Innocuousness masking philosophical fissures

Fascinating. There are so many wrongs on all sides of this argument that is exceptionally hard to disentangle them, much less then balance them all out against one another.

This is a bad idea. Delta and the NRA are both private organizations; the state should not be taking sides on the basis of elected officials’ opinions about their private arrangements. This is viewpoint discrimination. https://t.co/iyjhcWQ4SD

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 26, 2018

Click to see the thread.

Cooke's comment seems absolutely reasonable. And it is reasonable from one narrow perspective. But as soon as you begin system thinking about the principles behind the proposed actions (Cooke's or Cagle's) then you start seeing how everything about this seems wrong. The tweet exchange is a catalyst to reexamine fundamental principles which we have become sloppily accustomed to ignoring.

Seems to me that these are among the fundamental underlying questions, some of which get teased out in the tweet's thread of comments.

Should mob action drive public policy? No. Gun control advocates should be waging their battle in the legislature not through through mob action. Their actions contravene the idea of rule of law.

Should government determine private corporation profitability through the dispensation of tax breaks? No. But it is virtually impossible not to do so in the modern complex economy and federal, state, and local governments do it all the time despite it being morally questionable.

Should government use tax breaks to sway private decision-making. Ideally, no. But it is none-the-less a pervasive lever of non-legislative influence.

When Group A (gun control advocates) coerce Group B (Delta) to differentially discriminate against Group C (NRA), is that a civil rights matter? Sure seems like the answer is Yes.

Should government intervene to ensure private sector adherence to public sector civil rights? Deep history answer is No. Recent history (since the 1950s) is Yes. Originally, the constitution protects citizens from the government, much less so from other citizens (and that protection occurs through criminal law rather than constitutional law). What this incident highlights is that government has been selectively intervening to enforce public sector civil rights in private matters. It is the selectivity that is the problem. Either enforce all, enforce none, or establish clear parameters for selecting. That seems to be missing. Absent clear guidelines government authority is being used to selectively abuse individual citizens at the discretion of the powerful or the mob (or both).

Should Delta be discriminating between customer groups, none of whom are doing anything illegal? You would think the answer should be No.

Was NRA instrumental in the Parkland shooting? No. The tragedy was a function of local government failures not federal law or, even more remotely, the NRA.

Is gun ownership a civil right? Yes, it is a freedom currently guaranteed in the Constitution and thirty years of Supreme Court decisions has rolled back regulatory restrictions on those rights. For the government to ban guns (or effectively do so through regulation), gun control advocates need to amend the Constitution.

Because gun control advocates do not have the public support to amend the Constitution, do their mob actions constitute a conspiracy to deprive citizens of their civil rights? Yes, it seems that that is a mighty thin hair to split.

Should corporations be allowed to treat individual customers differently from one another? No. It is bedrock principle in current regulatory law that corporations may not do so. They can treat categories of customers differently from one another (companies from general public or big companies from small companies for example) but they cannot discriminate within a group without unique cause.)

Fascinating to me that such an innocuous tweet exchange should be so evocative a catalyst to reflection on the underlying principles.