The Red Light Is On – Will You Defer?

By: J.J. Jackson

In the opening pages of Ayn Rand’s best seller, “Atlas Shrugged”, we
find a bunch of people standing around outside of a stopped train
staring at a red light. Why the red light is on none of them know for
sure, but it is a signal of danger ahead. Of course, none of them can
confirm that there is actually any danger on the track ahead or if it
is just another malfunction caused by a deteriorating society in which
many are willing to simply defer to others, accept that there really is
danger ahead and that if there is a problem someone else will fix it.

When Dagny Taggart, one of the characters of the novel who happens to
be the Vice President of Operations for the railroad and actually on
the stopped train, questions the crew about why they are stopped she
gets a lot of hemming and hawing over the situation. No one with any
authority wants to take responsibility for what might happen if they
continue on despite the red light. No one, that is, except Ms. Taggart.

She orders them to resume the trip which leads to lots of questions
including demands that if something should go wrong and that there
actually is danger ahead that she takes responsibility because no one
else wants to be held to account for the action. She, of course,
answers that naturally she will take responsibility. So the passengers
get back on board and the crew plows ahead back onto the main line and
to their destination – without incident mind you.

Had one person not stepped up and taken initiative however the train
would still be sitting along the side of the track, and everyone would
have been late because of a false alarm. And had it not been a person
with clout, but rather just the lowly passengers themselves demanding
the journey continue the crew of the train probably would have been
less likely to concede because they would have been ultimately
responsible being that they were in charge of the train. But since the
Vice President was there and giving orders, well that made things
different. The crew was not responsible any more.

It is important to note that in this scene however that the crew of the
train does not put up too much of a fight against being ordered to
continue on despite the red light of warning. In fact, it appears that
they were quite aware that there was no real danger and were just
looking to not have any culpability if they happened to be wrong.

Can you say America today in a nutshell?

Whenever I read “Atlas Shrugged” I always seem to find something new
that relates so well to the way we are heading in America. Which is
why I try to reread it every couple years. It is a laborious task to
be sure. Rand’s prose is not exactly well formed and smooth much of
the time. But the story and the lessons more than make up for pain.

The red light analogy relating to our society today certainly however
is not one of those things I have recently discovered. I have thought
about it a lot over the years.

We have become a nation full of red light watchers. If one goes on,
many of us pay astute attention even if we know it is likely a false
alarm. We act this way because to ignore the red light means taking
responsibility for ignoring it. So it is just easier to stand huddled
around the beacon and wait for it to give us permission to proceed or
for someone with authority to tell us it is ok to ignore it because it
is obviously broken.

And then if there is trouble ahead it is ok because we are not
responsible. Someone else is. If we get hurt there will always be
someone to blame. Usually that someone has very deep pockets.

Some of the red lights never seem to go out. They just remain red.
Ten years ago we were given a red light, for example, on drilling for
our own domestic oil resources in ANWR; a desolate wasteland that is a
mosquito breeding ground for a few months when the permafrost is
actually thawed. Now we suffer from failing supplies and are being
told that it is pointless to open up the reserves now because it would
take years to retrieve them. Perhaps the same ten years that we have
been already sitting on our hands, to get the oil out?

Obviously the problem is not that there is not enough oil to be had.
The problem is we abided by that first red light when we knew we
should not. And now that it is shown that the first red light is the
problem, we have just been given another red light to reinforce that we
should once again just stand around abiding by the previous, and
obviously broken, light.

In places like Washington D.C. a red light was put up to tell residents
that they should not worry about defending themselves. Thankfully many
people did actually ignore that silliness but many others stood around
watching that red light waiting to eagerly be told that they could keep
and bear arms without the restrictions that made keeping and bearing
those arms for defense impossible. As the residents stood about
watching that red light crime ran about them rampantly.

In the town of New London, Connecticut there went up a red light on the
right of people to own property except for when the government had a
legitimate public use for it and paid them justly to acquire it. Some
fought against abiding by that red light only to have the Supreme Court
smack them down. Others threw up their hands and abided by the light
that told them what to do. Today all those properties that were taken
sit undeveloped as the developer has backed out of the deal. A deal
that would have not provided anything for public use but only for the
benefit of politicians.

Where the next red light will be is anyone’s guess. But when it is
placed before you will you blindly abide by it? Or will you question
it boldly and ignore it if it does indeed need to be ignored? And if
you do, will you accept the consequences or rewards of your choices?

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