Jefferson and his followers tended to believe in a simple equation: more government, less freedom; less government, more freedom. Government is by its nature a conspiracy against liberty so the more hamstrung it is, the more we will be free.
Washington and those around him believed that government needed to be limited and responsible, but not weak. They believed that without the peace and order government imposed each one became the slave of the stronger. Jeffersonians thought that if you take away government you get "freemen." Washington thought that if you take away government you get warlords terrorizing slaves.
So for the second group of founders, government is both the friend and the enemy of government. Of course governments, being run by human beings, will overreach if given the opportunity. But it isn't true that weakening government always strengthens freedom. Sometimes weakening government endangers freedom. Sometimes government has to be strengthened to protect freedom.
After 9-11, some of us are looking twice at the simple equation, "Less government = more freedom." When the government meant Bill Clinton, that was easy to agree with. When the government means the people responsible for defending the nation, it doesn't seem as plausible to some of us.
I don't have a lot of patience, and as a result I have sometimes posted too vehemently, with people who harrumph about giving up freedom for safety. Excuse me, go and look at WTC ground zero. You call that freedom? What kind of freedom will any American have if we are subjected to such monstrous exercises of arbitrary power? I don't think John Ashcroft or Tom Ridge are likely to make me anymore unfree than the people who were hijacked on those flights, or those people who were trying to go about their business in the WTC and the Pentagon.
I have no desire to give the government a blank check, but yes, I do think that we are called upon to make compromises. Not compromises for the sake of safety without liberty, but compromises in the short term to secure liberty in the long term.
No, I don't imagine all the measures that need to be taken in the short term will be easily or automatically withdrawn after our victory. I hope to have the freedom to fight those battles someday and not be living at the mercy of terror in a nation dissolving into chaos. But that is not where the battle for liberty is being fought today. Today the battle is with terrorism, so that when terrorism has been defeated, we may have the freedom to go on disputing and debating about freedom.
Short of stopping all International flights into the US, we will never be 100% sure that the events of 9/11 will not repeat themselves.
Short of never allowing anyone else into our country, we will never be sure that terrorists do not walk our streets.
Short of deporting every foreign-born person in the US, we will never be 100% certain that sleeper agents do not live amongst us.
When we do all that, there will be the memory of Tim McVeigh.
As you watch our armed forces being deployed, remember one thing, they are not the front lines, we here at home are.
My parents bought round trip plane tickets to Las Vegas yesterday, they are going to see their grandkids, my Dad's neighbor told him that he is nuts, and that no one could get him to board an airplane right now.
I'm going to follow my father's lead, and fight this war, I'm booking a flight tomorrow.
I'm not letting them use my freedom, to take my freedom from me.
If I might add, the article is seeking to draw a comparison between President Bush and Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was a failure and a bigot. He ushered in an Era in which the Confederacy was romanticized, rather than despised by many Northern whites. Under his auspices, the KKK not only flourished, but also spread rapidly throughout the North and South. Wilson was also a "Progressive," which meant he favored a powerful, centralized government, run by "experts." After he involved us in World War I, Wilson was responsible for the Federal seizure of large parts of the economy, including the railroads, as well as a virtual total suspension of civil rights. People were imprisoned for any public dissent about the war. This might have been excusable in a perverse sense if Wilson had known what he was doing in the war itself, but he didn't. His incompetence in dealing with the aftermath of World War I resulted in the rejection of his ideas even at home.
Let me just say this - George W. Bush is NOT Woodrow Wilson!
I totally agree.