A friend and reader of this column passed the Tuesday “Terrorists and Tyrants” piece on to a friend who responded rather forcefully that she or he didn’t wish to read any more such ideological trash. The individual went on to remark that I should be arrested and convicted if a terror attack should occur because of my unsafe obsession with liberty. Let me state that I fully understand that person’s concern with his or her safety. None of us who has our right mind willingly walks into a deadly situation. Our federal government is mandated to protect and defend its citizens from outside threats.
What I find most vexing, however, is that our government restricts our freedoms, spies on our movements and limits our capacities for making personal choices in the name of protecting us yet demonstrably fails to secure our borders. Why does our government restrict our own citizens rights and movements in the name of security but does not seriously seek to interdict those dangerous non citizens who cross our borders with impunity? Will the complaining reader hold the government responsible when a terrorist totes a small nuclear device across the border and blows an airport terminal to smithereens while he or she is standing in line waiting to be groped by the TSA? Perhaps, but the government is immune and cannot be held accountable for its failures.
Dear reader, my concerns about our loss of freedoms is not intended to strip you of your safety. I would argue as forcefully as you that your safety is an illusion, but losing our liberty is a reality that grows more ominous every day. It truly concerns me when someone wishes that I would stop writing about freedom because they want the government to insure their safety. Their eyes are open, but they do not see. I wrote in an earlier column that “wishing to live and being afraid to die” are two different attitudes. The angry reader is clearly afraid to die, and that attitude has caused him to accept nearly any thing…nearly any abuse that would give him some small sense of security. Given the reader’s state of mind, the response is predictable. For those of you who understand how governments use crises to increase power, your skepticism about government rules and enhanced “civil” security are justified. Remember Rahm Emanuel’s pithy observation that one “should never let a crisis go to waste.” Government messes up nearly every activity with which it gets involved except for those that increases its power.
Personally, I do not want anyone to be at risk, suffer harm or die as a result of a terrorist act or war. I do firmly believe that our greatest security failure in the current “War on Terror” is our government’s unwillingness to secure our borders. Government has developed the uncanny ability to close the security barn door long after the threat and the horse have moved on. Our security actions are reactive. We force U.S. CITIZENS to undergo all types of discomfort and indignities to assure that former styles of attacks do not occur again. Our government is ineffective, inefficient and power hungry. If one has listened to the story of the Osama bin Laden killing in Pakistan, one must be puzzled by how often the story has changed. These are the same people in the same theater of concern who are tasked with protecting us. Would you describe them as reliable and trustworthy?
Trust the government if you choose. Surrender your freedom and your unalienable rights if you choose. Allow the stupid, the clueless and the power-hungry to order you around like cattle if you choose. Our words are here to alert you and inform you. Ignore them if you choose. Please do not be offended if when I’m charging the hill for freedom, I do not stop and open your self- constructed cage of fear as I run by.
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