Eyes Wide

by Bruce Schimmel

Her eyes opened wide. Probably in horror. “You mean you can just get into a small plane, fly around and land wherever you want?”

“Yes,” I answered. Her shocked-open eyes, combined with pursed lips and scrunched brow, hinted at what this 20-something would look like some 20 years from now.

Clearly, she feared the worst.

That’s pretty much the way a lot of aviation still works, I explained, outside of commercial airlines.

It’s like a car. You go where you want, no permission necessary -- unless you want to do loops over a city or join a conga line of 747s waiting to land at Philly International. Then you need permission.

Otherwise you are free to go, and you don’t have to tell anyone first.

The idea of enjoying such liberty is becoming foreign in our nation. To fly to the fewer places that airlines go, you must first stand in line and ask.

The essence of liberty is not just the right to be left alone. Liberty is much larger than that; it is the right to make a choice. Liberty, first definition in the Encarta dictionary: “Right to choose.”

And that’s what we ought to celebrate -- and defend -- this Independence weekend. More choices.

Yet if we compare the state of today’s liberties with what we had a year ago, it’s clear our actions are being funneled into fewer options.

Consider a handful of changes since last Fourth.

• At airports, we not only expect to be searched, but our bodies X-rayed, our clothing sniffed by chemical- and drug-detection machines formerly used only in prisons.

• The police must no longer inform you that you have the right to refuse their request to search you or your car.

• School children can now be forced to submit to drug tests to take part in extracurricular activities. In a recent 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court declared that making a kid pee in a bottle in order to join, say, a Spanish club is not a search that is unreasonable.

Sadly, our sense of what’s not reasonable is changing, as our sense of liberty devolves into extinction. That is, if people forget to guard their freedom.

My 20-something friend can’t remember boarding a plane without first being searched and scanned. Today’s children, 20 years from now, will submit blithely to having their bodily fluids analyzed.

Miranda, in Shakespeare’s Tempest, says it’s a brave new world, as her eyes are opened to the thrill of the future.

Her declaration may have been naive, but this ancient young woman’s eyes were likely wet with wonder, and not frozen -- like so many are now -- staring in fear.

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September 9, 2004
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