[lit-ideas] Here's a fellow who gets it right

  • From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 12:01:36 +0900

Via Newsvine

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America's Choice - Freedom or Fear?
News Type: Opinion — Sat May 13, 2006 1:11 AM JST

Brad Farris
The United States is at a point where an important choice must be
made. It's not an easy choice, and it is not simply a choice between
right and wrong, or between good and evil. The choice that we really
need to make can be put in simple terms, however, which should appeal
to those who prefer to live in a binary world of black and white
options.

We may choose to live in a world in which the United States is looked
on as a model for democracy around the world, and in which we
continue, as we have for all of our history, to protect and hold our
freedoms dear, or we can live in a world in which one by one, little
by little, our freedoms are chipped away at until finally we find
ourselves disallowed from expressing our opinions so as not to
'encourage the enemy,' prevented from choosing our own religion in
order to assure uniform 'moral values,' barred from owning a weapon so
that it may not fall into the hands of 'evildoers,' compelled to
submit to random searches in public and in our homes because some of
us may be plotting against the government, and subjected to secret
abduction and incarceration without due process if someone in the
government so much as believes that we pose a threat to the nation.

For over 200 years, we have sent our young men and women to fight and
die in order to preserve our freedoms. When we give up any of those
freedoms to obtain some dubious measure of security, it is as though
we are sending a message to those brave Americans and to their
descendants that their sacrifice was wasted, that indeed it was
unnecessary. Further, it is as if we are, at the same time, sending a
message to those who would see our society harmed, indicating to them
that their tactics are working, that we are so afraid of them that we
will go to any lengths to keep them from hurting us.

For nearly 50 years, we stood toe-to-toe with a country that was
intent on our destruction, and which posessed the means to destroy
dozens of entire cities at a moment's notice. Although it can be
argued exactly what resulted in the eventual downfall of the Soviet
Union, what cannot be argued is that, even when faced with a truly
formidable opponent, the United States was strong enough to stand up
for liberty and freedom. Even though, by giving up some of our
freedoms we may have hastened or brought about victory in the Cold
War, as a nation we demonstrated to the world that it was possible to
project strength and to overcome tremendous aggression without
resorting to the tactics of totalinarianism.

During all of those Cold War years, we held up the lack of civil
liberties in the Soviet Union as the very reason that we opposed their
aggressive attempts to subvert the populations of their neighbors and
of other countries which they wished to dominate, such as Afghanistan.
We taught our children of the horrors of living in a society where
every move one makes is monitored by the government, and where
citizens who happen to oppose the government could be arrested without
warrants, held incommunicado without the benefit of legal counsel and
without being allowed to plead their case to a judge. We assured them
what distinguished the United States from the Soviet Union, and from
other totalitarian regimes, was our government's ironclad
determination not to treat its citizens with such disdain as to
presume guilt over innocence.

We are now faced with an opponent unlike the Soviet Union. Indeed, it
is difficut to tell where this opponent starts and stops. Rather than
a monolithic government, we have declared "war" on an idea. Rather
than attempting to keep a nation confined within its borders and
limited in influence, we have chosen to start a "war" to deny various
groups the ability to use a tactic which has never proven, ultimately,
to be effective. Although the Soviet Union had weaponry and ability to
absolutely and totally destroy our country, our current "enemy" has no
such ability. At best, given a scenario which is most favorable to an
organized group of terroritsts, using weapons which they may or may
not have access to, this opponent might possibly be able to cripple a
city, or maybe more than one city. Maybe. In order to do so, many
circumstances would have to be aligned in their favor, and they would
have to flawlessly evade our country's excellent law enforcement
agencies at every level.

But let's don't misunderstnd - it could happen. Thousands of Americans
could be killed in a single attack, maybe tens of thousands. Such an
attack would be an event of unparalled horror in our nation's history.

Should we be concerned? Of course.

Should we do everything within our power to prevent such an attack, no
matter what the cost? Absolutely not.

We should do everything in our power to prevent such an attack, but
absolutely not at the expense of our freedoms and civil liberties.
Those freedoms were bought and paid for by men and women over the past
200 years in many ways, including making the ultimate sacrifice for
you and I. We owe them in equal measure to that which they have paid
for our freedom. We owe our children the ability to live in the most
free and open society on the planet, not simply some country that used
to be free. We must understand that the most important battle we can
fight is the battle for our freedoms, and that we must choose to fight
that fight over all others.

--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN

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