Journal 2.0

I would very much like to share this post with my very vocal Bush/McCain/Palin-supporting neighbors.  I found it at GranneBlog.  The full article is by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com.

“That is the essence of virtually every argument Bush supporters make regarding terrorism. No matter what objection is raised to the never-ending expansions of executive power, no matter what competing values are touted (due process, the rule of law, the principles our country embodies, how we are perceived around the world), the response will always be that The Terrorists are waging war against us and our overarching priority — one that overrides all others — is to protect ourselves, to triumph over Evil. By definition, then, there can never be any good reason to oppose vesting powers in the government to protect us from The Terrorists because that goal outweighs all others.

But our entire system of government, from its inception, has been based upon a very different calculus — that is, that many things matter besides merely protecting ourselves against threats, and consequently, we are willing to accept risks, even potentially fatal ones, in order to secure those other values. From its founding, America has rejected the worldview of prioritizing physical safety above all else, as such a mentality leads to an impoverished and empty civic life. The premise of America is and always has been that imposing limitations on government power is necessary to secure liberty and avoid tyranny even if it means accepting an increased risk of death as a result. That is the foundational American value.“

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We have been so conditioned in these last eight years, that this truth seems almost a distant memory.

America’s founders came here to escape tyranny.  How would they feel about the measures taken by our “leaders” and the extent to which they have dismantled the meticulously considered and executed systems put in place to prevent tyranny in the New World?