What ever happened to the Home of the Brave?

Every time I read what a BushCo enabler has to say, I'm reminded of the Greg Stillson character in the Dead Zone -- the guy who is running for Congress and who, when Johnny Smith tries to assassinate him, holds a child up as a human shield and, in so doing reveals his true nature for all to see. This "true nature" is the complete selfishness of one who would do anything to save himself -- including sacrificing a child, or, in the case of BushCo, sacrificing the Constitution and the freedom and principles upon which America was founded.

These people seem to be, and certainly try to make everyone else be, so scared that they will do or condone anything to save their sorry asses. What ever happened to the idea that freedom and principles were worth risking your life to protect? What ever happened to the Home of the Brave?

Witness GWB's comments when he signed the so-called Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law this week:

Over the past few months the debate over this bill has been heated, and the questions raised can seem complex. Yet, with the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat? Every member of Congress who voted for this bill has helped our nation rise to the task that history has given us.

As Glenn Greenwald points out in another outstanding post, these up-is-downers turn everything on its head.

That is the essence of virtually every argument made by Bush supporters on virtually every terrorism-related issue. No matter what objection is raised to the never-ending expansions of government 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 we must protect ourselves. That is the only recognized value, the only objective that matters. By definition, 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.

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But our entire system of government, from its inception, has been based upon the precise opposite calculus -- that many things matter besides merely protecting ourselves against threats which might kill us, and beyond that, we are willing to accept an increased risk of death in order to pursue those other values. That worldview -- that maximizing physical safety to the exclusion of all else leads to a poor and empty way of life, and that limiting government power is so necessary that we do it even if it means accepting an increased risk of death when doing so -- is what lies at the very core of what America is.

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Our country is centrally based upon the principle that we are willing to risk death in order to limit government power. Numerous other amendments in the Bill of Rights are identically based on that same principle and, of course, that is the central belief that drove the founders to risk death by waging war against the most powerful empire on earth. We have never been a country that ignores other objectives and asks only, as the President put it, did "Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?" There have always been numerous other values beyond mere protection which are at least as important and that have to be fulfilled in order to be convinced that we acted properly.

The President's comments are as historically inaccurate as they are contrary to core American principles. Historically, the worst mistakes made by America -- those instances in which it has most radically departed from its principles and aspirations -- have come not when Americans failed to take seriously enough some external threat, but to the contrary, when government leaders exaggerated the threat and induced overreactions among citizens. That is the question that will almost certainly be asked by historians. As History Professor Joseph Ellis wrote earlier this year in The New York Times:

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In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing. . . . .

But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency.

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Barnett says that his goal is to "convince people who think that we’re perfectly safe that we’re not." But nobody thinks we're "perfectly safe." Nothing in life is "perfectly safe." Perfect safety is an illusion, something that is wasteful to pursue, and when pursued to the exclusion of all else, creates a tragically worthless, paralyzed way of life. On a political level, pursuit of "perfect safety" as the paramount goal is precisely what produces tyranny, since one will be motivated by that value system to vest as much power as possible in the government, without limits, in exchange for the promise of maximum protection.

That is the mindset being used to justify endless expansions of presidential power and a radical abandonment of our country's values. Eliminating all risk of the Terrorist Threat is what matters, and nothing else can stand in its way. Hence, torture, indefinite detention, warrantless eavesdropping -- the whole array of authoritarian powers sought by this administration -- are justified because none of the abstract principles and values that are destroyed by vesting such powers matter when placed next to the scary prospect that The Terrorists will kill us. That is the precise opposite of the American ethos, but -- as the President's remarks this week illustrate, appropriately voiced when our country legalized torture and indefinite detention -- it is the predominant mindset under which the country is being governed.