Freedom Ain't Cheap

Been busy lately, so I haven't posted in a while, but today I'm driven to it.


I've been checking essays--persuasive essays that my juniors are doing to prepare for the ACT--and their positions, their supporting arguments behind them, have me just a little freaked out.


Some background...


I teach an ACT prep course. It's what most juniors take as one half of their 11th grade English requirement. Every couple of weeks we do an ACT-style essay. 30 minutes to take a position on an issue and argue it convincingly. It's not an easy thing to do, so we practice a lot. 


Here's this week's prompt (a short version follows): 
In many of the largest airports around the country, full body scanners (sometimes referred to as “naked scanners”) and enhanced pat-down procedures have been implemented. Some groups are calling for these measures to be removed, claiming that they not only violate the 4th amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and protection of privacy, but are ineffective in catching potential threats. Others claim the new procedures better ensure the safety of the passengers, crew, and those on the ground by acting as a deterrent to terrorist attempts. Should such technology and procedures be the standard rule for all of our nation’s major airports? In your essay, take a position on the issue. You may write about either of the two points of view, or you may propose a different point of view. Use specific reasons and examples to support your position.


Short version: Has TSA gone too far with airport security?


So anyway, I'm grading these essays and coming across a LOT of comments like these: 


"Our safety is the most important thing..."


or "No constitutional amendment is more important than our safety..."


or "If better security means dumping the 4th amendment, then so be it!" 


Some of these are actually coming from kids who, in less than two years' time, will be in the military, risking their lives to secure freedom. They'll be proving by their actions that there are things that are more important than safety and security. But some are coming from kids who just can't see past their own skin.  


As a teacher, I'm torn as to the root cause here. Do they not see the disconnect? Are they still at a place on the learning curve that this example--allowing our gov't to violate a constitutionally protected right to freedom from unreasonable search--just doesn't have the same form that physically fighting an enemy has? 


Or maybe it's that they don't understand that the greatest threat to our freedom is, and always has been, ourselves, and that the constitution is there as a protection between the governed "us" and the governing "us." It is, after all, much easier to see the enemy in that desert over there, or on that continent over there, than it is to see that the enemy is us, and the treason is in our own hearts.


Or maybe it's that they don't see the logical end of such a position, that a compromise here says that all provisions in the Constitution are up for grabs and that the Fed's enumerated powers are more like suggestions. It takes a lot more dot-connecting to see this than it does to see some foreign tyrant who wants to put chains on you. 


But even if they don't get the deeper spiritual stuff, or the logical implications, you'd think they would at least respond to the whole romantic, patriotic notion of freedom having a great cost to it. I don't think any of them would disagree that giving up our lives to defeat Hitler was worth it. 


Again, maybe the example here is just too subtle.


This week, as the kids were writing, I got to thinking about this prompt more than I usually do, and before I even saw what they were doing with it, I decided to write the essay myself. So here it is, my ACT essay on airport security:

            Beware the term “post-9/11 world.” Too often these days it’s used to justify some government measure limiting our civil rights. From illegal wire-taps to an open assassination of a US citizen, such actions are justified by the simple response that we live in a post-9/11 world. Just because the terrorists ignored our Constitution when they struck the twin towers doesn’t mean that our government should ignore it too. But the invasive use of technology and search methods in airports today does just that. Moreover, it hasn’t proven any more effective in deterring terrorism than the methods it replaced. And if the 4^th amendment can be set aside with a simple memo from the President’s desk, what’s next? Our freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? The safety that the TSA promises—even it was effective—is simply not worth the cost of our freedom.

            For 230 years our people have paid the ultimate price to defend our liberties and make it possible that following generations could live in freedom. That’s what we’re celebrating every Fourth of July, Memorial and Veteran’s Day. Even in times of peace we remind ourselves that freedom comes at a cost and that the cost—an absolute cost for some—is worth it. What’s changed? Why do we not demand the same sacrifice today? In fact, our government today makes the opposite demand, telling us that by giving up our rights (freedom from unreasonable search, freedom of privacy) we’ll be securing our safety by deterring terrorism. Our government is saying the exact opposite of what it says when our sacrifice is needed. They’re saying that our freedom is not worth risking our lives over. They’ve flipped things around on us. So which is more valuable? Freedom and the risk of death or tyranny with safety?

            But that’s not even the choice we’re given because the increase in safety is unproven. In fact, given the available data, safety is impossible to improve upon. Since 9/11, there have been exactly zero lives lost to terrorist attacks on airplanes or airports in the US. How do you improve on 100%? Whatever security measures we’ve been using for the last ten years seem to have worked just fine. So why the changes? Why has the TSA embarked on what can only be described as an attack on the Constitution and the people of the United States? Thomas Jefferson said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. He understood, as did all the founding fathers and drafters of the Constitution, that people are power hungry, that at the first opportunity, our leaders will grab for more power over their people. Both the current and previous administrations have proven Jefferson absolutely right in this. We’re being stripped naked and radiated by our government because they saw an opportunity for more power. And they know that if we’re compliant in this, if we don’t refuse it, then the door is open for them to take even more.

            So far, we’re lying down and taking it. The next question must be “What’s next?” For the sake of fighting an enemy that hasn’t touched us in ten years will we give up our freedom of speech? It looks like that’s already in the works. The TV networks and national magazines and newspapers have for a long time now aligned themselves with political parties, so the “free speech” we have there gets sifted and filtered according to their values. That’s nothing new. The latest threat is to our last and best source of free speech and press—the internet. And they’re using the same tactic here that they used in the airports: fear. To avoid the next great terrorist attack—a cyber attack on our computer networks—a senate bill was introduced this year to give the President an internet kill switch. This would give the executive branch of our government another power that directly violates the Constitution. With the push of a button, the President can shut the internet down until he believes the threat is past. But who or what will be the threat? No one knows. We would just wait to see what the President decides. It could be a terrorist. It could be you or me because we disagree with him. Again, what do we value more, a risky freedom or a tyranny that claims to protect us?

            It may not seem like a big deal. Shuffle through the line with the rest of the sheep. Don’t complain or make noise. But ignoring the Constitution is a big deal. No other country in history has gone to such lengths to protect its people from the tyranny of its own government, and that protection lies in the specific provisions of our Constitution. Freedom is not free. It’s not even cheap—it should cost us something that has real value. Isn’t each person who enlists in our military saying exactly that? We may live in a post-9/11 world, but the most important things about us haven’t changed at all. We love our freedom, and we’re willing to sacrifice for it. Let’s do that today in our nation’s airports and show our enemies that we’re still free and we’re still not afraid.

I'll read this to them next week. Maybe it will get some wheels turning and I'll see that my freaking out is premature. 


Maybe.