One of the most dangerous aspects of right wing ideology is that it perceives freedom as a liability, a risky vulnerability that makes American citizens insecure. This idea was recently expressed by a member of the Homeland Analysis Group, a company that profits from the massive Homeland Security bureaucracy that has sprung up in recent years to take advantage of the irrational fear of terrorists. This person commented after one of our articles, “I think your brainpower could be put to even better use if you were helping us all figure out how to defeat the Islamic Terrorists of the world, while realizing how and why they use our own liberties against us as they plot to kill innocent people, day after day.”
That comment is flattering, and yet, unnerving. It bothers me, this claim that American liberty is a tool to be used by terrorists to kill innocent people.
The plain fact is that no terrorist has ever killed anybody with liberty. They’ve used bombs to kill people. They’ve used guns. They’ve even used airplanes. But liberty?
How do you kill someone with freedom of speech or freedom of the press? How do you kill someone with separation of church and state or the right to a fair trial? What is the exact method for killing an innocent person with protection against unreasonable search and seizure and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment?
It can’t be done. Liberty doesn’t kill. Weapons kill.
Liberty is not a liability. Liberty is what protects us. As the bloody mess in Iraq proves, even hundreds of thousands of soldiers marching through the streets and patrolling the air cannot protect people from suicide bombers. True liberty can.
If you vote for a right wing politician who views liberty as a vulnerability, then you will help make yourself vulnerable to unscrupulous politicians. If you vote for a progressive who believes in strengthening the security that liberty provides, you will be less vulnerable to unscrupulous politicians and terrorists alike.
Be free and secure. Vote to elect a progressive President in 2008.
