Inevitability

[libertango]

In a comment thread at David Sucher's City Comforts, we've been talking about the administration's domestic spying program. One person said this:

"I was always dissatisfied with prior liberal complaints that we civilians had no sacrifice that we had to bear. I always thought that it was a crock, that the inevitable erosion of liberty in wartime was real sacrifice and that victory demanded such sacrifices as we temporarily acquiesce to the state powers that should be stripped of it in peacetime."

Leave aside the premise as to whether we are "in wartime" (Here's H.J.Res.114, which is the act authorizing force in Iraq. Look at Section 3, and tell me if we've achieved those things. If we have, any other use of force is unauthorized, folks. Which was Rep. Murtha's point. But I digress.)... As I say, leave that aside. The other premise bothers me even more. That is, that in wartime, an erosion of liberty is "inevitable."

I don't believe it is, at all. I'm squarely with William Pitt on this one: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

Now, if you want to say it's more difficult to fight a war while upholding liberty, I'd agree with that. But you know what? We're Americans. I think we're tough enough, and we can rise to the challenge. If you want to say this president is too weak to do the job correctly, I'd agree with you that far.

John Kerry had a great line in the first presidential debate, back on Sept. 30, 2004. It was this:

"Just because the president says it can't be done... doesn't mean it can't be done."

I thought Kerry should have hammered home on that in the close of the campaign. Just because Bush has said he has to break the law to fight terrorism, doesn't mean that someone better couldn't do the job legally. It only means this president couldn't manage to find the gumption to do it.

Here's what I really think: I think it's easy to stick to your principles when times are easy. I think it's hard to stick to your principles when times are hard.

I think that's why they call some times "easy," and some times "hard."

I think that as soon as times became hard, Bush lacked the character to stick to American constitutional principles.

But that doesn't mean it was, "inevitable." It just means this particular president failed.

It doesn't mean it can't be done.

Comments

hierarchial vs democratic

[(Anonymous)]

I think the problem is that so many people believe that democracy is a kind of weakness. They tend to believe that the other guy, who has a firmly hierarchial power structure has the advantage and we have to give up our structure to gain strength. Personally I believe that distributed power structures such as democracies and militias/guerrilla forces have the real advantage ad I hate to think that someone is going to throw away our real strength just when we need it most. In times of life and death crisis such as war we need free speech more than ever. A democratic state requires dissent to function. Criticism of the power structure is not so much a priviledge as an obligation. JD

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think in actual, full-on war civil liberties are pretty much inevitably curtailed. Look at the US in WWII or the Civil War, the UK in WWI and II (esp. WWI). But these are survival-threatening total war scenarios. Also where an actual war was declared.
I think however it is pretty clear that we are not in a literal War on Terror (Metaphor on Abstract Noun?) and furthermore, this particular POTUS is surrounded by a bunch of control-freaky creeps and the lot should be kept very much to the strict letter of the law, even in cases where I would otherwise be willing to allow a different POTUS the benefit of the doubt.