One of the seemingly positive effects of the horrific terrorist attacks on our nation is that it appears to have spawned a great wave of patriotism. Leaving aside for the moment the question raised by the need for such a gruesome and shocking event in order to kindle “patriotism,” it seems, at least to me, that we ought to be paying a little more attention to what constitutes this “patriotism,” sort of “reading the label,” as it were. I don’t know about you, but when I think about “patriotism,” as we have come to comprehend it in our American vernacular, I see having flags, tri-corner hats, and men and women that have sacrificed their lives for the freedoms we hold dear. In fact, we tend to justify in our collective consciousness nearly all American military casualties as the cost of those freedoms, imputing upon all of those who have died the burning desire to defend freedom (which is yet another debate altogether...if people are so on fire for defending our “freedom,” what’s the draft all about?).

Our government’s propaganda machine has been running at near-meltdown speed in wake of the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing war on terrorism (read: “finally we get to finish the Crusades”), taking full and blatant advantage of the nation’s panic and ensuing surge of “patriotism” (read: “baaaa baaaa baaaa”). I am all for patriotism, and in fact consider myself a patriot, and no, I don’t mean the NFL team in Boston. What is scarier to me than any new terrorist threat, though, is that what is being passed off as “patriotism” post-9/11 is about as unpatriotic as I can comprehend. We ought to call it “paranoid comradeship.” It makes me want to vomit in disgust when people tell me that speaking out against our current administration’s total disregard for Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights is contrary to the causes their grandfathers and uncles, etc. died for in WWII, Korea, etc. If they really did die for our “freedom,” they’d be horrified to learn that those freedoms they, and those before them died for are being quietly usurped by our current administration, or worse, being gladly handed over in exchange for “security.”

I sincerely believe that sacrifices are necessary in times where our national security is threatened, but the sacrifices we are being asked to make today are not the kind any American should ever make, in fact the rights and protections from our government that we are being asked to sacrifice are exactly the ones we should be willing to die for. Anyone who doubts this needs to review the rhetoric (spewing) from Attorney General (Herr Oberkommander?) John Ashcroft, which equates speaking out against current government policy with supporting terrorism. Speaking out against the government is one of the most American things one can do. That low humming noise you hear every time Ashcroft or G. W. Bush appears on your television screen is the sound of our forefathers spinning in their graves in fury at watching a single administration gleefully dismantle the checks and balances they engineered for our national government to safeguard our liberty and freedom.

The fact that we are accepting, even praising the complete denial of due process rights to people detained such as the former Jose Padilla is terrifying in its ramifications. The guy may be guilty as hell, but what credibility can the accusation have if we never prove it? And what’s to stop the government from coming after YOU next? Between the removal of basic protections from our government, and hysteria-encouraging propaganda like “Operation TIPS” (read: “kids, turn in your parents as Jews Communists terrorists, and we’ll give you a lollipop”), no one is safe. That sounds paranoid, and would have been a few years ago, but not now. Being afraid of terrorist attacks on the U.S. is no reason to surrender what we claim our forefathers fought and died for. If we allow our government to co-opt those freedoms in the name of “security” (which they don’t really even define for us), we are handing victory over to the forces that spawn such heinous acts, and we are defiling the graves of all of those who have died in the name of freedom, and those who have perished at the hands of terrorists. If we really are to believe that the terrorist forces in the world that perpetrated the attacks on the U.S. are trying to “take away our freedom,” why then are we giving it up so freely on our own? If we give up the basic freedoms that make America a truly better place to be, and a truly great nation, we will have already conceded victory in the fight against terrorism.

Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty.

-- Benjamin Franklin

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

-- Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart,1791

What county can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance?