Meditations on fear and freedom

I am afraid.

I look at my country, at the world around me, and I am afraid. Despite all the rah-rah rhetoric, the "united we stand" banners, the ubiquitous American flags waving from every third car and house, I am not reassured.

"I won't be soothed over like,
Smoothed over like milk,
Silk, a bedspread, or a quilt,
Icing on a cake,
Or a serene translucent lake."
      -- Cake, "Daria"

I see a whole lot of gaudy patriotism all around me, but I see very little conviction backing it. That kind of patriotism is skin-deep. What's missing is the dedication to American values such as free speech, privacy, freedom of movement. These values are rapidly being replaced with fear, herd behavior, and a willingness to trade our freedoms for the cold comfort of symbolic "security" measures the very first time terror lands on our soil. What's missing is an understanding of what these values mean, the patriotism of the heart.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
      -- Benjamin Franklin

I see people like Larry Ellison offering to help create a national ID database; what's worse, I see polls indicating that an overwhelming majority of Americans would now support this idea. I read stories of Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin mulling over ways to mandate the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Just how requiring American citizens to carry a national ID card and forcing schoolchildren to recite the Pledge will affect global terrorism is beyond me, but that doesn't seem to matter right now.

"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
     -- Anatole France

I see posters and decals of the American flag captioned, "These colors don't run," but that's exactly what so many of us are doing now. We're running from our own ideals, the very ideals that Americans have died to defend. We're giving up the very freedom that people in other countries have died to obtain for themselves. What does this say about American conviction of American values? Why should anyone else in the world give a damn about the principles for which we purport to stand when we're apparently ready to abandon them the first time they're tested on American proving grounds?

Just like everyone else, I'm afraid of what the future will bring. Right now, though, I'm more afraid of what my fellow citizens will give up in the name of security than of being the victim of a terrorist attack. After all, if I die, then I die. Nothing can happen to me after that. But if I'm faced with living in a police state for the rest of my life -- because once those freedoms are gone, they ain't coming back -- then that strikes directly at the heart of my beliefs. If this is the way it's going to be from now on, I want out.

"If that's what you have in mind,
Yeah, if that's what you're all about,
Honey, good luck moving up
'Cause I'm moving out."
      -- Billy Joel, "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"

October 22, 2001