If You Don't Want Your Thoughts Provoked, Don't Read This

Jonathan Zimmerman, a teacher of history and education at New York University, yesterday had an op-ed piece published in many newspapers, among them the Omaha World-Herald. He challenged his fellow liberals to come up with specific instances of when it is necessary to abrogate civil liberties to wage the War on Terror successfully.

He used as his example Abraham Lincoln's actions in suspending the writ of habeas corpus and otherwise trampling on the rights of fellow citizens who were suspected of being Confederate sympathizers. And he argues that Lincoln was right to do so, even though he defied the Constitution (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) to do it.

In short, Zimmerman contends that Benjamin Franklin's admonition that "[t]hose who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security" was [Gasp!--Ed.] wrong.

Zimmerman goes on to note that Dubya's actions to date in riding roughshod over civil liberties are not justified--so far. His weightiest reason for the difference between Lincoln's actions and Dubya's? Lincoln was in a 19th century war--a war requiring the taking of the enemy capital--and Washington, D.C., was geographically surrounded by Confederate sympathizers. Yes, Maryland did not secede, but Maryland was a slave state and a great many Marylanders hoped (and acted to fulfill that hope) that the Confederacy would win. Virginia, forming D.C.'s fourth border, had seceded . . . and took many of the best American military men, such as Robert E. Lee, with her.

Their loyalty was to their states. Lincoln's loyalty was to the Union, as a whole.

Since we are no longer in a war whose winning will be defined by the capture and contol of geography, Dubya cannot ride Lincoln's coattails to justify his wholesale stomping on civil liberties.

I for one do not disagree. But Zimmerman has challenged all his readers to iterate when Dubya's actions would become justified. Despite the historical concensus that Lincoln, as a matter of law, was in the wrong, Lincoln, as a matter of fact, was right. He saved the Union. Ultimately, he freed the slaves. He breathed life into the concept of the United States. Before the Civil War, people spoke of "the United States are . . ." After, people spoke of "the United States is . . ."

As a practical matter, we can either become martyrs to our belief in civil liberties or we can fight as dirty as we need to in order to survive . . . and restore those liberties once the immediate threat to them and to our survival is gone.

What an uncomfortable moral place in which to be! If we sink to our enemies' level, how are we any better than they are and thus more deserving of survival? Yet if we don't, and we fail to survive, our ideals will die with us. But how can we claim them to be our ideals if we do not live in accordance with them?

"Forgive us our trespasses, O Lord, as we forgive those who trespass against us" cuts two ways. We are human, thus by definition imperfect. It is not merely understandable, but expected, that we fail to live up to our stated ideals. But if we don't forgive those who trespass against us, and we instead wipe out those who trespass against us, have we not sunk too far below our ideals to justify claiming them as our own?