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“Life’s not multiple choice” is a favorite catchphrase for educators who don’t like multiple-choice test questions. The phrase is repeated as bedrock logic, but if you examine it even briefly it turns to sand. Truth is, we make endless choices daily, and we demand even more choices in everything we do.

In fact we have so many choices to make, that according to various folks who study this kind of thing, choosing becomes really stressful. Furthermore, once we’ve made a choice we feel compelled to invest a lot of emotion in defending it, even if in the light of careful reasoning it proves questionable, or contradictory, or downright hogwash. Thus, ironically, having choices can make us crazy, or at least unhappy. Philosophically, it’s called “tyranny of choice.”

We become like an old-timer I’ll call Harry, who (true story) lived in a shack near one of those post office/church/bar intersections that once existed along the graveled back roads of Minnesota’s Great North Woods. During my teen years Harry was noted locally for his lengthy alcoholic benders. When even the barkeep tried to slow Harry’s drinking, Harry’s defense was always “Set ‘er up. I’ve got so much invested now I can’t afford to quit.”

I don’t know what happened to Harry, but I do know that the foolish contradictions of his thinking remain alive and well in the world of political opinion. Take the phrase “my body, my choice,” for instance, as it is used by liberal pro-abortion advocates as a rallying cry. Certainly the phrase does express one truth within the controversy. We all want to be, and have the right to be, in charge of our own physiological destiny. But there’s more than one truth involved, as the conservative pro-life side insists. There’s obviously a point where another life is interwoven into the choices available, and at this point (wherever it is), the strict “my body” argument becomes selfish, inadequate or immoral.

Ironically, something like that phrase (one version is “my child, my choice”) has become a rallying cry for conservative anti-vaxxers. Like other such slogans it makes a lot more noise than sense, because in some situations both the logic and the ethics of mandated vaccines as a method of protecting public safety do override individuals’ opinions.

Pro-life advocates want abortion illegal and punishable because it has both medical and moral consequences. “Choose life,” they cry, then do a one-eighty when the subject is vaccinations. Yet as the history of vaccinations shows, without doubt vaccinations save lives, and thus also have medical and moral consequences. (Maybe the pro-vaxxers should hijack the slogan “choose life.” Might draw in some of their opponents. Who knows.)

I understand that it isn’t always simple to walk the tightrope between “choose for yourself” and “follow the rules.” But I also understand that individuals are not always as smart about choices as they should be.

What I don’t understand is why a simple mask and shot in the arm have risen to the level of civil disruption. They’re an inconvenience, not a denial of Constitutional rights nor a symbol of totalitarian takeover. Sloganeering, marches, threats, politicized pseudo-science, and even violence are choices, too, damaging choices, proof that the masses don’t always choose what is wise or helpful, and that authority can be justified in its mandates.

I don’t know where the balance point is here, but I’m pretty sure that when labor goes on strike or parents bully school boards over a piece of cloth, civil debate is hopelessly lost. The choices have been made: emotion over reason, anarchy over democracy, crazy over common sense.

Ron Rude,

Plains