How Much Freedom Should We Trade For Our Security?

“By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen.” ~ George Orwell, 1984

Yesterday, while looking through some old files on my Mac I came across some quotes and thoughts that pertain to current events and the trade-offs we're making today in the name of National Security.  These bits and pieces must have been collected for the purpose of an article or essay I was attempting to assemble at the time.

“He that's secure is not safe.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“Most people want security in this world, not liberty.” ~ H. L. Mencken

For the Founding Fathers freedom was a preeminent value because they had experienced the heavy weight of tyranny first-hand.  



the growing power of the State is biggest trend of 20th Century. (Paul Johnson)

complexity and immensity makes people small... technology of big government (Ellul)

Quote from Kafka: “We are shoved, pushed...”

Privacy as a Value

1984 ~ Work our way backward from this: Orwell’s “camera in every house” is definitely something we do not want. Bad.

But are surveillance cameras themselves evil?

(name deleted) tells of villain caught because of surveillance camera in store.

So somewhere in between is OK?

What is the issue?

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Life is not static. Cultures are not either We are moving through time.... across an ocean, from one harbor toward another.

Rainer Maria Rilke: from Notebooks of Malte Laurid Brigge “I am a beginner in my own circumstances.” p. 67

“For several decades political arrests were distinguished in our country precisely by the fact that people were arrested who were guilty of nothing and were therefore unprepared to put up any resistance whatsoever.” ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

“By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen.... He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen.” ~ George Orwell, 1984, p. 9

Thought Police

re-writing history

controlling memories

“Having just cast off an oppressive British monarchy in a bloody war for independence, many of the representatives of the 13 states attending the Constitutional Convention were reluctant to create what they feared would be an unrestrained centralized government. The authors of the Federalist Papers, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, knew that without an intelligent and persuasive rationale for a federal constitution, the proposal would fail. To allay the fears of the representatives of the states, the authors laid out in extraordinary detail the central principles upon which a federal constitution would be based.” ~ essay on Zooba


Food for thought.

Legitimate Responses To Unjust Authority

My horror story of June 15th and 16th is incomplete without sharing at least one of the lessons learned through the experience. As with all young idealists, there are times when you hit a wall, get tested. How you respond at this point is all important.

Our education system is not designed to make people truly strong individuals, is not really designed to produce leaders and free thinkers. If you read Noam Chomsky's books you will find him occasionally reciting the philosophies behind our public education system, which is a tool to help control the masses by making them docile, compliant, obedient. The message in the churches is overwhelmingly similar, with its emphasis on submission to authority, being humble, meek, "nice."

And so, when we went to Mexico, we were not really prepared for what we experienced. We did not see that there really are acceptable alternate responses to bad leaders and to tyranny.

It was only upon our return from Mexico, during a time of much reflection, sifting through all the broken pieces of our experience, that I discovered a book that presented other options besides compliance, Francis Schaeffer's A Christian Manifesto.

In this book he cites 19th century evangelist Charles Finney's philosophy with regard to unjust authority. Finney was one of the great voices that spoke out against slavery, striving to rouse the peoples to take action against this unjust system. Option one, he stated, was appeal to authority. Sadly, this is what most people are led to believe is their only option. Hence wife beaters and other brutes can quote Scripture and maintain order in their homes.

Legitimate option two, according to Schaeffer and Finney, was to flee. We do not have to stay in the situation. Susie and I were crushed by guilt for leaving the orphanage, yet we inwardly knew it was right. We simply did not have the rationale to articulate it. We were misunderstood and even rejected by some who had no interest in hearing the reasons for our decision and action.

In Finney's case, he organized the churches of Ohio and the corridors going South into the underground railroad. He rejected the critics and took bold action. He believed in the dignity of the humanity he sought to rescue.

But Finney and Schaeffer do not stop there. The third legitimate option is to fight to bring down the unjust strongholds. For sure, this kind of action is most definitely going to be misunderstood, especially if the unjust tyrant is acting in the name of religion.

Southern leaders believed God was on their side. They believed they would win the Civil War, because they were on the side of right. The Almighty God was leading them. How could they lose?

For Susie and I, we were not prepared to fight. It took years for us to even understand that fighting to bring down this bad situation was an option, or that leaving does not always mean you failed. Ultimately, the whole experience fell into the past and new circumstances preoccupied our lives. We still had a place in our heart for the orphans of Mexico and have supported a different orphanage built on better values with higher standards. (You can read about it here: Hungry Kids International)