Freedom Isn't Free

I basically consider myself a moderate liberal. I suspect some of my readers think of me as a sociocommunifascislamic nut case, but that's not really so. I do get all bent out of shape by some of the nonsense I see coming from the far right, and can react with a fair amount of, ummm, acid, but here's the thing: I start with a number of liberal predispositions. Then I try to temper that with the best, most sound analysis I can muster using actual facts as building stones.

I just commented to Iris this morning that both parties are very good rhetorically, but their arguments are, all too often, based on "common wisdom" rather than established and verifiable observations or "facts." And common wisdom, by and large, is neither.

I have previously pointed out Becky at Just a Girl in Short Shorts as a person who I disagree with more often than not. And sometimes she downright irritates me, as with her rants about all us Obama worshippers... an attitude that seems to qualify as "common wisdom," but in my experience bears no resemblance to the actual attitudes of real live liberals.

And every now and then, for me at least, she knocks the ball out of the park. In a simple, succint, and factually based argument, she forces me to reassess my beliefs, and even from time to time to actually (gasp!) change my mind.

Trying to come to grips with Obama's speech this week, I felt that in this day and age, the creation of a court that could pre-emptively detain a suspected terrorist made a certain kind of sense. I think that in most cases where such detention would be justified, a traditional court setting should be able to convict on a charge of conspiracy. But it was concievable to me that in some cases the evidence could be so senstive that a special process, a special court, might be necessary.

Becky makes a very strong- convincing to me- case, poignantly in the context of Memorial Day, that Freedom isn't free. That part of the cost, the risk of an attack, is necessary to maintain our Constitutional Freedoms. Creating a special "terrorism court" extends the power of the government over the freedoms of "We the People." Thus, part of the "cost" of freedom is to reject the false security of believing that bad guys who would harm us are being quietly and antiseptically removed from freedom. That same quiet, antiseptic incarceration could be applied to anybody, for whatever action the government deems to call terrorism. And that the cost of freedom, in this case, is to accept the risk that some bad guy might kill me or someone I love.

This is why I love to listen to people I disagree with. Please read the post and see if you don't find yourself pretty convinced by her arguments. Thanks, Becky.