© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin
The problems in Boston this last week have brought up other problems that arose from dealing with the attack upon the Boston Marathon and the subsequent capture of an alleged terrorist. Constitutional Rights were not in effect for citizens of the area because there was an emergency. It has been said there was not enough time for the proper judicial authority so it was skipped.
We are a nation of laws so when the government does not abide by laws I become concerned. Perhaps this was an unfortunate instance when the problems of law-breakers required our nation of laws to not be a nation of laws. What concerns me is not this time, which is gone, it is the next time.
It is ever so easy the first time to find a reason to not abide by our Constitution and to not give American Citizens their rights since this was an emergency. What about the next time and the time after that? Have we forfeited all of our Constitutional Rights because of an attack upon our nation? I would hope not.
More so, if we have to lean one way or the other, which way should we lean: toward a tyranny of the government where citizens are forced at gunpoint to obey the authorities or liberty that requires the authorities to abide by the laws of private property search? Me, I am for the government never having a time when we trade our Constitutional Rights for safety.
Further, in the last few years it appears that in our information age there is little information. What really happened with the “Fast and Furious” investigation other than it ground to a halt with no one in leadership being charged. Yet, the President used Executive Privilege to keep the Attorney General from answering questions. Are we ever going to get those questions answered and why is our President intimately involved?
Then there is the unexplained happening September 11, 2012 in Libya where something strange happened but there are still no real answers. The Ambassador and some CIA operatives were slain in a seven hour battle. No one came to their aid. We know that people in the White House watched real time but there is no understanding of the President’s role. Will we ever get the truth?
Finally, there are multiple tracks of questions in Boston that are not being answered, and it seems that the White House is shielding a possible participant, a Saudi foreign student who was living in Boston instead of where he was supposed to be in Ohio. It is likely we will not get the story. The real question is why are we citizens not getting any of these stories.
Add to that concern that we have had an instance where a town was effectively shut down without court order and people’s houses were searched without search warrants. Again, it was for our safety.
So what I would like is two-fold: first, an understanding why proper channels were not used in Boston to detain an entire town and to search house by house. But that is something that happened so perhaps it is water under the bridge. More important, can our government just shut down towns without judicial review? Likewise, can the authorities shut down a state or even the entire nation without judicial review?
Could there be a day when every American is confined to home without paperwork? Could we find a day when every home in American is searched without judicial review? Could the newspapers be shuttered and the Internet cut off? Could the cable networks be stopped and there be no one to write about it?
This is Benjamin Franklin’s point when he says, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” At what point is our temporary safety worth more than our essential liberties?
Perhaps we should be talking about this in Congress and our state Legislatures. If we do not talk now, we may not ever. Will you trade safety for your liberty?
Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico on six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
