By Selwyn Duke
We dispatched the Taliban like Grant took Richmond, and now we're poised to visit the same fate upon Saddam Hussein and his minions. It certainly is an action that may need to be taken, but I must say that I'm a lot more worried about domestic tyrants than the ones abroad. What am I talking about? Well, I ask you: what reasons are we given for why we must uproot terrorists, no matter where they may be? We're told that it's because we must protect ourselves from those who would do us harm. And, this certainly is a legitimate reason - no doubt about it. But there's another reason that's not so legitimate, and the sanctimoniousness with which it's pronounced absolutely sickens me. I'm talking about the notion that we're going on the warpath to preserve freedom. My foot we are - it's utter nonsense.
Now, many of you may wonder how I could so assuredly dismiss such a claim. I can, because it's become painfully obvious that most Americans don't know the meaning of the word "freedom." And, I'm tired of demagogic politicians posturing about how they cherish freedom and are going to go to the mat for us to preserve it, and then almost in the same breath telling us that they're going to remove some freedoms because we're too dumb to be anything but subjects. Oh, they of course don't phrase it that way; no, they tell us that they're protecting children, or women, or the public. Or, they tell us that they're providing access to medical care, or schooling, or that they're protecting the environment.
A great example of what I'm talking about is the anti-smoking law that's been proposed on Long Island, in New York State. I would say unbelievably, but nothing surprises me nowadays, it states that a person cannot smoke in his OWN car if he has his children with him. Now, this is just one little law in one little corner of America, but it's perfectly symbolic of the creeping totalitarianism that is befalling us. Will it pass? Probably; this is because many people are so ignorant that they actually think mandating such things is a good idea.
And that's the problem: people have been conditioned to so reflexively rely on government that they believe it's there to impose "good ideas" on us - that its role is to micromanage our lives. Well, lots of things are "good ideas." Let's just take the issue of raising kids for instance - I can think of many other things that are "good ideas." Not feeding them a bad diet is certainly a good idea; after all, doing so can lead to heart disease and a whole host of other physical ailments. Remember, artery-clogging, fat-laden ice cream isn't a necessity; neither is fast food - maybe we should outlaw these things. Preventing children from watching TV is a great idea, so maybe we need a law that states you can't have a boob tube in your home if there are some bambinos around who could be exposed to it. Maybe we should create a law that disallows parents from letting their teenagers go mountain climbing or engage in other high-risk activities - look, these things will kill you a lot faster than second-hand smoke ever could. And, getting back to the preposterous law at issue, let's think about the reasoning behind it and take it to its logical conclusion. If it's just to prohibit people from exposing their kids to smoke in the enclosed environment of a car, why not disallow it in a house? That's next, believe me. I know, you're going to tell me that the interior of a house is a much larger area. Well, I once attended a party at a home in which the only people who weren't smoking were the children, and let me tell you, I thought I had just walked into London.
What many people don't realize, in their myopic view of how to do social good, is that what goes around comes around. If you allow an atmosphere to develop in which it's acceptable to remove people's freedoms simply because they're unfashionable, you can bet your bottom dollar that eventually freedoms that you hold dear will be put in the crosshairs too. Government is like a beast: release it from its cage and feed it too much, and soon it becomes so big and powerful that there's no way to rein it in. A government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got. Listen, why do you think that the Iraqis, South Koreans and Chinese live under the yolk of tyranny? Because their masters have guns? Sure they do. But, those governments didn't always exist; eons ago those peoples chose paths that shaped their ends. They made the wrong choices, and that allowed tyranny to develop. We're making the wrong choices too.
I hope this war against Islamic Extremists is successful - I truly hope that our government prevails as it pursues its legitimate mandate to protect us from external threats. But when power-hungry politicians set out to protect us from ourselves, that's when they and their supporters are exceeding their mandate and become an internal threat. We'd better wise up and keep our eye on the ball, and realize that the most important war is the culture war that must be won if there's going to be anything worth protecting from the Saddam Husseins of the world. Because wicked foreigners can hurls bombs at us, but freedom isn't taken away in Kabul or Baghdad. It's taken away in Washington DC, and in the other halls of government right on our own soil.
