Parting Shots
Peter Baldwin
Issue date: 12/10/01 Section: Opinions
Think only terrorists have something to worry about? Think again. It was Ben Franklin who said, "Those who give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security."
The new national anthem?
Call me crazy, but I really don't like the fact that God Bless America seems to be supplanting The Star Spangled Banner as America's national anthem. As someone who worships no god, I can't help but feel a wee bit excluded. Separation of church and state, anyone? The last time the church made such inroads into American governance was during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when "In God We Trust" was added to our coins, as we went to (cold) war against godless communists.
It seems to me the last thing we want to do is paint the current conflict as a religious war. Even if the "God" in "God Bless America" isn't specifically a Christian god, there's little doubt amongst many of the world's Muslims that it is, and we don't need to revisit the Crusades. America's strength is its secular roots, and it's a mistake to religify [sic] our government. We don't think much of the Taliban's religious nation, let's not make our own. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
"American democracy"
We've heard a lot about threats to "American democracy" over the last year, from the 2000 election debacle (threats from within) and the 9/11 attacks (threats from abroad). This leaves me very confused.
America is not a "democracy" – it's a constitutional republic. And for very good reasons. Pure "democracy" works like this: if there are three of us, you and I can vote to enslave that other guy and take all his stuff. It's democratic, after all, therefore it must be right, just, equitable, etc. It is, quite literally, "might makes right" in the aggregate – governance by brute force of numbers, not by the rule of law. Freedom and equality are the first casualties of such a system. Pure "democracy" – the tyranny of the majority – is as fundamentally antithetical to liberty and human freedom, particularly that of minorities, as is communism or socialism. Remember the dictatorship of the proletariat? Neither do most of its victims.
The new national anthem?
Call me crazy, but I really don't like the fact that God Bless America seems to be supplanting The Star Spangled Banner as America's national anthem. As someone who worships no god, I can't help but feel a wee bit excluded. Separation of church and state, anyone? The last time the church made such inroads into American governance was during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when "In God We Trust" was added to our coins, as we went to (cold) war against godless communists.
It seems to me the last thing we want to do is paint the current conflict as a religious war. Even if the "God" in "God Bless America" isn't specifically a Christian god, there's little doubt amongst many of the world's Muslims that it is, and we don't need to revisit the Crusades. America's strength is its secular roots, and it's a mistake to religify [sic] our government. We don't think much of the Taliban's religious nation, let's not make our own. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
"American democracy"
We've heard a lot about threats to "American democracy" over the last year, from the 2000 election debacle (threats from within) and the 9/11 attacks (threats from abroad). This leaves me very confused.
America is not a "democracy" – it's a constitutional republic. And for very good reasons. Pure "democracy" works like this: if there are three of us, you and I can vote to enslave that other guy and take all his stuff. It's democratic, after all, therefore it must be right, just, equitable, etc. It is, quite literally, "might makes right" in the aggregate – governance by brute force of numbers, not by the rule of law. Freedom and equality are the first casualties of such a system. Pure "democracy" – the tyranny of the majority – is as fundamentally antithetical to liberty and human freedom, particularly that of minorities, as is communism or socialism. Remember the dictatorship of the proletariat? Neither do most of its victims.
