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Something all americans (and other people for general education) should read:
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Take Liberty
A Reciprocian Forum


Freedom: the Source of Security
by Richard Rieben
Submitted to the Shell/Economist Essay Contest in August, 2002. The theme of the contest was "How much freedom should we trade for our security?" I wrote most of the essay in June/July 2002 while in Thailand. To see Jack Gordon's winning essay (I think it is super!) go to www.shelleconomistprize.com and click on "winners."

We all like having security. We like being secure in our possessions, and in our relationships. We like the feeling of security which comes from knowing that, in a given neighborhood or town or country, we can walk down the street without fear of being robbed, molested, beaten, or having our plans forcibly disrupted, our errand diverted or aborted. We are unafraid to go outside. We are unafraid to talk to people in the street, even strangers. It is a good feeling.
This is also what freedom means to most people, this ability to go our own way unmolested and unthreatened. It is the same feeling as being secure.

Our freedom, however, does not mean that we can walk about with our head down or blinders up without suffering the consequences (of blundering into walls or tripping over curbs). We are free from molestation by others, but we remain responsible for our own safe passage. We are not "free" from responsibility.

If you step off a curb to cross the street in Los Angeles, against the light, you will find little forgiveness in the drivers of vehicles. They are attentive to the lights and the rules, not the actual "traffic" on the road.

On the other hand, if you step off a curb to cross a street in Bangkok, with the light or against the light, you will find little difference ? you must pay attention to the vehicles, and they are paying attention to you. The traffic lights in Bangkok regulate the flow of traffic. But traffic flows freely, regardless.

In Madras, the flow of traffic may be moderated by traffic lights, but it is not necessarily regulated by anything other than the flow of traffic itself, in its own time ... goats, pedestrians, rickshaws, trucks, children, cars, cows, and bicycles all flow with an amazing sense of give-and-take that is regulated by each person's desire to effect their own travel and, thus, to participate in allowing for others to do likewise.

These different traffic models suggest something of taking responsibility for our personal security in a social context. Is this a function of freedom as a political condition? Or is it a function of freedom as a non-enforced social condition, that is, of community itself?

I feel safer crossing the street or riding my bicycle in Bangkok, Madras or Nairobi, than in most towns in Europe or the United States, where the rules are flatly enforced and few people are paying attention to their effect on others. I know that I am taking a risk when I cross the street in a third world country, but I am allowed (some would say compelled) to focus and use judgment. At the same time, I am aware that other people are also paying attention, responsibly.

In Western countries, such as the USA, they say that following these rules, scrupulously, allows them to live their lives smoothly and efficiently. Perhaps, but also without awareness of others, and without much awareness of, or responsibility for, their own actions, either. Crossing the street in Europe or in the USA, with the proper traffic signal, is not supposed to be a calculated risk. And taking a calculated risk (crossing against the signal) is punishable by fine. You do not have that freedom. Instead, you have "protection" ? and using judgment is discouraged.

When I walk to the store at night in Thailand's Hatyai, a bustling city by day and all but deserted at night, I am taking a calculated risk. However, I know that the risk is minimal. I feel safe and secure. I may talk to someone I meet, in passing, but I won't meet with a thief or a gang. I am unlikely to meet with a policeman, either.

In most cities in the USA, I would pause before making a similar nighttime excursion, although there seem to be more police in evidence, better lighting, more traffic, but also less human, pedestrian traffic. The fenced buildings often have high-tech security systems and/or guard dogs. There is a feeling, in talking to people in towns and cities in the USA that "sensible" people don't walk to the store at night. "It's not safe."

But what makes it unsafe? That there are more criminals in the USA, or that people don't walk anywhere at night anymore? It might be some of both, but I suspect more the latter.

I remember reading, in actress Helen Hayes's autobiography, how she and a friend challenged the wisdom of the day (in the late 1960's), that NY's Central Park was unsafe, by fearlessly crossing it late one evening. They were unharmed, but severely chided by their friends, later, for taking such a risk. They simply were not willing to let go of the idea that Central Park was AND SHOULD BE safe for human passage at any time.

We seem to build walls of security that result in making our intimate, local, daily world less free. The freedoms that I knew as a child, forty years ago, are rare for children today in the USA, although still common for most children in the third world ? they actually have more freedom. The children of my friends in the USA live with a feeling that the world is not a free and easy place. They are barricaded, they are protected, they are not free to come and go as they please, their horizons and their experiences are limited.

Security is the freedom to come and go as one pleases. The exercise of this freedom, socially, is what helps make us secure, giving us, personally, the judgment and practical knowledge for situations that are dodgy. Through the exercise of personal freedom, we learn to be aware, and to protect ourselves and others.

Restricting this personal freedom gives rise to protected safe zones ? as neighborhoods, communities or countries ? where people conduct their affairs, and children play, with a sense of being oblivious to their surroundings and the possibilities of danger. This idealized environment, however, is not safe by any standards, except possibly those of a prison.

Defenseless people, incapable of defending themselves or of recognizing danger, can never be safe, no matter who is manning the guard towers. It is not merely a utopian, Disneyesque dream, it is a cruel reality to dehumanize people by usurping their natural responsibilities for awareness, judgment and self-protection, and to turn them into bubble-babies unable to survive in the real world.

These days, when people are bartering civil liberties for illusions of greater security, the lesson is thought to be somewhat different ... that the national government is playing a proper function in its efforts to protect our borders from penetration by criminals and evil people who wish us harm.

The government is given the authority to decide, secretly, who such people are and how to profile them. It is also given the authority to decide, secretly, whom of those amongst us may be suspicious ne'r-do-wells, as well. With its authority, it may also decide that anyone who doesn't like the government, or the regime in power, is definitively a ne'r-do-well, thus stifling dissent or stifling charges of abusive use of its power ... or of corruption ... or protests of its inefficiency.

Yet, with this broad exercise of authority, and with many expensive, restrictive and protective actions, no better security is obtained. Indeed, less security is achieved, for now we all feel more afraid ... of foreigners, of fellow citizens, and of the government itself.

We have not increased security, but fear.

And we have increased a NEED for security in direct consequence of reducing our freedoms. A reduction in freedom means that our security has been reduced: Security does not exist FOR freedom, in a bubble. It exists through and by the full exercise of freedom, in the real world.

Do we need to reduce our freedom against criminals? No, we need to exercise responsibility, and not let criminals take over our streets, parks, cities, or country. Not by retreating into safe zones, but by refusing to retreat, by refusing to give up our responsibility for our own safety, our awareness, and our judgment. Nor should we give-over that responsibility to an agency whose response is to curtail our freedom (which is the criminal's goal ? he wants the streets for himself and his kind).

Our security is increased, secured and maintained by refusing to reduce our freedom. Freedom is the substance of the "turf" we refuse to relinquish.

Do we need to reduce our freedom against terrorists (another word for criminals)? No again. And for the same reason. If the criminal or the terrorist hates our freedom (on the grounds of envy, or because of cultural differences, or because it is bad for his particular business), we must not let him have his way.

Our freedom must stick in their face, and we must not be afraid to exercise it, proudly, defiantly, boldly, and fearlessly.

Freedom is interpreted differently in various cultures, but the essential meaning ? to be free from fear ? is basic to most cultures. In the non-Western cultures where I have lived, this is effected not by government, not by police or military actions, and not even by religious edict. It is effected by community ... by people going about their businesses and their affairs as a group that does not give way to fear, and who are individually experienced in recognizing dangerous situations and handling them.

Life is a risk. The only way to avoid all risk is to die ... or live in a bubble.

While exercising freedom, we retain responsibility for the actions of our delegated authorities, both at home and globally. We monitor and curb the agents, our government, representing our interests. If our agents behave such as to provoke blowback, endangering us, we must reduce their power rather than increase it.

Caretaker governments lessen the people's ability and willingness to evaluate situations, to calculate risks, and to protect themselves, and, consequently, they increase the level of fear in society.

This fear, however, does not abate with additional government activity. The cause of the fear is the people's own defenselessness and powerlessness, proven by their reduced freedom. No "security measures" can address that fear, answer it, or reduce it.

Security OR freedom is a false alternative. They go together, strengthen one another, and repel both the actions and the goals of terrorists. They also thwart the aims of power mongers.

Security AND freedom are based on personal and social responsibility. Together, they exist in the people themselves, and cannot be given away, one or the other ? nor traded, one for the other ? except at the loss of both.

This point was made, succinctly, by Benjamin Franklin, and is inscribed upon the Statue of Liberty:


"They that can give away essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
More succinct, and predictively to the point, however, is this quotation, the source of which I do not know:


"Those who give up liberty for security, will end up with neither."
Whether or not we are WILLING to trade freedom for security is moot. Giving up freedom (and, therefore, responsibility) will reduce our security. This is not a choice, it is a consequence.

To maintain freedom in the face of an increasingly dangerous world is not an issue of bravery, but of practicality. It is the path to increased security. Indeed, it is the only road open ... for people everywhere.




copyright © 2003 by Richard G. Rieben
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[Cyan~Fire]

Nice!
Thanks for posting this Gravitron.
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Wise men STILL seek Him.

[Mine GO BOOM]

tl;dr

[Positive Conservative]

what kind of essay were you trying to write here? was it persuasive, or explanatory?[/code]

[Cyan~Fire]

He didn't write it. And, well, both I guess and does it matter? It still makes really good points.