A Soldier Blogs About His Death And Our Rights
Came across the last post of Andy Olmsted . Some responders had tears over this. Not I, as I'm from a military family, and have long since come to terms with the reality of committed military service, and the inevitable consequences of wars, even when they are ethically defensible.
This "last post" format offers opportunities not usually seen in blogging. Some of the most important thoughts a person has do not make for good copy in daily reading, because the most profound insights can also be the simplest and, if encountered daily, the most easily glossed-over as "old" knowledge by the reader. On the other hand, a person can only post ONE (I hope!) last post, and that post should garner increased examination and consideration, if thoughtfully done.
Andy had much to say in his last communication with the world, and I find that one of his points jives very well with a perennial topic of mine: the commonly ignored obligations of those who wish to continue enjoying the benefits of democracy and freedom.
Citizens in a democracy have the obvious obligation to let others express themselves. But they also have another obligation, that is little appreciated but is equally essential to the democratic plan: the obligation to respectfully consider the views expressed by others, and strive to understand where those views come from; rather than take a "thanks for sharing" attitude toward those who don't think as they do.
Too many take the freedoms of America for granted, and think of them as permanent features of our cultural landscape. Not so. As many have observed, many thousands have died to obtain those freedoms for us. But history also shows us that, human drives being what they are, power tends to wind up in the hands of the relative few who are driven to power; to the detriment of the freedoms and rights of the many who are not. It's a problem with freedom; that some will use that freedom to limit, in their own interests, the corresponding freedoms of others.
We see this when telecomunication companies try to keep their competitors out of the market, limiting not only those competitors' freedom to market their products, but the freedom of the info-consumer to obtain varied and unbiased information. We also see it when governments bit by bit limit the options of citizens, such as the current push by lawmakers in Washington to severely limit permissible speech, in criticism of America's policies toward terrorism. Bills currently in Congress would define criticism of terrorism policies to be support for terrorists themselves, and legally chargable as such. This attitude from the Right has been current since 9/11, and has been used liberally to silence critics of the War On Terror. This legislation would put the force of law behind these efforts to silence dissent.
Freedoms are not "won" once, and inviolable thereafter. They must be "re-won" by us -- by you and me -- every time some entity with an agenda tries to place limits on them. We venerate the sacrifices that toppled fascism and preserved our rights, but we commonly sit contented, at the lazy pinacle of our civil rights, while those who know better steadily chip away at those rights and freedoms. We think the work is done. Veterans won us our freedoms, thank you very much, and now the biggest challenge to our way of life is the Network Writer's Strike!
No, the biggest challenge to our way of freedom is the slow buyoff of those freedoms and rights. And not even for real security, but for the pastel psychological security of thinking that we no longer have to defend our security for ourselves. That those we put in positions of power will be naturally inclined to defend us from the exercise of that power. This illusion will last exactly as long as it takes us to realize that many of the rights and freedoms taken as "given" by our forefathers have now gone the way of the Dodo.
This is the grossest "entitlement thinking" of all: that we are now "entitled" to something our heroes had to die for. As soon as we start thinking that way, our guard is down, and Verizon starts censoring our page traffic of politically and morally "undesirable" content. The threat is real.
Which is the more fundamental right, the freedom to say what we think, or the freedom to limit other's actions and speech as offensive to us (not harmful mind you, but "offensive")? The one freedom resides in opposition to the other. One person burns a flag, or says we have no business fighting foreign wars of aggression, and others find that offensive. They cut off the debate before it has started, refusing to listen to the reasons for the other point of view. They don't want to know the reasoning behind what seems a blasphemous point of view. The very existence of any other view than theirs is anathema.
So what? If we can't handle a bit of "offensive" speech, if we can't view it as another perspective to be considered, as part of a grand ecology of thought, then we are simply too sensitive and/or insecure to tolerate the free exercise of democracy. If you remove the right to say what you think, you remove the soul of freedom.
And if you ignore the obligations, both to say what you think, and to responsibly and fairly consider the statements of others, you have removed the soul of democracy.