In Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October, there is a telling dialog between Captain Marko Ramius and Captain Vasili Borodin:
Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana…And I will have a pickup truck…maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Borodin: No papers?
Ramius: No papers, state to state.
Borodin: Well then, in winter I will live in…Arizona.
Back in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, I made the prediction, to many friends who will verify such, that we would pass the Russians going in opposite directions. While the situation in Russia is up for grabs, there is no question that the United States now has its own version of the KGB (Комитет государственной безопасности—Committee for State Security). Its name? Close enough—Department of Homeland Security. More on this below.
On this 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks collectively known as “9-11″, it’s important to remember what was lost. Certainly, nearly 3000 lives were lost. And billions of dollars of property. As terrible as those things are, our loss of liberty far exceeds those losses. Edmund Burke once wrote:
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
Benjamin Franklin similarly warned:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Yes, this is where we are. Americans, in a quixotic attempt to be ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ have fallen into a trap. A trap with ever more invasive ‘security’ taking away our essential liberty. This loss of liberty is playing right into the hands of those who wish to destroy America. Because America is not just a country, but an idea. An idea founded on the principle of self-government, of liberty and unalienable rights—grounded in natural law. Destroy that ideal, and America is just another one of hundreds of nations, either extant or on the trash heap of history.
Travel in the United States has become a nightmare, as the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) institutes ever intrusive, ever more humiliating controls on travel. Air Travel is possible only if you submit to a warrantless search that is so offensive that no reasonable court would countenance it without a warrant and significant probably cause. The searches that are done are on par with searches of inmates in prison!
It’s not limited to air travel, though. The TSA claims authority over all modes of transportation, and has targeted rail and urban mass transit for ‘enhanced security measures’. And they are being implemented. And guess what? It’s coming to private transportation as well. Meet VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response)—a response team with the power to search even private vehicles. Don’t believe me? Read the Statement to Congress by John Pistole, head of the TSA. He’s asking for expansion of the VIPR program.
This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the loss of liberty, but it’s perhaps the most visible. The liberty destroying USA Patriot Act (full text here as PDF) brought widespread warrantless searches, public wiretaps, financial controls and a host of other liberty destroying laws, effectively shredding the Bill of Rights, so long as the government claimed it was counter-terrorist activity. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gave us the ‘FISA Court‘—an American ‘Star Chamber‘ court where secret warrants, secret arrests and secret trials occur out of the public view, something our Founders held as anathema. The FISA Court clearly, and without question, violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution.
The list goes on and on. Our liberties are being stripped away in the name of security. And yet, we are no more secure today than we were on September 10, 2001. Oh sure, we have plenty of security theatre, and our intelligence gathering as increased, but in the end, nothing can prevent terrorism. Those trying to prevent it must be right every time. Those trying to commit a terrorist act, only once. This is not to say that we should take no action. By no means. As Andrew Jackson said in his 1837 farewell address:
But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.
Be watchful. As I’ve discussed in many posts, we must watch our government closely, to ensure our liberty is secure. We must also be vigilant for those outside who wish to take it away. Who watches the watchers indeed. In the end, I will pose the question that Patrick Henry posed:
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
All I can say to that is “Amen”.
So today, mourn the dead from September 11, 2001. Mourn also your lost liberty. We can’t bring back the former, but we sure can bring back the latter. And we owe it to all who have died to defend liberty to do so.
About Stephen Adams
Amen and amen.