The daily compromise
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
August 3, 2005
In our real lives, we pass for ordinary. We look like your ordinary neighbors. We wear ordinary clothes, work ordinary jobs, and live in an ordinary apartment.
But once we’re home, part of our ordinary routine involves collecting news for this weblog, and the news is almost invariably bad. I don’t believe there’s anyone in the Bush administration, any policy they’ve changed, any rule they’ve rewritten, that wasn’t in some sense (often in the most obvious sense) an expression of contempt for ordinary Americans. So as an ordinary American, I don’t feel anything but contempt for the Bush administration. And I don’t hide it.
After years of reading and publicly commenting on this bad news, we’ve developed a defense mechanism -- our snarky, cynical, smartass persona, “H&HH.” We share the byline, and we usually share the opinions behind the byline. We want to make readers stop and think about what’s going on in America and the world. And if stopping and thinking isn’t enough to change a reader’s mind, we’ll throw in an insult. It makes us feel better, especially if it makes people who disagree feel worse.
On Sunday, I took it a little too far. I was adding a link to a news article, reporting that New York area police have expanded their program of stopping random subway riders and searching their purses or backpacks.
I don't have much hair left, but picture me pulling it out. And some people are actually saying that all good Americans should submit to these searches? Yeah, we should all hum the national anthem as we wait in line to have our checkbooks and tampons dumped on a table and scrutinized by Security.
This is a program that accomplishes nothing but to violate the Constitution -- remember the part where we’re supposed to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?
Random searches might make some people feel like cops are doing something against terrorism, but of course, any so-called suicide bomber confronted by a cop who wanted to search his bomb-laden backpack is obviously just going to pull the string and blow everything up anyway.
So it’s not a deterrent to terrorists. It’s just an inconvenience to everyone else. Like most policies in a police state, it accomplishes nothing worthwhile; it just requires citizens to surrender still more rights.
It's a question of what kind of America we pass down to our grandchildren. If random searches on the subway are acceptable today, then tomorrow we'll have random searches as you enter the library ... and again as you leave the library ... and random searches at stores, bus stops, post offices ... and at some point, even the "search me" fanatics will recognize that what remains can't be called freedom.
As I read the news, I got angry and angrier. And so, to accompany the article, I banged out an angry comment:If you’re a patriot, you’ll refuse to submit to such a search.
But if you hate America, if you want to crap on the Constitution and piss on the graves of everyone who’s ever fought and died to make freedom the American birthright, just quietly cooperate. It was uploaded and on-line for a few hours Sunday, until Helen spotted it. She quickly if metaphorically grabbed me by the t-shirt and pointed out, quite correctly, that an asshole had written those comments. That asshole was me.
| As loudly explained to me by my wife, most New Yorkers get around on the subway, so the compromise is compulsory. They can’t take a stand over this, at least not in the subway station. They can’t simply tell the policeman “No.” If they refuse to submit to a search, they’ll be Constitutionally right, for whatever that’s | |  |
worth -- but they’ll also be thrown off the subway system, and they’ll be late for work. If it happens a second or third time in a week, they’ll be fired, and have to make a brand new start of it.
It’s really no different than peeing in a bottle to get a job. It’s a hell of an intrusion, it’s just plain wrong, it’s objectively unconstitutional (at least for government jobs), and it’s a despicable thing to demand. And of course, it doesn't yield better employees -- just the opposite, it screens out people who think for themselves, instead of just following orders.
Yet it’s increasingly necessary to pee in a bottle if you need a job, and most of us need a job. I haven’t yet had to submit to a urinalysis, but Helen has, and if she’d stood on principle and refused, she wouldn’t have the job she has now ... and we’d have a hard time making the rent.
The bastards hold us over a barrel, then -- you and me and all of us. We will compromise our principles, or we’ll be made to pay the price. And the price can be steep.
So my personal lesson from the weekend, for whatever it’s worth, was this: It’s real easy for me to bang out a harsh statement of either/or -- either you have principles or you hate America. But the reality is a lot more difficult.
The "search me" fanatics deserve a swift kick in the nuts, but they're a tiny minority. Most people who are “cooperating” with this asinine policy probably hate the daily compromise just as much as I do. We have enough real enemies, we needn’t invent millions of imaginary enemies.
These police tactics are illegal, wrong, and unproductive, and most Americans know it in their hearts. But commuters can’t reasonably resist, not as it happens. When there’s no real choice, it’s not shameful to compromise and pass for ordinary.
Typing this makes me want to punch a hole in the wall, but if I had twenty minutes to get to work, and a cop demanded to see what was in my backpack, I’d show him. I’d probably be very polite even as I gritted my teeth, and I’d be furious at myself ... but I wouldn’t refuse. I would go along to get to work on time, so I could keep my job, my apartment, food in the fridge, and this internet connection.
So I apologize for what I wrote and erased on Sunday. You don't have to make a scene at the subway station, and for many or most Americans, that would be unwise.
What's important is to do what you can to fight the flood of fascism. You don't have to do what you can't, and we shouldn't kick ourselves for what we can't do, but we have to do what we can -- that's the measure of a patriot. I can't begin to comprehend the millions of Americans who don't seem to see any problem, or who don't speak out about it.
So even as we’re forced into these searches and similar daily compromises, there are still things we can do in response. All I would ask is, when a cop rummages through your purse or backpack, don’t forget the frustration. Don't forget that your rights have been snatched, your freedom violated.
Savor your anger, remember it, and articulate it later. Talk about it. Tell friends, co-workers, and strangers why such a universal-search policy is wrong. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper. Don't shut up.
If you value freedom, speak out for it every way you can, because freedom is what's at stake.
© by the authors.
What do you think?
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If random searches on the subway are acceptable today, then tomorrow we'll have random searches as you enter the library ... and again as you leave the library ... and random searches at stores, bus stops, post offices ... and at some point, even the "search me" fanatics will recognize that what remains can't be called freedom.
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I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I've decided to start pounding my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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Even as we’re forced into these searches and similar daily compromises, there are still things we can do in response.
All I would ask is, when a cop rummages through your purse or backpack, don’t forget the frustration.
Don't forget that your rights have been snatched, your freedom violated. Savor your anger, remember it, and articulate it later.
Talk about it.
Tell friends, co-workers, and strangers why such a universal-search policy is wrong.
Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper.
Don't shut up.
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