Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
My parents, my two younger brothers, and I all attended Indiana University Bloomington for undergraduate studies. Between the five of us, we have eight IU degrees.
And so when Mitch Daniels became the president at Purdue, my first reaction was a sinking feeling. This great leader and visionary who transformed Indiana, my preference for president of the United States in 2016 (and 2020, for that matter), slated to soon be the head of IU’s biggest rival. It shouldn’t have surprised me, though, that Mitch’s appointment was actually a very good thing for IU: Competition breeds innovation.
Which was why, when Purdue recently announced they planned on bringing students back to West Lafayette this fall and hold in-person classes, it was only a matter of time before other schools, including IU, followed suit.
At least as importantly was the way Mitch explained his decision in a recent Washington Post column. He might have gotten the nickname “The Blade” because of his endless push to slash spending, but that moniker could just as easily apply to his ability to cut through the din and noise and deliver what has been mostly absent from today’s leaders: treating Americans like the self-governing people we are. As Mitch put it in his op-ed, personal responsibility and behaviors go a long way. People have a lot more brains than their governments often give them credit for.
His article also rebuffed the false dichotomy we all too often, especially recently (including in other circumstances), are presented with by various groups. In this case, getting society back to normal and protecting the health of our fellow citizens are not mutually exclusive options. When the history of this virus and the response to it is written, future generations will probably wonder why healthy people were quarantined at home for weeks on end while their businesses were left to flounder in the worst economy in decades.
No doubt many of my friends who publicly proclaimed that the quarantine should stay in effect until a vaccine is available to the public at-large find the stance staked out by Purdue and others untenable. These are not quacks, but good and decent people who are misguided: many of them have a comfortable livelihood that has either not changed or actually improved since mid-March.
This should not be a political issue. Unfortunately, like many things these days, that’s exactly what has happened. But as with many things, it’s not so much about right and left, as it is more freedom and less. That means people will have to tolerate things they don’t like.
Freedom is messy and complicated and comes with costs. I see this every day in the criminal cases I handle. Concepts like the exclusionary rule and violations of Miranda might seem like “technicalities,” but they actually give meaningful impact to the fundamental notion underlying our criminal justice system that it is better 100 guilty people go free than wrongly restrict one person’s liberty.
The same concept applies to the Second Amendment, a right unknown anywhere else in the world, and the right to free speech. The answer to speech you may not like is not to restrict that speech, it’s to engage and lend your own contributions. As Mitch explained, the costs of not re-opening Purdue far exceeded the costs of plodding ahead toward normalcy.
Maybe it means I’m not a very dutiful IU fan, but now when Mitch or Purdue announce some new initiative, my first reaction is excitement, because it means good things for Indiana, including IU.•
__________
Parr is a student at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis and is executive director of the Indiana Young Republicans and president of the IU McKinney Federalist Society. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
Click here for more Forefront columns.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.