Casey
at the Court
I
love to play chess, but I usually lose. My opponents beat me with
their knights. The other pieces move in straight lines, but knights
move two spaces one way and another space sideways. It confuses
me. I can’t foresee what they may do, a terrible disadvantage. If
it weren’t for those blasted knights I might be the world chess
champion.
The
solution to my problem is obvious: I must get the government to
change the rules of chess. My inability to cope with the dynamics
of knights should qualify as a handicap under the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
Obviously
I’m inspired by the heroic example of the golfer Casey Martin. Martin
has struck a blow for misfits everywhere by persuading the U.S.
Supreme Court to decree that the Professional Golfers’ Association
must set aside its own rules and allow him to compete in a motorized
wheelchair.
The
federal government, particularly its judicial branch, seldom refuses
an invitation to interfere in private institutions. The result is
that fewer and fewer institutions are private.
The
Court should have told Martin: "No government agency should
presume to dictate the rules of a sport, and the federal government
in particular has no constitutional authority to do so. Setting
aside the practical consideration that a group of people who make
a living at golf are probably more competent to formulate its rules
than we are, the ruling you seek simply isn’t ours to make. Were
we to make it, we would be guilty of what the authors of the Constitution
would have called a tyrannical usurpation of power."
Instead,
the Court chose to exercise what the authors of the Constitution
would have called a tyrannical usurpation of power. It’s no less
tyrannical for being so petty.
C.S.
Lewis once observed that it’s no use telling the government to mind
its own business, when the government feels that our whole lives
are its business. That includes our golf games.
Maybe
Martin is right that golfers should be able to motor around the
course in a tournament. But if so, it’s up to him to convince the
PGA, not coerce it. In trying to improve the game, he has betrayed
it. He has undermined its very nature as a voluntary activity, a
little exercise of freedom. In doing so, he has also brought the
shadow of government coercion over every other voluntary activity
and private association.
Martin
deserves a special niche in the annals of those who have sought
to deprive their fellow citizens of liberties they had traditionally
taken for granted. He is the enemy not only of professional golf
but of everyone who wants to be left alone by the state. He claims
"rights" that trump, and abolish, others’ rights.
It’s
only golf? Yes, it’s only golf. That’s what makes it so chilling.
Nothing, however innocuous, is now safe from the tentacles of the
total state.
Former
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan says we have "defined deviancy
downward" tolerating the formerly intolerable, removing stigma
from irresponsibility. We have also defined tyranny downward, meekly
accepting impositions of government that would once have spurred
Americans to angry resistance. A tyrant who stops short of mass
murder is no longer considered a tyrant.
No
doubt Martin considers his Court victory a triumph for the handicapped.
It isn’t except to those handicapped persons who confuse privileges
with rights, and want to give their own disabilities priority over
other people’s liberty. But then, that’s exactly what the Americans
with Disabilities Act invites them to do.
Personally,
I can’t fathom such arrogance. Just as a matter of good manners,
I couldn’t bear to demand that the government force my neighbors
to surrender a particle of their rights for my sake. I might, appealing
to their kindness and mercy, ask them to accommodate me freely;
but I’d accept their refusal without complaint. Simple civility
would require me to respect their wishes.
But
Martin didn’t ask. He chose to bully. He brought the Almighty State
to bear on his own colleagues, preferring force to freedom. In this
he was not only profoundly uncivil, but also supremely unsportsmanlike.
He won’t be remembered for any achievement on the links, but for
debasing honest competition with victimology.
As
Tiger Woods will always represent the glory of golf, Casey Martin
will be its eternal shame.
June
2, 2001
Joe
Sobran is a nationally syndicated columnist. He also writes "Washington
Watch" for The
Wanderer, a weekly Catholic newspaper, and edits SOBRAN'S,
a monthly newsletter of his essays and columns.
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