Here’s How It Works
Here’s how it works.
The War on Terror —or whatever name you want to give this ongoing confrontation with the Mohammedan Menace— will not be won or ended tomorrow or next month or even in this decade. It is a concept with a long shelf-life and it will be revived from time to time in theater after theater for as long as our leaders believe it’s necessary. Better get used to it. Better pace yourself.
But it will not do in every instance where executive actions outrage the civil liberties theoreticians among us to say that whatever measures are being taken must be taken because we are living in a time of war. I know that. We ought not allow our leaders to resort to the argument that they are only acting on wartime contingencies when they go beyond our comfort levels in pursuing the information they need to wage war against our real enemies. That cannot be their default setting.
But, in some instances, it must do. And you know which instances those are.
I don’t know if you’d call it cognitive dissonance or what, but the American People seem to be having a surprisingly hard time accepting the reality of life in the Information Age. They seem to be struggling with the reality that we are all known to hundreds and thousands of different agencies, companies, and states —right down to the most basic and personal facts of our individual lives. We will not escape this. We will be branded with the marks of the beast.
It would be better for us all to understand now that the virtually omniscient capacity of our governments, creditors, and trading partners to know what we are leaves us equally exposed. And equally free.
That the State may pry into my life and that its agents may know me with some intent is a given. I will not escape it. But I transparently advocate whatever I wish and I will not hide it simply to avoid the consequences of my thought. Hiding and avoiding the consequences of our advocacy is what the haters on the Left do. I don’t want to be that sort of person.
I would rather stand by my own beliefs and accept the consequences.
The possibility of our civil liberties cannot be more valuable than what they are in their essence.
That is to say, I will not deny my Government its ability to investigate those who would commit murder and crimes against my society just because I would rather take offense at the possibility that my Government could investigate me. I am unimpressed by the Leftist conceit that hypothetical violations of our rights are worse than real violations.
I mean, have you been rounded up and sent to a death camp yet?
