The Liberty of Others (Spain declares Ben Franklin to be obsolete!)

Tech Central Station ^ | March 18, 2003 | Carroll Andrew Morse

[quidnunc]

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. – Benjamin Franklin

I imagine that you have heard the quote before. On my side of the Atlantic, though we may argue about what constitutes "essential" liberty, we do agree upon the importance of the principle articulated in Franklin's maxim. The principle is applicable now, as the cliché goes, more than ever — but not in the usual context. Since the events of September 11, 2001, critics of the war on terror's domestic policies have frequently invoked Franklin's warning as part of their objections to the USA PATRIOT Act or to expanding the powers of the Department of Homeland Security. The events of March 11, 2004 make it imperative that we examine the war on terror's international policies through the lens of Franklin's warning.

The citizens of Spain — a country that had openly and materially supported bringing liberty to Iraq — had their security threatened. The people of Madrid were brutally attacked. Just three days prior to national elections, 201 people were killed by a series of railway bombs. Though officials are loathe to publicly admit it, the attacks influenced the outcome of the elections. In the wake of the massacre, the citizens of Spain voted to oust the leadership that had supported the liberation of Iraq. Within hours of being declared the victor, Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced plans to pull Spain's troops out of Iraq. Zapatero's Spain will not play a leading role in building democracy from the ashes of tyranny.

The willingness of Spain to abandon the Iraqi people after the Madrid bombings demonstrates the existence of an option for trading liberty for security not anticipated by Franklin. Franklin assumed the existence a dangerous human inclination to sacrifice one's own liberty in pursuit of security. Over the past several decades, however, a different source of liberty that can be traded away has been discovered. The liberty of others has been identified as a tradable commodity.

Would those who voted to oust the government of Jose Maria Aznar undo the liberation of Iraq if it would undo the March 11 bombing? Is the defeat of Aznar's government a publicly offered quid pro quo where Spain agrees to not actively participate in the international war on terror if the Islamists will not again send their death squads to Spain? If other parts of the free world are willing to follow the Spanish example, then the election day following March 11 may be remembered as the day when the free citizenry of the world declared Benjamin Franklin's famous warning to be obsolete. March 11 may be remembered as the day when it became acceptable to trade tangible liberty for a promise of security.

If we still accept the wisdom of Franklin's warning, and we still accept that trading away your own freedom for security is bad, then trading away someone else's freedom for your own security is worse. Not only do you give away liberty that is not yours to give, but you begin the process of giving away your own.

-snip-

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Bump.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

**They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. – Benjamin Franklin ***

How about a trip in the Professor's "wayback" machine!

When men give up their freedom willingly in the name of security, they soon lose even that degraded security. --Cicero