GUEST APPEARANCE: Freedom’s just another word … ?

Joe Nacca

A little inattention can go a wrong way. To wit: You’re half asleep, a can of Genny clutched in your hand, when you inadvertently push a button on the remote. BAM! Welcome to a one-year subscription to NHL Center Ice.

You’re sitting at the computer mentally replaying the putt you missed on the 18th hole. Your mouse rests on a message from Microsoft. You click. BAM! An alarm assaults your ears. You are alerted that your computer has been hacked. You are warned not to turn off the computer at risk of losing all your files and your first born child. Instead you must call “this” number. Immediately! You realize that you should buy the new model Titleist putter.

Lots of junk mail today. You’re ripping open envelopes and tossing the contents aside like a well oiled machine. A free audiology test. Nope. A free quote on vinyl siding. Nope. Here’s one addressed to “Dear City of Canandaigua resident.” That salutation is usually an automatic toss. But you read the first sentence. It names two programs, one company, and a division of said company. Sixteen capital letters within the span of 19 words. You have flashbacks to page one of your life insurance policy.

Nevertheless, you decide to read a bit more. Seems that the City of Canandaigua (that’s the name that appears, somewhat ironically, after “Sincerely”) intends to enroll you in an ESCO (Energy Service Company) for your electricity supply. Unless you return the enclosed “Opt-Out” postcard, you’re in.

Now I’ll admit to being somewhat paranoid about “opt-outs.” It goes back 60 years to my experience with the Columbia Record Club. As I remember, a gullible teenager (me!) could buy 10 record albums for a dollar and then receive the monthly Club selection for something like $3.95, ‘til the end of days. As Robert Frost poeticized, perhaps pre-figuring modern day marketing schemes, “way leads on to way” and the traveler seldom returns to that place in the woods where stands the opt-out kiosk.

And so I received album after monthly album. Only when “Burl Ives’ Greatest Hits” arrived at my freshman college dorm, to a chorus of student hilarity, did I finally shake off my lethargy and opt-out of the Columbia Record Club.

One can hardly fault private for-profit companies for employing the entangling web of the opt-out device. It’s a money maker. Heck, when I was teaching, the teacher’s union employed the same tactic. You were in unless you opted out between 11 p.m. and midnight on Feb. 8. And even then you were responsible for all but about $3.95 of the union tribute. Just enough, in Columbia Record Club days, to procure that hot vinyl, “The Ink Spots Greatest Hits.”

To state the obvious, I was not pleased to read that my municipality had partnered with two private companies to enroll my fellow residents and me in the energy supply program administered by those companies. Not pleased even if the city had done so “Sincerely.” Even if the effort was motivated by the City of Canandaigua’s support for a good cause, that good cause being to encourage more people to use renewable energy thereby saving the planet. Even if that good cause was enhancing the profits of Constellation NewEnergy, Inc., an Energy Service Company, through a program administered by Joule Community Power, a division of Joule Assets, Inc. (Whew!)

If the world of “opt-outs” should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism, that of “causes” is perhaps significantly more alarming. Humans are capable of both great and horrific deeds when worshiping at the altar of a “cause.” The cause may be individual freedom or a workers’ paradise (i.e. socialism). The cause may be “reproductive rights” or the “right to life.” For one “cause” people might make admirable sacrifices. For another, they might feel justified in destroying property, spewing hatred, and even killing unenlightened opponents. Freedom itself may be a cause. Other causes may render freedom expendable. Those are the ones that I most fear.

A society dedicated to the preservation of individual rights is forever challenged to balance individual choice and the common good. Of necessity, government often imposes laws and regulations in furtherance of the common good. The crucial question is where to draw the line between what free individuals can work out for ourselves and what government must do on our behalf.

The temptation is great for elected officials and unelected administrators to impose on the freedom of individual citizens in deference to some cause that they consider essential for the “common good.” Industrial Development Agencies compel community homeowners to subsidize the property tax bills of a lakeside resort. The cause is “economic development.” The NYS Education Dept. compels the local public school district to abandon the high school athletic teams’ nickname. The cause is social justice. The “City” (whoever exactly that is) enrolls the residents with a particular Energy Service Co. The cause is “climate change.” At what point does the “common good,” as determined by a few people, become the default system for American life? When does disdain for the citizenry’s ability to make “right” choices become so pervasive that control suffocates freedom?

Inattention can be a habit that we fall into by our own devices. But citizens can also be trained to be inattentive when they feel that more and more decisions are no longer within their control. When an increasing number of daily decisions are made for them by those who pride themselves in having a more enlightened view of the “common good.”

So, I, beset by a barrage of three-putts, debate whether to go whole hog and buy the expensive Scotty Cameron putter with the dual-milled face? Or the less expensive Cleveland Huntington Beach putter with pistol grip? Or do I save money and stick with the old bullseye blade that’s been letting me down lately. I have to make a decision. But first I have to find a mailbox — for this “Opt-Out” postcard. I only wish that I could send two.

Longtime Canandaigua resident Joe Nacca taught English at Finger Lakes Community College for 30 years.

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