Andrew Sullivan On Freedom
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in History, The War On TerrorismLest we forget what we’re fighting for, Sullivan reminds us:
I’m not suggesting that no liberties should be surrendered to counter the real threat of terror. I’m arguing that any surrender of freedom must be clearly justified in each case and openly discussed. I’m saying the courts and parliament and Congress are not threats to the war, but a critical part of making it work. Freedom dies by increments; and a freedom-loving people must be especially vigilant in wartime. Lincoln understood this as profoundly as Churchill. Like Churchill, his record was not perfect, but he grasped what he was fighting for, even as his own country was melting down in a brutal civil war. Asked by a supporter to suppress a hostile newspaper at the height of the conflict, he replied: “I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.” If Lincoln could say this in the middle of a national insurrection, why cannot Bush and Blair say it today?
One a scale from 1 to “this rocks”, I’d give it a “this rocks“.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 and is filed under History, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 15th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
and what is it that we can’t do now, that we could do 5 years ago (besides carry a knife onto a plane)? I just keep forgetting.
November 15th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
Interesting. Sullivan appears to have shifted to right libertarian from left libertarian with this article.
November 15th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
It may be that he is merely responding to a particular audience?
November 15th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Well, we can legally torture and murder people now. I guess that’s more freedom technically…
November 15th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
meh… We could do that 5 years ago, too. It just wasn’t as frequent, or as publicized, as it is now.
For crying out loud, if somebody wants to look at porn on the internet in a public library, there’s nothing the library can/will do about it. That wasn’t happening 5 or 10 years ago. People have more rights now than they used to.
November 15th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
Yeah, but now if you say anything on line, in emails, or in whatever other media the FBI is monitoring using its “no subpoena necessary” card, you could end up on their watch list, get wire tapped, etc. For no other reason than saying something they don’t like.
Anyone want to go phishing?
November 15th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
I love Sully, but if you try to track his political position from day to day you’ll be seasick in under a week.
Lincoln knew the right things to say. But when you get right down to it, his administration padlocked more opposition newspapers than any American president — including Jeff Davis — ever did. They also were not above inciting a mob to do their dirty work for them. He also completely ignored the Supreme Court’s orders (and at one point wrote out a standing order for the arrest of the Chief Justice) and suspended habeas corpus and held thousands of men without charges in a system of “gulags” that included Fort McHenry.
Different times, different crisis, different America. But he took a wide swing outside the Constitution to deal with a crisis. And over time, the rights came back and constitutional rule was restored. And in fact Americans had more right — and more of us had them — after the war than before. The same pattern prevailed in World War I.
No polemical point being made here. Just an observation. Don’t get plowed by Lincoln’s rhetoric. He was a smooth and supple politician.
November 18th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
I love Sully, but if you try to track his political position from day to day you’ll be seasick in under a week.
Interesting. My impression is the exact opposite – it is entirely clear which side Andrew Sullivan is going to come down on, with every issue. He’s very consistently fiscally conservative, even to the point that it annoys me. He’s also very consistently pro-human-rights, even to the point of still supporting the Iraq War on humanitarian grounds. He has a strong, consistent stance on torture and indefinite detention of prisoners. And he’s consistently torn-up about abortion.
Of course, in staking these positions, he also consistently refuses to be consistently allied with either party. Perhaps that’s what you mean?
You’re right on about Lincoln, though.
November 21st, 2005 at 12:41 am
Agreed. Sullivan seems like more of an issue voter, and therefore seems more reasonable than most bloggers I read.