Listening to the Bush administration, the president and his colleagues are the only ones standing between Americans and a terrorist-led apocalypse. In order to protect us, President Bush says, he has directed the government to spy on those who would threaten our way of life.
But his efforts, which do nothing to actually make us safer, systematically chip away at our civil liberties. Presenting their case as a false choice between survival and freedom, Republicans have used fear to subdue many Americans, silencing them when their outrage is needed most.
When polled, some people seem willing to accept our slide toward
fascism. But these people, who need a refresher course on what it means to be an American, must realize that some things are too important to put to a vote. And if we willingly sacrifice our freedoms for the promise of protection, we're no better than those who would take our hard-earned liberties away.
Look, I don't know how many times I have to say this before it sinks in with some people, but I'll say it again:
Democrats are stronger on security than Republicans. Democrats didn't take their eyes off of the prize, Osama bin Laden, and wage an unjust war
based on lies that has cost the lives of more than
2,400 Americans. Democrats haven't paid lip service to homeland security, while leaving our sensitive facilities largely unprotected and supporting the
outsourcing of the management of our largest ports. Democrats aren't supporting an
illegal domestic surveillance program that forces authorities to collect the dots instead of connect them. And Democrats aren't foolishly planning to wage war in Iran, a
panicked move that would only make the world a far more dangerous place.
There's a difference between strong on security and breaking the law. That difference, if you were wondering, is the difference between calling yourself a Democrat and calling yourself a Republican. To Democrats, national security isn't a zero-sum game. We believe we can make America a stronger, safer place
and protect everyone's civil liberties. Republicans, whose commitment to civil liberties is as weak as their grip on elected office these days, don't.
Keeping America safe, however, doesn't require its citizens to forfeit their rights. When we allow the Republicans to frame national security as a false choice between survival and liberty, we let them again play on Americans' fears, a well-worn right-wing tactic. Look at how conservatives are using the language. Last year, Sen. John Cornyn
said, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead." Just last week, Sen. Pat Roberts echoed Cornyn,
saying, "I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead." There's your choice:
Let us take away your rights. If you don't, you're dead. Some choice.
Taking their lead, Neil Cavuto
said of recent revelations, "Yes, it is not great to necessarily hear they're collecting our phone records, but it's a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains." Cavuto's Fox News colleague, Carl Cameron,
said that "the idea that so many Democrats are complaining about the NSA programs without really knowing what they are is precisely why so many Republicans say Democrats just aren't serious about security." The implication here being that not only are Democrats soft of security, but they would rather let you die than track the terrorists.
You could argue that partisans like Cornyn, Roberts, Cavuto and Cameron can't help themselves. But others in the media simply have no excuse for enabling these misguided beliefs. Future CBS nightly news anchor
Katie Couric, for instance, presented warrantless wiretapping as a choice between "constitutional scholars" and Americans who "don't want another September 11." Newsweek's assistant managing editor Evan Thomas
said, "You cannot have an open society and an effective spy service." Beyond these wrong-headed attitudes, another example of media complicity in the administration's illogic came with their adoption of the White House's use of "terrorist surveillance program" to describe its warrantless wiretapping.
It bears repeating, but this is what happens when you put idiots in charge of the government and allow idiots to cover them. Not only that, but this is what happens when the people in charge of the government don't care for governing. Ever since the Bush administration took office, this
subtraction-by-addition mentality has allowed the Republicans to expand government, cut vital social services and seize power by presenting national security in such incorrectly stark terms.
When it was revealed that the NSA had been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans, snap polling showed a majority finding the program acceptable. Though the initial poll has been proven inaccurate, it represents a trend. A trend that includes many right-wingers
explaining away their acceptance of warrantless wiretapping by saying things like, "Why should we be concerned about what our government is doing to track down terrorists? We don't have anything to hide. Do you?" This isn't the point. In fact, it's so far from the point that the attitude reveals dangerous levels of ignorance. And an ominous glimpse of what may come.
You see, history has proven that there's no self-imposed "off" switch on a power grab. What began as the tracking of international calls with suspected threats at one end soon became something else entirely. It didn't stop then. What makes you think it will stop now? How long until the Cavutos and Camerons of the world explain away the administration's spying on its political opponents? Or the first imprisonment? Or the first execution? Other societies have traded freedom for security before, with disastrous results. How quickly we forget the past.
It doesn't have to be like this. We don't have to sacrifice the freedoms that make us American to an administration more resembling a dictatorship than a democracy. We can follow the rule of law while at the same time protecting Americans. That the Bush administration would argue otherwise points to the fact that what they're
really doing is, quite likely, illegal. Falling prey to their way of thinking will lead to an America that none of us would recognize. Our rights are ours to have, not theirs to take. Our freedoms aren't up for a vote.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(504 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
