Andrew Sullivan is out with his weekly missive, including ruminations on how Trump is serving to separate true conservatives from expedient conservatives, and that provoked some thoughts that this may indicate a basic flaw in today’s American conservative philosophy – but I shan’t pursue that, someone with more qualifications should. But I’d like to respond to his last section:
The response of Americans to terror is to be terrified — 9/11’s trauma has never been fully exorcised. Until we get over that, until we manage to stiffen our upper lips like the Brits, jihadist terrorists will exercise control over the American psyche like no one else. We can do better, can’t we? If we want the Constitution to survive both Islamism’s threat and the potential response of a beleaguered Trump, we’ll have to.
My response is one I’ve written before, in the context of the rehabilitation of that sad traitor to American tradition, Senator Joe McCarthy, and so I’ll just quote it:
This attack on two of our pillars of civil society – the right to think and speak what one wants, and not to be falsely accused and maligned by government actors – are not to be set aside at the paranoid ravings of anyone. I recently ran across a quote of President Trump’s from 1989: “CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!” While I’m aware this can be read in more than one way, I’ll choose the most negative and reply, “No, Mr. President, our Civil Liberties give us a critical bulwark in our quest for safety, and he who advocates for their removal or neutering is nothing more than a traitor to the United States.” Think about it – our civil liberties are not luxuries, not privileges, but instead they are what safeguard us from the deprivations of tyrants, foreign and domestic. So long as we safeguard them, we’ll stand a better chance of survival in freedom, than we would without.
The implied choice of either safety or civil liberties is a false choice. The latter does not detract from the former, it reinforces our safety, even if it’s in ways that perhaps President Trump would prefer to see weaker.
