Sep
17
A Small Price to Pay
Bernard Goldberg
In the preceding post, some of the final comments by Larry Sternberg were about the potential loss of certain civil liberties under the Patriot Act. In that vein, I just had to post this additional bit I also read recently. It’s by another Jew, writer/journalist/commentator Bernard Goldberg, who was remarking on this point in regards to the ACLU in his 2005/6 book, 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken Is #37)
He said,
Sure, at some point, the FBI may ask a librarian for information on what some suspected terrorist was reading. Maybe the suspect will be an Arab and maybe some Arab organizations will cry “discrimination.” Sorry. It’s a small price to pay for living in a free country that happens to be at war. And it would also be nice if we got a little less whining from the ACLU about profiling at the airport and a little more visceral outrage at the Islamic fascists who would like nothing better than to kill every last one of us infidels.
I’m not a lawyer, but I get it. We all get it: If the government is allowed to “trample” on the rights of any one of us, then none of us is safe from government tyranny. To which I say, bull$#!t. We live in a different world than we did on September 10, 2001. It would help if everyone, starting with Anthony Romero and the ACLU [of which Romero has been executive director since a week before the 9/11/01 attacks], would be a little more understanding, a little more flexible, a little absolutist. Right now the number one civil right most Americans care about is the one about our ass not getting blown up by some lunatic who thinks he’s doing it for Allah. We’ll worry about who’s looking over our shoulder at the library when things calm down.”
While I don’t take the possibility of the erosion of civil rights lightly, I think Mr. Goldberg makes a great point. Under circumstances such as this, I am all for the relaxing of certain rights, within reason (according to whom?), as long as it is clearly temporary and not easily expanded either in degree or length of time. As with anything, this requires a watchful eye on our representatives both in Washington and closer to home.
What do you all think?
