Protecting constitutional freedoms
Padraic McDermott
sophomore
Freedom of speech was in short supply in 1775 on the eastern seaboard of the United States and practically nonexistent elsewhere in the world. By 1789, freedom of speech was comfortably enshrined in the highest law in America and that law was being enforced. We might wonder if Michael Flannery is familiar with the events that transpired between 1775 and 1789. His letter yesterday casts doubt on his familiarity with the history of the subject he has taken upon himself.
Flannery couches naive, illogical assertions about the military as an institution, in respectful deference to the soldiers of the United States. One is left to wonder why, if he respects them so much, he has apparently opted not to familiarize himself with their historical role in our free society before condemning that role. It was no coincidence that freedom of speech went from suppressed to Constitutionally-protected in the space of 14 years. Our forefathers happen to have fought a War of Revolution which resulted in the establishment of an independent, constitutionally-governed federation of colonial states.
They did not establish that independence through protest — protest had been tried to little avail. When protest was exhausted, our forefathers turned to force of arms. They held the peculiar conviction that freedom is worth fighting for.
Analyze the various effects of wars throughout American history. Civil liberties suffer during times of great national distress or wars, and not just since 1945, which date you randomly cite as the beginning of "unnecessary" sacrifice by our fighting men. Wilson arrested dissenters during World War I; after the war he proposed the Fourteen Points. Read them; freedom hardly suffered in their argument. Lincoln moved cannons into the streets of New York City to quell draft riots during the Civil War; Lincoln also delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and the Second Inaugural Address.
Lincoln, and Wilson after him, delivered constitutional government, replete with the Bill of Rights, on to their successors. They are part of a pattern, evident throughout American history. First, when civil liberties suffer, they suffer at the hands of civilian, elected authorities; tanks have never rolled into the streets of Washington D.C., and the military has never ordered itself to do anything to American freedoms.
Second, when civil liberties do suffer, at the discretion of democratically-elected representatives, the decline is temporary and brief. Flannery's convenient anecdote of a "blacklist" being compiled by Mrs. Cheney, is evidence of this pattern. You ignore the evident truth that Mrs. Cheney is the wife of an elected official, not in any way affiliated with the military other than her husband's place in the military chain of command. If she is exercising her free speech to combat intellectuals whom she and her colleagues deem wrong, that is irrelevant to the military. That being the only anecdote you provide as evidence that civil liberties suffer during "every large-scale military operation," I urge you to consider the reasons why that may or may not be true.
In any case, the Constitution has never proved weaker than the judgment of individuals. Every generation has passed on our constitutional liberties, intact and strong, to their children. Those rights were not guaranteed until the United States fought to win them and hold onto them; they were not won by any other means than by blood, toil and tears.
That is where the military comes in.
The Constitution would not have been passed on if our military had ever failed in its mission of national defense. Sometimes wars are fought that should not be; that is at the discretion of our elected civilian leaders. In every case where our national security has been threatened, it has not been the protesters but the United States military that has poured out its blood in defiance of the enemies of freedom. This nation of ours is the child and steward of our constitutional liberties.
Do not be so naive as to consider that our enemies would now, or ever, allow our freedoms to endure. Our military is the last line of defense, and the guarantor of our nation. God bless the United States of America.
Padraic McDermott
sophomore
Morrissey Manor
April 25, 2002
All Viewpoint Stories for Friday, April 26, 2002
