Monday, May 28, 2007
Habeas Corpus survived a long time until Bush thought it was "quaint". There have been Revolutions, Two World Wars, a cold war with enough nuclear weapons to blow up the planet. 3,000 dead from guys with box-cutters was apparently more than our constitutional liberties, the Geneva conventions, and habeas corpus could handle.
What is mystifying is the people in towns like Alliance, Ohio convinced that Osama is targeting their personal destruction. He isn't. Now, the world record ball of aluminum foil there does make an inviting target, and a whimsical tourist locale, and is quite shiny, but they are likely safe.
We could bubble-wrap our kids after buckling them into our cars for an extra level of safety (remember breathing holes moms), but we don't. Our culture has become so risk adverse that we are suffering because of it. America was built on the backs of slaves, but it began growing because of entrepreneurial spirit. Those who risked everything in a gold rush, a new invention, a move out west could be left with nothing, but the rewards were also great. We are a culture that loves to gamble in Vegas on the week-ends, and on the lottery at home.
We have now taken a gamble that our civil liberties are less valuable to us, than the remote chances of the bogey-man pinpointing aluminum foil for destruction.
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