PILOTS, WALK OFF THE JOB. DO IT NOW. AND DON’T COME BACK UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT BACKS DOWN.

Pilots, go on strike.

Pilots, bring the U.S. airline industry to a halt.

Airlines, support your pilots. Demand that they, at least, be allowed to defend themselves in the event of another mid-air terrorist attack. Tell the world that you, too, are on strike–against any creed that would deliver forcibly disarmed crew and passengers into the hands of any troupe of terrorists wily enough to squeeze past security with lethal weapons in tow.

Passengers, support your pilots. When the strike begins, do not complain to anyone in the airline industry about how your travel plans must now be deferred or cancelled. If you want to bitch, bitch to the government.

Bitch to Undersecretary of Transportation John Magaw, who in explaining to Congress last week why his department had to deny to pilots the right of self-defense, said, “Pilots need to concentrate on flying the plane”…as if pilots are inclined to commence target practice as soon as the plane levels off at 20,000 feet.

Bitch to the guy who says, “The cockpit in the aircraft is for the pilots to maintain positive control of that aircraft…get it on the ground as quickly as you can, regardless of what’s happening back there.” Yeah…regardless…. (The government still might let pilots carry stun guns, says Magaw; they’re thinking about it. Yeah, okay, take as much time as you need.)

Question: If a terrorist is smashing through the cockpit door, preparing to shoot you, do you “maintain” control of the plane better if you have the ability to shoot him before he shoots you…or if you don’t have that ability?

Karl Marx talked about class warfare, an allegedly inevitable and fundamental conflict of interest between vaguely defined economic classes. This class warfare would supposedly persist until all classes dissolve and the Morlocks reign supreme. According to many Marxoids–the sort of people who protest meetings of the World Trade Organization, say–the economic world is divided primarily into a) capitalist pigs and b) downtrodden workers. Or, to put it another way, the class of Atlases and the class of drones; or the men of the mind and the men of the grind.

Of course, the class warfare is a myth. Anyone may find himself in any one of a multiplicity of “classes” at any moment, depending on what he is doing. A class is just a group that has been identified and tagged, sometimes according to experience, sometimes according to prejudice. Except for people stuck in a rut and determined to stay there, one’s economic “class” is a fluid and changeable thing. One minute you’re buying, the next you’re selling. One minute you’re a renter and cursing the landlord for failing to cut you some slack, the next you’re a “landlord,” damning a dilatory roommate. Souls animated by the cool light of reason realize that we’re all unique individuals who are dealing with other similarly unique individuals–not delegates of a “class” dealing with delegates of another “class.”

Another point Marx missed is that insofar as we choose to be responsible, civilized individuals, the “class interests” of economic “classes” are fundamentally identical anyway. If we are all willing to work for a living and to cooperate with our fellows in the peaceful pursuit of productive ends, without trying to steal things that don’t belong to us or bash anybody over the head for no good reason, there are no “workers of the world” who can or should “unite” to break any “chains.” Yes, in the real world there are chains, but they do not consist of the opportunity to earn a living.

The “classes” of any “class warfare” presuppose a feeling of solidarity with other members of the same group, who share antagonism toward inimical Others. Such a perception can be rational or irrational, natural or trumped-up. In the wake of September 11, new classes have emerged, or at least new class consciousness. The conflict of terrorist scum versus civilized human beings originates in an opposition of values as opposite as it is possible for values to be. But this is only the most obvious large-scale mutual antagonism of interests in the world today.

Ten months ago, if all the pilots had gone on strike, say over a pay issue, there would have been a “class” of pilots in temporary opposition to a “class” of inconvenienced passengers and airline officials. Not exactly what Marx had in mind, but good enough for the 6 o’clock news. But now, if the pilots go on strike as is their moral duty, there will be the class of “people” versus the class of “gun-control nuts and transportation-department bureaucrats scared of their own shadow.” This new class warfare will be fought–or should be–between the class of people who want to live and the class of people who would let them die, as mandated by the theology of gun control.

Magaw concedes that armed pilots might have made a difference on September 11. Does he believe that any such eventuality is now permanently foreclosed?

Congressman Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has it right. “Nothing else can provide the deterrence or effectiveness of a gun wielded by a highly trained individual.”

According to WorldNetDaily, “A leader of the Airline Pilots’ Security Alliance says he personally opposes a strike to force the government to allow firearms in the cockpits, but he has heard rumblings about the possibility from others.”

Duan Woerth is president of the 62,000-member Air Line Pilots Association. He says: “The government already has told us that if terrorists take control of one of our cockpits, they will send military aircraft to shoot down the airliner and all its crew and passengers. In the face of such choices, we do not understand why these same government officials refuse to give pilots a last chance to prevent such a tragedy.”

But it’s very simple, Mr. Woerth. You are to die so that the mythology of gun control may live.

In the wake of the government’s lousy decision, there’s been talk of congressional legislation that would force the government’s hand and permit pilots to be armed notwithstanding the irrationality of the Transportation Department–so long as the pilots are properly trained and promise not to do any target practice while flying the plane.

Okay. But if you’re going to pass this legislation, pass it fast.

Otherwise, the pilots of America have some uniting to do. #