Those who insist on being right are sometimes wrong

By Carl Heintze

The image of the former head of General Motors came to my mind the other week. Good old Charlie Wilson once declared--a long time ago now--what's good for General Motors is good for the nation. Or to put it another way, if you do things General Motors' way things will be fine. If you don't, well ....

And, of course, that reminded me of two similar recent dead right viewpoints. One is that of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and its moving spirit. The other is the relatives of Elian Gonzales, who floated into our lives on an inner tube and who has remained to be an angel sent from heaven to Miami's Cuban-American community.

Both Mr. Gates and the assorted great uncles, second cousins, etc. seem to think the rules are wonderful as long as they agree with them. If they don't, then the rules are wrong and the nation, the world, maybe even the universe needs a few corrections. And those corrections are all right if, of course, Mr. Gates and the Miami Cuban-Americans agree with them. Otherwise, forget it.

It must be wonderful to have such confidence in one's judgment. If the world were really like this, we could live in harmony with one another because no one would be in disagreement with anyone else. Disagreement just wouldn't exist. Microsoft would go on integrating its software with Windows until we wouldn't be able to turn a computer on without first checking in with Redmond, Washington. Who knows, we might even have to get Bill's personal approval before we could flip the switch and get the screen lit up.

Or, in the Cubans' case, we could decide what would happen to anyone who wandered ashore from an inner tube or, for that matter, flew in as a real angel. That is, of course, if we agree with their definition of who was a refugee and who wasn't. Soon not only Miami, but most of the rest of Florida would be filled with former Cubans who have decided to become Americans--provided the special rules that apply to Cuban refugees still applied, but only to Cubans, of course, not Haitians, nor those from Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, or even Colombia.

Different strokes for different folks. What we seem to be missing in all three of these cases are two things: the rule of law--which should apply to every citizen of the United States in equal measure and without regard to wealth, position, place of national origin, sexual preference or whatever; and the vision of America, however unattainable that we are all at least created equal and that we all should have an equal opportunity. I don't suppose either Bill Gates or Elian's relatives are going to read this, though, and even if they did, they wouldn't agree with it.

In Bill Gates' case I'm sure he believes that having developed Windows so it is on 97 percent of all computers in the world, he's entitled to tell us how and when we can use it. And in the case of Elian's relatives they figure that, having fled Cuba, they are upholding democracy, even if it is only their special brand of that political philosophy.

By way of sour grapes, I have to say that Bill Gates didn't really invent Windows. He didn't exactly steal it from the late Gary Kildow, but he certainly got the basic code as a bargain. And the Cuban-Americans, so it seems to me, anyway, are champing at the bit for Fidel Castro's death so they can go back to Havana and have things all their way in the old country all over again. Elian's more than a kid who floated in on an inner tube--obviously--he's become a symbol of how they plan to rescue kids like him from whatever it is that Cuba has become. And soon.

Bill, the Cuban-Americans and Charlie Wilson all need to know the world doesn't always turn out the way we want it to develop. It certainly didn't for General Motors and Charlie Wilson, and I don't think it is going to for either Elian's relatives or Bill Gates. Nor do I think it should. If we believe in the rule of law, then we have to agree with what it tells us, even if we really don't.

The alternative is totalitarianism. It's the same kind of "I know what's best for you" that troubled the world mightily during the last century--and for which we are still paying. You can never be sure you are dead right. Because you're probably not. It's when you're really sure that you're right and everyone else is wrong that you really need to look out.

You're very likely dead wrong.

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Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

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