Cradle of an Abstraction

If in a time of national threat from a domestic or foreign enemy--as in war, either symmetrical or asymmetrical--should we, as Americans, sacrifice liberty for safety?

For as long as this current war has been surging, I defended the argument, one well backed by history, that in wartimes all Americans relinquish certain liberties for protection. Furthermore, with an end to any of these particular crises, we would then reclaim our surrendered liberties, as well as additional ones.

The argument that by reining in our freedoms, restricting our way of life, fettering our principles, we then have lost the war from the outset, I heard numerous times.

As well, the Revolutionary sentiment, often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

These lines of reasoning ate away at the core of what is honor, what is principle, to the basic questions of man, what is right and wrong. And to the greatest couplet of questions: why and why not.

I viewed the surrender of certain liberties as a way to combat the threat in its many arrays by more flexible means, and the resoluteness of a single, immovable stance existed only in a black-and-white world.

The idea liberty becomes a casualty of war was rebutted with the simple proclamation that a life saved is a battle championed, yet I found these all inconstant with my value of principle.

The principles that liberty divides us from our foes and unites us with our allies, liberty mirrors the civilized and well-informed citizenry and lures the curious to our shores, liberty to all grants all the ability to accept and to be accepted and thusly to be equals.

Yes, liberty battles with one arm tied, yet liberty always maintains the upper hand in the moral, ideological battles, which run alongside the physical.

Better for a thousand to die for the preservation of liberty than one to be saved by liberty's crucifixion. What value does one have, if the whole is lost?

The American Experiment displays the fragility and the power of the abstraction of liberty and the majesty of the execution of such by millions who believe so ardently in the principles of liberty that death for it is something for which countless volunteer.

Not saying countless offer to wear a blindfold and smoke a last cigarette, but that countless will risk their lives for the principle that liberty must remain or the American Experiment fails, thusly, all that is fair and just or the ever attempt forwards such then fails.

What I am saying translates basically as liberty cannot be a casualty of any conflict, no matter how severe, for the principle of the abstraction then unwinds and the abstraction disappears as a dream in the closing hours of a simple, commonplace twilight and there, forgotten by the time the dreamer opens his eyes.

Paramount with all that said, politics is not a science rather a game of strategy;--hence, of compromise. Liberty and safety exist not divorced of each other, as above here summarized and as many may as well portray. We, as individuals, need the balance of this temperamental ratio of liberty and safety.

What one should come to understand, accept, and expect is for an individual--when the lines are not clearly demarcated, when the costs and benefits are not so certain, when ethics are dissociated with their functional construct--to then err on the side of liberty, the great attraction.

For from the cradle of safety comes only withering of tender liberty, while from the cradle of liberty, safety flourishes in all its yields.


This column was taken from an earlier blogpost. The title was changed by the paper for their reasons, which it is fine. It was changed to "Seeking only safety hurts liberty". Some sentences were changed as well. The last three paragraphs critique the afore read paragraphs, yet the deletion of the transition makes the argument seem inconsistent. But life goes on.