This question appears periodically in many forms. If you favor strict gun controls, should you be packing heat? The answer is that if a certain policy is set in law, it is appropriate to act in accord with the current policy while at the same time advocating a change in policy.

In 1988, columnist and former State Department official Carl Rowan, an advocate of strict gun control, used an unregistered handgun to shoot a trespasser. A trial ended with a hung jury, and he was never retried. Certainly he should have registered the gun, but he was not necessarily a hypocrite for owning one. Many gun control advocates believe that if gun ownership were banned legally, then the country would be a much safer place. But until the day of that universal ban, then one may believe the country is not a safe place. The law says that citizens have a right to protect themselves.

If Rowan made the claim that even in the society of his day there was no need to own a gun, then he would be a hypocrite, but I see no record of him having said that. He may be separately guilty of poor judgment, but that’s a different issue.

You may believe that airplanes should only be fueled with hydrogen, that Social Security should be changed to be more like an IRA, or that the Post Office should be privatized. But it is not hypocrisy to fly on conventional airlines, cash you social security check, or mail a letter, all until such time as the new system you advocate comes into effect. You are doing no more than acknowledging that the world remains as it is until it is changed. It is playing the cards you are dealt.

In the case of earmarks, the citizens of every state pay taxes, some of which are returned as earmarked expenditures within the state. Failing to accept earmarks then amounts to leaving the citizens shortchanged, at least by a little. It isn’t hypocrisy to ask for and receive them so long as that is the system.

There is also nothing wrong with refusing earmarks in order to make a point or to underscore how strongly believe. You can choose not to fly on regular airplanes or refuse to use the Post Office if you think your demonstration of conviction sufficiently aids your cause. There is no moral obligation to do so.

Civil disobedience is the act of disobeying a law to draw attention to a belief that the law should be overturned. Many people honor civil disobedience as a measure of conviction. Refusing to use the current of earmarks, or whatever, is a means of protest short of breaking the law. It may be done consistently or upon occasion, just as civil disobedience is practiced.

In the current election campaign, Senator McCain uniformly refuses earmarks and Governor Palin refuses some of them. Others who oppose earmarks accept them consistently. Those who accept them should not be accused of hypocrisy. They are playing the cards they have been dealt.

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1. Wikipedia, Carl Rowan