Give me Liberty

In my Western Political Heritage class we've been talking all semester about justice - what it is, why it's important, etc. In order to find the answer to these questions, we've been studying Plato's Republic, and yesterday we finally finished it. At the conclusion, *spoiler alert* Plato delineates 5 major types of regimes:

1. Aristocracy
2. Timocracy
3. Oligarchy
4. Democracy
5. Tyranny

Believe it or not, this list is ordered from best to worst. What's more, each regime leads cleanly to the next with the natural decline of society. That's right, I just said that democracy naturally devolves into tyranny. We could easily wake up one day and have a tyrant on our hands. How? Because America has problems, and we want someone who will be champion of the people - someone who will make America great again. And maybe they really will, but maybe once they do they won't want to hand power back over to the other guys who messed us up in the first place. So maybe they'll tinker with a few laws and hold on to power just a little longer. And a little longer. Until a little longer becomes an indefinite stay in the White House. Now I'm not saying this is going to happen. I still have a little bit of faith in the system that our Forefathers established, but I do want to take some time to examine the changes that our taking place in our democratic society right now.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
                   - Benjamin Franklin


Let's start with the Patriot Act. Let me begin by saying I felt a little nervous googling anything negative about this piece of legislation. I tried to steer clear of any inflammatory words or phrases so as not to be put on the No-Fly List (this happens more often than you might think - my aunt was put on the list not too long ago. I can assure you she isn't a threat to national security). Honestly though, I don't think the Patriot Act is ever going to affect me personally, and that's probably why we let it happen. As long as we all get to stay in our comforts zones, and as long we're not going to be the ones that are detained by the TSA, then why would we care? It keeps the terrorists at bay for heaven's sake! But isn't it kind of a slippery slope? I'm just not sure I'm comfortable with the overwhelming power of the government in this case to squelch the liberty of the individual. So is it worth it? I don't think so. People die every day - and sometimes it's at the hands of really malicious people - but if we continue to go down this path, bad things will still happen, we'll just have fewer civil liberties when those bad things happen. Now by no means do I think there shouldn't be any government control of national security, I just think it would be prudent to make sure that we won't be at risk for continued degradation of personal liberties.  


Unfortunately, the injustice doesn't end with the Patriot Act. If you heard about the North Carolina preschooler that had her home-made lunch of turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, and potato chips revoked and replaced with cafeteria chicken nuggets, you know what I mean. This is just ridiculous, and it isn't an isolated incident. My aunt (not the no-fly aunt), is a teacher in central California, and her entire school district was instructed to monitor children's lunches and confiscate unhealthy items as necessary. Are you kidding me? When did we decide that this level of government interference is okay? Not to mention, anybody who has ever eaten from a school cafeteria knows how completely insane it is to replace a homemade meal with that mystery meat on the basis of health. 


The early manifestations of these issues were very prominent in the 19th century. There were many different schools of thought on the role of the federal government, and how large we should allow it to grow. Despite ever-present concerns about a government that is too large and too powerful, ours has continued to grow. In fact, it would be fair to say that no president has ever left the office weaker than when he entered it. So what would our 19th century counterparts think of us now? What would all of the men who have fought and died for our country and our freedoms think of us now? Because quite frankly, I'm not sure this is what they had in mind.