democrat. In most areas, I think the government should leave us the hell alone and not interfere with our lives. I resent them constantly protecting us from ourselves. In that vein, I think that prostitution is one of the most ridiculous things in the world to make a crime. And for sodomy and even oral sex between married people to be illegal in some states -- unreal! Any kind of sexual activity between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home is nobody else's business. I may or may not choose to participate but that's my business, not the government's. Get the hell out of our bedrooms, for God's sake! And to go to the lengths they do to refuse to legalize the use of marijuana, even for medical purposes, is beyond ridiculous when you compare the harm that pot does compared to the devastation that alcohol wreaks, and alcohol is legal. (No, the point isn't to make alcohol consumption a crime.)

These days, I know it's not that simple to just want government out of our lives. It's way too complex of an issue and too much of an internationally interwoven society for that to be reasonable. Most days, I just opt not to focus my energies on that whole macro-topic. I just go on with my day, happy in my own oblivious world. If I clean up my own life, I figure that's what I can contribute and I wish others would try to do the same.

We need to be careful not to "protect" ourselves right out of being a free society. We are less free every day as it is now. Right after the London bombings, they shut down cell phone service in the Holland Tunnel and Lincoln Tunnel going into New York City. Fortunately, they let it go back on within a few days. But earlier they were also looking at banning photos of subways or other trains, even from public streets. We should make sure we don't rip away the rights of the majority -- law abiding, honest, well-meaning citizens -- to try to "protect" ourselves from the occasional nut job. And let them use real knives again on airplanes, please. Geez. Real forks can cause just as much damage, as can 1,000 other things that we all carry around with us every day and use for their intended purposes.

Despite my misgivings about privacy and my desire for less intrusive government, I admit that up on my NJ Transit station platform the day that the troopers were there, I felt a little bit safer. I also find myself breathing a little easier when I see the Guardsmen in force in Penn Station and the deliberately surly-looking cops in the various New York City subway stations. I hate that I feel that way but I do. I am also gut-level grateful for the men and women who are there trying to keep us safe.