Tibor R. Machan. Published Thursday, February 3, 2000, in the Miami Herald
The story of Elian Gonzalez has gotten me riled up. I can relate to it.
When I was 14, I was smuggled out of communist Hungary. My mother was in on the plan but had to feign ignorance, otherwise she would have been imprisoned.
Once I reached Vienna safely, I wrote her a postcard apologizing for running away from home, so she could have some ``evidence'' to convince the government goons that she had nothing to do with my escape.
Still for years thereafter, once or twice a year the police would call her downtown to question her about my successful escape. She had to deny knowing anything about it and pretend to want me back. When the hounding stopped, she concluded that the person who had her file had either died or
retired.
Now, no such case is exactly like another. These are the kinds of cases used to test rules, laws and moral principles. They are exceptional, and no easy, straightforward solutions are possible.
Which is why it's curious that the Clinton administration refuses to approve of a court settlement, in which rules of evidence, pertinent testimony and precedent would get a close hearing before a judgment is made on Elian's fate.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., unhesitatingly supports the decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to send Elian back. The Republicans, in contrast, have advanced several arguments that, put together, made a good case not so much for keeping the boy here but for leaving the decision
up to a court of law.
In a free society, serious disputes about rights is a rare area where government should have a role, rather than the roles usually taken by government to ban drugs, save forests or put up national monuments.
Often only force will bring them to the same table. The fact that rights may be violated makes such force justified when ordinarily it would not be. This kind of legalized force should be used with extreme care so that everyone's rights are closely guarded and an impartial, rational decision is
reached.
This is in contrast to bureaucratic decisions made by partisan agency heads, who usually follow the interests of the party in power. They are often committed to serving certain special purposes, even as they proclaim to serve the public interest.
That is the nature of the welfare state and institutions associated with it, so what President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno and the INS are doing here is nothing unusual.
Because of the adversarial system of jurisprudence, the courts are more likely to be fair and just. All sides get to air their case, unlike it is in a department of a politicized government agency.
Reno and her crew at the Justice Department, along with the INS, sing the tune of their boss, the President. That's natural.
Clinton has a history of pragmatism, but the ideals he does embrace tend toward the left. He has little serious commitment to any values, but those he does embrace tend to favor the worldview of those sympathetic to Fidel Castro's efforts to make an egalitarian country out of Cuba.
Concerning everything else, Clinton's usual motivation is extending his political power. Elian's future -- whether the boy should be sent back to communist Cuba or stay in America, where his mother wanted him to live -- is no great consequence to Clinton. Why should it be? After all, how could
it help Clinton get what he's after -- political influence in his liberal Democratic political culture?
Republicans have their own knee-jerk responses to issues, of course. They lobby for the boy to stay in America to sock it to Castro. Nonetheless, they argue that Elian's case should be subject to an investigation under the careful scrutiny of judges, attorneys and witnesses.
That's a level-headed response, consistent with the judicial philosophy of a free society. That's the way a tough public choice like this should be made, not by bureaucratic fiat from above.
©2000 Bridge News
Tibor R. Machan is distinguished professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., a Hoover Institution research fellow at Stanford University and author of Classical Individualism.
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