May/June 99

Lessons from the Culture War
By Peggy Tartaro, Editor

From the Editor:

There was a minor brouhaha in political circles recently when one conservative group announced that not only was the so-called "Culture War" over, but that they were admitting defeat, and suggesting their fellow warriors join them in retreat. It was hard to feel sorry for them, even though I have occasional sympathy with some of the elements of this "war." Anyone who declares war, had better be prepared to win it; and cultural wars, whether led by Girolamo Savonarola or Carrie Nation, have a pretty dismal success rate.

All gun owners, of course, are not politically or culturally conservative. But enough parallels exist between the gun rights movement and the bang and whimper of American political conservatives to warrant some attention.

In the actual political arena, the gathering up of marbles and going home of these legislative allies, is bad news for gun owners. Regardless of where you stand on other issues, the key to legislative victories for gun owners in the last half dozen years has been the support of "conservatives."

Some of those "victories" have been nothing more than holding back the barrage of mostly back door schemes of the anti-gunners. When the battlefield is regulatory or judicial, it’s fair to say the playing field is no longer even; it’s simply a question of who holds the reins at any given moment. Editorial writers from "liberal" newspapers have expressed that notion recently, when dealing with the lawsuits filed by some big cities against gun manufacturers. Sure, they’ve said, by all means regulate guns, but use the legislative process—the one process where everyone gets to be heard—not the courts.

So, do we "hold our nose" and vote for people who are with us on the gun issue, but not on others that matter deeply to us? Do we vote against one "special interest" in favor of another? Or do we not even go that far, but instead take our noses out of the process entirely, as Paul Weyrich, who touched off the "End of the Culture War" debate suggests?

For some gun owners this is not a hypothetical. It’s a real dilemma, and it would be a grave mistake to ignore the implications.

Last fall’s elections were, in part, catalyst for Weyrich’s comments. And they are instructive, especially in my home state of New York.

Last April, a friend went to a Safari Club dinner wearing a button—"Schumer" with the international ban slash through it. Several people ask John who "Schumer" was. It’s beyond absurd that people (even a tiny minority) who spend time and money identifying themselves as hunters, and by implication gun owners, did not know who Charles Schumer is. Now, of course, he’s no longer the most strident anti-gunner in the House of Representatives, he’s the most strident anti-gunner in the US Senate.

Despite the best efforts of people like John, the D’Amato-Schumer race was not very much about the gun issue. So, while some people worked against Schumer on the gun issue, and some others did indeed hold their noses, others simply decided that the gun issue wasn’t key enough, that other issues took precedence. A similar situation occurred in California’s gubernatorial race, with similar results.

It should also be noted, of course, that neither Al D’Amato or Dan Lundgren did very much to court gun owners, so their failure to capture a block of votes that should have been theirs by, at very least, default, is much of their own making.

Voter turnout was low as well, suggesting that many people decided not to decide, but to let others decide for them. The people that couldn’t make up their minds, or made up their minds not to vote, took Weyrich’s last suggestion—dropping out of the process—even before he made it.

I find this last scenario the most disheartening. Change, whether it’s political, social or cultural, happens slowly, and consequences are often not apparent until much, much later. But it’s pretty clear that if you make no effort to assist in change (or in some cases, to resist change), that when it happens you’re going to be even more alienated than before. And no one is going to want to hear you complain that it’s "not fair," because everyone else will have moved on to the next thing.

"You’re either on the bus, or your off the bus," as Ken Kesey wrote, in an entirely different context. But he’s right. If you’re standing on the corner shaking your fist at the bus, you’re not on it. If you’re following it around with a bullhorn, yammering about how unfair conditions on the bus are, you’re also not on it. If you wouldn’t be caught dead on the bus, but prefer your own transportation, you’re not on the bus!

If, on the other hand, you are on the bus, and you look your fellow passenger in the eye and say, "I’ve got 20 more stops to go, I’m tired, and I was here first," then things are going to change.

It’s not just that you have made a stand (although that is a big part), it’s that you’ve revealed yourself to be part of the whole, a part to which attention must be paid.

"Paying attention" seems to me the minimum entry fee for the political, social and cultural process, and it’s not something anyone can do for you.