Ballots and Bullets

From President Obama's Inauguration ceremony: the introductory address by Senator Dianne Feinstein:

And an excerpt of the transcript:

"The freedom of a people to choose its leaders is the root of liberty. In a world where political strife is too often settled with violence, we come here every four years to bestow the power of the presidency upon our democratically elected leader. Those who doubt the supremacy of the ballot over the bullet can never diminish the power engendered by nonviolent struggles for justice and equality, like the one that made this day possible. No triumph tainted by brutality could ever match the sweet victory of this hour and what it means to those who marched and died to make it a reality. Our work is not yet finished, but future generations will mark this morning as the turning point for real and necessary change in our nation. They will look back and remember that this was the moment wehn the dream that once echoed across history, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial finally reached the walls of the White House."

It seems clear to me that Senator Feinstein is attempting to build a rhetorical monument to President Obama as a descendent of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet I am hooked by an inherent paradox within the address--and in the text above quoted. We cannot blame Senator Feinstein for this troublesome paradox, for she did not invent it. This paradox has always, and for some time will always, exist.

She calls us to celebrate, properly, the peaceful transition of power between presidents, and especially the peaceful rise to power of a president with darker skin. The fact that President Obama did not have to raise a White House coup d'etat in order to take office is an astonishing thing in the grand history of the world. As Senator Feinstein beckons us to festivity, she implicitly decries "those who doubt the supremacy of ballot over bullet," as if to say, the ballot is stronger than the bullet. In other words, this freedom we have to choose our leaders is a stronger agent of political change than what bullets can achieve.

This is not so, strictly speaking. Senator Feinstein (or her speechwriter) knows it, for it is revealed in the first sentence transcribed above: "The freedom of a people to choose its leaders is the root of liberty." By application of a thesaurus, we translate: freedom is the root of freedom. This is a tautology: a circular statement at best and at worst one devoid of meaning. In fact, bullets are at the root of freedom--or, more broadly, power is at the root of freedom.

This nation was born not because people wanted to be free and decided to vote, but because they mustered the power and ammunition to drive off another master. Enemies of freedom (whoever they are) must be held at bay by power, power used or power threatened. This is the human condition. Let us not diminish the great virtue of nonviolent change--such as that which brought about the civil rights movement that is now part of our history--let us embrace it. But let us also recognize that without the bullet the ballot has no place. Without weapons of war defending the fringes where chaos looms--and destroying its agents--the heartland cannot know peace.

Another great speaker, Jack Nicholson, playing the part of Colonel Jessop in A Few Good Men, recalled this important fact about human society: in order for Americans to sleep peacefully at night, there must be men with guns standing watch on the walls. And those guns must have bullets.

What a great sight to have two skin colors appear in photographs of U.S. presidents! I do not know how Thomas Jefferson would respond, had some prophet told him of this day. I do suspect that Martin Luther King, Jr. would beam with pride for what the Lord has done in us, and what the people have done in the last thirty years. We ought to celebrate. But as Americans, ought we not to celebrate the ballot and the bullet? For where would this nation be without both?

~emrys