Okay, this is Senator Jeff Sessions (R.) of Alabama, from the floor of the U.S. Senate yesterday:
“The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the Constitution than protect our nation’s security.”
Amazing, isn’t it? Defending the Constitution will endanger us! And yet, he took an oath of office, swearing on the Bible to do just that. I swear, at some point we’re going to have to lead all of these people gently by the arm to the “home.”
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This is bound to get me in the soup with you, old buddy, but better men than Sessions have said very similar things. Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The constituion is not a suicide pact.” Every right is relative. “The right to free speech doesn’t authorize a man to cry fire in a crowded theatre.” Sometimes liberals want to shave rights too. Think of our attitude to the second amendment. In a democracy everything is up for grabs and subject to never-ending debate. On the matter of security as against due process, you and I would draw the line in very different places from where Senator Sessions would draw it, but noone who thoughtfully considers this or any constitutional matter can avoid the drawing of lines. Sometimes one right interferes with another right – and rights are constantly evolving in any event. As a young guy I confess I was kind of an anarchist, and I still have those instincts in me, but I figured out some time ago that gut feelings weren’t quite enough – especially when there are real consequences to one’s pie-in-the-sky ideas. Besides, the real world of ambiguity, irony and complexity is really more satisfying than the non-world of utopian dreaming. [I know that last sentence will rile you, Johannes. Let me have it with both barrels - I will defend to the death your right to bear arms!]