Learning From The Past

In all of the controversy of the Clinton episode on FOX News I stated that it isn’t as important who is to blame for our mistakes as it is that we learn not to repeat those mistakes. Just a little food for thought.

I am currently reading “Not A Suicide Pact” by Judge Richard Posner. I wanted to share a few excerpts that go along with the topic of learning from our past.

Civil libertarians neglect a genuine lesson of history: that the greatest danger to american civil liberties would be another terrorist attack on the United States, even if it was on a smaller scale than the 9/11 attacks–but it could be on the same or even a much larger scale. The USA PATRIOT Act, which civil libertarians abhor, was passed within weeks of those attacks; it never would have passed, or in all likelihood even have been proposed, had the attacks been thwarted. The other novel measures that the government has adopted to combat the terrorist menace, and that civil libertarians denounce, also would not have been adopted had it not been for 9/11. A minor present curtailment of civil liberties, to the extent that it reduces the probability of a terrorist attack, reduces the likelihood of a major future curtailment of those liberties. I emphasize “minor” and “major.” Obviously civil libertarians shouldn’t applaud repressive measures that contribute to national security only trivially.

Civil liberties depend on national security in a broader sense. Because they are the point of balance between security and liberty, a decline in security causes the balance to shift against liberty. An even more basic point is that without physical security there is likely to be very little liberty. Who would dare, without protection against terrorist retaliation, to criticize Islam? Intimidation can stifle liberty as effectively as laws can.

Perhaps there is no other issue as fragile to the preservation of our liberties than a careful balance between civil liberties and our national security. To its credit, the ACLU recognizes the danger if the scales are tipped too far to the side of national security, however it doesn’t seem to acknowledge the danger if the scales are reversed.
A president that liberals are fond of quoting, Thomas Jefferson, once said:

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

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