Friday Night at 8: Conclusions

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

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I’ve been writing about, among other things, safety these past couple weeks.

I have to admit that I found the comments challenging — much protest against the notion of safety, of security, and not so much definition of what security and safety really mean.

As a writer, those challenges made me take a second look at what I was writing and expanded my view.  As a result, I’ve come to some conclusions on the subject which I would like to share for anyone who is interested.

I’ve been fascinated with buhdy’s series on working to create a Petition for a Special Prosecutor.  When I look at the four charges made a priority, it made me think of the Fourth Amendment and what security and safety really mean — safety from our own government.

I’ll just quickly highlight the four charges:

The intentional manufacturing and exaggeration of evidence to justify the unnecessary, illegal, and immoral invasion of a sovereign nation.

The widespread and approved use of torture by the Bush Administration.

Illegal Wiretapping of American Citizens, prior to “legalization” under FISA “reform.”

Obstruction of Justice in the Plame Case.

All four of these charges have to do with security and safety, and all four of these charges show how our own government has not only harmed our right to personal security but has done so around the world as well.  After all, in this age of global interdependence, if the Fourth Amendment only holds true for citizens of the United States and not all people, it’s a sorry kind of security indeed that the Amendment offers.

And as I look at these charges and at the Fourth Amendment, I begin to see what we are striving for when it comes to security — the right to our own freedom.  We are striving to protect our own freedom.

Now why would we do that?  Seems to me there’s a hell of a lot of folks who are more than willing to sell their freedom for a promise by government to keep them “safe” from terrorists.

The fact is, there are a lot of dangerous people in the world, always have been.  I certainly want to live in a society where there are ways of dealing with those people so that I don’t have to get robbed, beaten, raped, etc., on a regular basis with no recourse except to go out and get a gun or a rock and become a barbarian simply in order to get a good night’s sleep and wake up with my toothbrush still in my possession.

Here in the United States and around the world, the United States of America has broken that promise over and over again.  We are no longer secure in our persons.

I feel that this is one reason why social justice is so important.  All we have to do is look at what happens to the most vulnerable in our society to see where we ourselves are headed.

No government has the right to torture.  No government has the right to spy upon its own citizens.  No government has the right to wage preemptive war.  No government has the right to think itself above the law.

We can talk about the past forever, and find parallels here and there, but I’m not interested in the past in the context of this essay.  This is happening now.  People in the past found their own ways to fight tyranny and find real security in their persons, but now it is our turn.

Security and freedom are not contradictory.  Nor is freedom and safety.  Especially when what we are protecting, keeping safe, is something more than ourselves, more than our own particular circumstance or situation.

We want to defend and protect the Constitution, not because of American exceptionalism, but because we love freedom.  To protect and defend is to make safe.  I would also suggest a quality of sacredness is involved in this as well, that we set some things apart, make them sacred, because they mean more to us than anything, sometimes even our own lives.

Parents would often give their lives to protect their children.  I think protecting and defending freedom is no different and there is a love of freedom involved in this as well which is not contradictory to the love of a parent for their child.

I will be happy to get involved in sending out the petition for a Special Prosecutor.  To me, it’s all about the freedom.

Thanks to YouTuber Blijd for the video.  Aretha Franklin, “You better think”:

A happy Friday to all.  Saw the sun today in the Big Apple and it was a beautiful sight after so much rain.  Hope all those in the path of the big ice storms in the Northeast are doing ok.