National Politics and Personal Moralities

S ometimes a finding in a survey, while of limited significance by itself, illuminates the encompassing, even debilitating, deficiency of a broader issue. One such finding has it that young Americans expect to have the right to be tried before a jury of their peers, but are quite reluctant to participate in jury duty. This finding illustrates a more general societal imbalance of people who frequently oppose bigger government and higher taxes but are anxious to expand or add governmental programs in many areas, from child care to national health insurance. By the same token. there are the patriots who call upon the United States to show its flag, say, in the Persian Gulf, but who are simultaneously opposed to serving in the anned forces, or sending their sons and daughters to serve. Some feel so strongly about the primacy of rights and are at the same time resentful of the implications of social or communitarian responsibilities that they are blind to the peculiarity of the positions they advance. Such contradiction seems to be at the core of thinking of organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). A telling example is the ACLU's opposition to searches at airports, i.e. ,the use of x-ray machines and metal detectors, measures which are minimally intrusive and which diminish only slightly the right to travel freely, but which have significantly enhanced public safety by curtailing high-jacking in the U.S. and reducing terrorism elsewhere. In a similar vein, Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, a member of the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic, fmds herself arguing against a common objection to AIDS testing, that "[t]here is no point in having yourself tested because there is no cure." This argument completely disregards the fatal effect on others who come int9 contact with the infected person. It is akin to saying that if a person exhales cyanide. there is no sense in telling him of his predicament as long as there is no cure. Other radical individualists oppose seat belts and motorcycle helmets, the war against drugs, and even such innocent measures as voluntary fingerprinting of children to help cope with