RUSSELL WANGERSKY
The Telegram

Years ago, when winter nights were pure and clean like a young conscience, I walked across a frozen pond with my former brother-in-law, Bob, and we found a calico cat caught in a leg-hold trap.

We found it at night, and its eyes were wide with pain and fear, its leg clearly broken and turned sharply to one side like the letter L. But it was still a cat, still someone's pet, and Bob murmured quietly to it, the coal of the tip of his cigarette bright in the darkness, and he bent down and moved slowly to grab the wings of the trap to free the animal.

Going wild

That was when the cat turned on Bob and sank its teeth deep into the ball of his hand, a wound that later got infected and swelled huge and tight so that his thumb ended up like a whole fist all its own, and the both of us learned that, given the right proportions of pain and fear, the veneer of domesticity that makes an animal a pet can vanish almost instantaneously. Instinct replaces other conventions, and self-protection comes to the fore.

It probably shouldn't be surprising that, given the right formula, the same thing can happen to humanity.

In the last week or so, we've gotten the chance to see our own humanity in a petri dish, and a messy little infection it can be. With the burgeoning fear about H1N1, plenty of people, even in our own so-called caring community, have thought long and hard and found a way to get vaccinations they weren't entitled to.

They showed up at vaccination clinics, kids in tow, and misled health-care workers about their health. They brought in children who fit the criteria for vaccinations, and then cajoled their way into getting shots of their own. They jumped the line, they got vaccines they weren't entitled to and, with the scarcity of vaccine right now, they essentially took the needle out of the arm of someone at greater risk than themselves.

And somewhere out there in prevarication-land (or is it Justification Cove?), they argued to themselves that they had every right to special treatment, that they didn't really jump the queue, that it was the improper rules - or that there was a lack of them, or that the rules weren't properly applied - that let them do it. That's it - it was the rules that were to blame. Because the government let us do it, we can't be held responsible.

Old argument

Now, let me see, where have we heard that empty argument before?

And recently, too.

Not that many months ago, most people in this province were horrified at the idea that this province's politicians, able to set their own rules for benefits, took advantage and filled their own pockets. "Not our fault," the MHAs bellowed. "It was the rules' fault. No one told us we couldn't. No one stopped us."

It was a hollow argument then, and it's a hollow argument now.

Got anything to say about Ed Byrne or anyone else involved in the constituency allowance scandal?

Do you have anything, perhaps, to say about the legion of MHAs who stuck up their hands and took salary increases or cash "bonuses"?

New case

Oh, you say, this is different. This is my kids' lives. This is my life.

That may change the weights involved, but it doesn't change the measure. It doesn't change the measure of a person, or, for that matter, the measure of our society.

The fact is that it isn't different.

As Brian Mulroney once famously said to John Turner during a leadership debate, "You had a choice, sir."

And you did - if you lined up and took advantage of a faulty system, you did it knowing that you weren't supposed to be vaccinated, and that you were taking someone else's vaccine.

Perhaps the provincial government, fresh from its own crisis of conscience, should have known better than to trust that this province's citizens would recognize the fact that some people had legitimate priority for receiving a vaccination first.

Perhaps they should have thought that, even in matters of life and death (or perhaps, particularly in matters of life and death), greed will often trump what's right.

That's a sad thought.

Years ago, winters were pure and clean like a young conscience. But one sharp bite will open your eyes.

Russell Wangersky is The Telegram's editorial page editor. He can be reached by e-mail at rwanger@thetelegram.com.