Ben Franklin once said, Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Choose freedom."" He said this as he defied the imposing British imperial power, which controlled most of the known world at the time.
Fast forward to today when we have ceded some of our most cherished liberties. Our liberties are gone because of a militia thousands of miles away fighting with AK-47s they lifted from a dead Soviet in 1980.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism has been our only focus. It has dominated all U.S. policy for the better half of a decade, much to the detriment of our foreign policy and social welfare here in the United States. I had hoped that this would end with Bush's second term, but I think we all have some reason to doubt this.
As far as I can see, perhaps the best prerequisites for becoming president are the willingness to nuke Iran or the ability to protect the United States from an extraterrestrial attack. I hope we can all see this for what it is: the manifestation of invisible and unsubstantiated fear engineered to make us obey.
One act defined us, albeit a deadly tragedy for the families of those involved, but as a result we subverted all the aspects of America that originally made us a beacon of freedom and a country based on aspirations of humanism and liberty. We are ignoring what our forefathers established.
Don't you get it? If you live in a country where, due to a terrorist attack, the government curbs our civil liberties, the terrorists have already won. If you live in a country where each thought and action is predicated by terrorism, like saying, ""If we don't do this, the terrorist have won,"" they already have.
Yes, but the terrorist hate our freedom. What can we do? First of all, the terrorist don't hate our freedom. Maybe George Bush, Paul Wolfowitz or Bernard Lewis believe this, but personally I believe the terrorists hate our support of Israel, our military bases in Saudi Arabia and our continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I believe this because this is what Osama bin Laden said. If terrorists really hated freedom, the Netherlands would be a smoking crater or they would have chosen to attack one of the dozen countries whose citizens possess a higher degree of personal freedom than the United States. Perhaps this is one of the fundamental misunderstandings perpetuating the War on Terror, which continues to create new terrorists every day.
And, ironically enough, it was this underhanded and misguided defense of our freedom that was most damaging to our freedom itself. This has to stop.
Or does it? We could be afraid and obey. After all, hysteria and blind obedience brought our nation into some of its proudest moments - the Salem Witch Trials, suspension of Habeas Corpus, bouts of xenophobia, the internment of the Japanese, the McCarthy hearings, et-cetera. These same fears helped George Bush get elected to a second term a decision even many Republicans are regretting at this juncture. I hope we have learned enough not to perpetuate these circumstances by electing a president who will continue this red herring in Iran or elongate the quagmire in Iraq.
Don't get me wrong. Terrorism is a real threat. However, it isn't the most important issue. It certainly isn't any reason to forfeit liberties and should not be the primary drive in electing our next president. Any decent president should be able to protect us from terrorists to some degree.
That being said, no president can simultaneously guarantee they can thwart all terrorist attacks in the future. This reflects short sightedness and ignorance. However, the good thing is that the sole duty of the president is not to stop terrorist attacks or continually warn us of our impending doom. The job of the president is to protect the constitution and uphold the laws of the United States in order to ensure a quality of life that reflects the ideals upon which this country was founded.
Hopefully we can support a candidate that has the courage to put the war on terror where it belongs on the back burner. Right now, we should more concerned with providing adequate healthcare, improving American schools, balancing the Federal budget, rebuilding the Gulf Coast, repaying our foreign debts, fixing the Social Security fiasco, cutting the $40 billion military budget to reallocate funds, curbing the harmful aspects in the War on Drugs and dismantling the prison industrial complex.
Maybe if we had time we could also stop 93 percent of the world's opium from flowing from American controlled Afghanistan.
Matt Jividen is a senior majoring in history. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
