The Luxury of Principles

 (Note: I, along with several dozen others, were recently put on a leave of absence from our mutual employer over vaccine mandates. We banded together and created a substack newsletter called 'Unvaccinated Employee of the Month'. This was originally posted there, and is addressed to that audience.)

Early on in the movie 'The Patriot', Mel Gibson's character Benjamin Martin is called to a conference of prominent citizens in order to address the deteriorating situation with the  British Crown. Martin casts a dissenting vote and when his reputation as a man of principle is challenged he says "I'm a parent. I don't have the luxury of principles."

  It's an interesting and layered statement. It has more than one application in the film as well as more than one application in our current situation. Let me explain.  

  When this whole unpleasantness rolled out there were people who understood the situation for what it was.  They didn't like it, they didn't agree with it, they even saw it as tyranny, but various powers presented to them a seemingly impossible choice--the vax or the bread line. These people looked their families in the face and got the shot.  I know some of you are reading this, and let me say--I get it more than you know. I still consider you our allies in all this. You exercised the principle of taking a sacrificial risk for the well-being of others. It is , on one level, the same stance Martin took, understanding that his push-back might endanger his family. Frankly, it's a weighty thing to ask others to suffer for the consequences of your principles.  You have nothing to be ashamed of, and I would appreciate it if you stand with us going forward.

  Of course the movie doesn't end there. It turns out that Benjamin Martin is a profoundly dangerous man; the sort of fellow who will do anything to be left alone, do anything not to have to fight you,but if it comes it comes. He spends the rest of the movie reigning sorrow on those who would not leave him and his alone.  I think those of us outside the gate looking in fit nicely into this aspect of Benjamin Martin’s sentiment.

  I sat in my room the other night figuring out bills and looking at the rapidly depleting income. I still don’t have that figured out,by the way. I asked my wife if she was certain I was doing the right thing.  At that moment it didn't seem particularly hopeful, but then I remembered we are some profoundly dangerous people.

  Listen, tyrants.We wore your silly masks, we observed your silly rules. We got our temperature taken every morning. We answered those silly questions. All we wanted to do was work, to feed our families, to be left alone.  And yet here we are.

 What has happened to us is not only wrong, it is, in my opinion, illegal, and when we win it will not just be a victory for us; it will be a victory for our allies who threw themselves on the vax grenade for their families.  When we win, nobody will dare try to make you get a booster, nobody will dare require your family to be vaccinated. We will 'peacefully and patriotically' make them turn tail and run. We will make it painful enough and embarrassing enough and career-ending enough that they never dare try this again. When we win, they will leave us alone.  All of us.

See, as it turns out, I'm a parent . I don't have the luxury of no principles.