In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a tongue-in-cheek essay entitled A Modest Proposal, which suggested that the poor sell their children as food for the wealthy. It was beyond bad taste even for the times and should remain so to this day. And yet the defensive reactions of gun advocates since the Uvalde experience this week leaves many to wonder if something like his suggestion might be countenanced by some today. I hope not, but hear me out.
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, whom most all of us will disagree with at least occasionally, wrote the truth today when she described the mass killing as child sacrifice. Certainly the killer was not state sanctioned, far from it, but his right to bear assault rifle arms is being defended as sacred, at least until he opened fire on a school, though the killer’s social media postings betrayed his intentions for too long prior. Regardless though, the fact is that guns are the leading cause of death for children now, and these tragedies happen all too regularly.
Values matter and children should matter more than guns. The right to drive a car is regulated far more than the right to a gun. Cars, of course, didn’t exist in the time of the Founding Fathers, but then neither did assault rifles. Gun technology then hadn’t advanced far beyond the flintlock. Surely reason, good sense and the value of a child’s life were inherent in our Constitution.
Slavery divided our country for much of its early existence, as apparently do many current values today. The most symbolic of those presently may be the issue of guns. There are stretches of the county in which owning a gun makes sense, in terms of self-defense from rattlesnakes and other hazards, and I get and, to a degree, respect that, though regulation of anything deadly just makes sense. For must of us in more populated areas, guns are more a danger than a help. Most law enforcement people, when asked to be honest, will probably tell you that.
So here is my modest proposal, which I too offer tongue-in-cheek. I propose that we divide the United States into three new countries: West America, North America, and Middle America. The names are negotiable, but the territories would be something like the map above. Each state will choose where it belongs, and those along the northern border could negotiate to join Canada. The three countries would be bound by treaties for trade and the common defense, and each would have its own new constitution. Guns and abortion prohibitions would likely be enshrined in the Middle America constitution, even though the two values don’t fit well together. Children and a world in which they are safe would be listed in Article One of the West and North Constitutions.
The list of differences would go on and be long, but then we are already too divided to maintain a meaningfully working government. Perhaps today it is better to say that “Divided we stand.” I suppose in times of grief any attempt at humor falls flat, but I offer my own modest proposal in lieu of other’s empty “thoughts and prayers.”
