Why We Worry

It’s been the unassailable conventional wisdom, since at least 9/11, that the President’s highest duty is to protect America. That idea always struck me as odd given what I remembered about the President’s oath of office:

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

It’s more than a little disheartening that the letter and spirit of those words have been undermined so greatly by Bush — but not that he’s the only offending President. Instead of protecting the Constitution, our President claims he must protect the citizens at the expense of the Constitution. Enter the war in Iraq without Congressional approval, warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, etc.

On March 4th, dday (at Digby’s blog) wrote an excellent post about the dangers of the “myth of security primacy. I highly suggest you read the entire thing. In dday’s post he quoted another excellent piece written by Chris Bowers at Open Left. Bowers rightly points to the fight for American Independence. Those early Americans weren’t fighting for increased security, they were fighting for justice and freedom from the British. I though Bower’s conclusion was especially poignant:

Our growing national obsession with security over justice, liberty and democracy is one of, if not the, clearest sign of the eroding stature of America in the geopolitical scene. Until about thirty years ago, America had pretty consistently been the most progressive great power, or super power, in the entire world. Now, due to the rise of conservatism in America, we have unfortunately lost that title to the European Union. It is a painful irony that most of Europe has become more democratic than America itself: in a sense, they have become more American than thou. Our loss of priorities in governance is one of the main reasons for this. In an American contest, “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” should matter just as much as life (remember Patrick Henry?). Justice, the general welfare and liberty should matter just as much as the common defense and domestic tranquility. We have really lost our way on this front, to the point that even saying your first priority as President or in Congress is anything but security is considered blasphemy. That is an incredibly frustrating, teeth-grinding loss of our national purpose, to such an extent that it has become an untouchable symptom in our national decline.

Sadly, I don’t see any of this changing anytime soon. I seem to recall (correct me if I’m wrong) Obama saying that his number one job is to keep America safe. You’ve got Hillary Clinton running ads like this. McCain’s entire message plays almost exclusively to experience and security issues. The average Joe or Jane just isn’t pissed off enough to care about habeas corpus or warrantless wiretaps, and it will probably have to get a lot worse before he or she does care. It’s a damn shame.

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