Ronald Reagan used to say something like America wasn't about ethnicity, borders or religion, America was about a set of ideas, which are embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, notably in the preamble first three words, "We the people."
I fear the idea is comatose at the hands of the Bush Administration. Maybe even dead. The Administration has abandoned those values and replaced it with the safety value. We used to value "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Now it's just "life." If liberty gets in the way of keeping our lives safe, sure, get rid of habeas corpus, the cornerstone of free society since circa 1200 A.D. And let's throw in some waterboarding and stress positions to torture more safety out of people we think might be enemies.
The fear of a WMD being unleashed on U.S. soil is a serious one and as someone who lives in a prime target city is something I think about every day. Keeping me and my fellow citizens safe is something I expect the government to do...but I also expect my elected officials to protect the liberty and freedoms that help ensure that we remain a free people. Although I want safety, I also realize that liberty carries a certain risk. Freedom is dangerous. Dangerous, because I carry the burdens of the consequences of my own decisions and dangerous in the civil looseness that must exist to allows others to pursue dreams contrary to mine. It's not for nothing that the last line of the national anthem is "land of the free and home of the brave." Freedom requires bravery. In the administration's quixotic quest to make us cozy secure, we're losing both.
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