Land of the weak, home of the afraid

As much as I hate to admit it, America is becoming the land of the weak, home of the afraid.

Americans have been far too compliant surrendering their given rights and freedoms in the name of collective safety.

Some of our most profound rights, which were carefully provisioned to us courtesy of the Founding Fathers and paid for by the blood of American ancestors, have become negligible due to threats ranging from racism to terrorism.

We’ve been smothered by a culture of fear that makes us easily pliable to politicians.

Government-launched safety measures like the Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act, National Security Agency, domestic drone operations, proposed gun control and the Transportation Security Administration attack the fundamental characteristics essential to our free society more than they protect us.

This fear-driven, nationwide strive for a supposed utopian safe haven isn’t just confined to the political front — it is beginning to leak into different realms of life with unbelievable significance.

Earlier this month, the United States Postal Service halted the production of postal stamps picturing cartoon-ish children engaging in 15 different athletic activities on the grounds that three of them portrayed risky behavior. These were of children skateboarding without knee pads, hand standing without helmets and doing a cannonball into a pool.

A school in Long Island, N.Y., has now banned balls at recess, and another school in Nashua, N.H., has banned tag. Both schools claim they’re aiming to protect the children, but I bet they’re still stuffing those poor kids with unhealthy, crummy, prison-level frozen lunches.

I have no problem with people demanding better security, but I have a problem when they start accepting ridiculous restrictions or for the government to fully manage those demands.

I understand most people supporting the confiscation of our rights and the deepening intrusion of outside authority into our lives mean well in that they wish to protect people.

But there are far more consistent and dangerous threats to innocent people than running, balls and even terrorism that we could quell without having to live like children.

Protection from foreign and domestic hazards should be a function of any state to some degree, but if it’s costing us our civil liberties, tipping the balance of power further away from we the people and jeopardizing our children’s opportunities to play normally, then it’s clearly gone past that point and isn’t worth the price.

If Americans want more security, then they should pursue it individually and appropriately via their own free means, such as by carrying a gun or homeschooling their children.

Overly depending on upper authority for protection through official regulations unfairly collectivizes us and spoils our treasured liberties along with their daily benefits for everybody including our descendants.

Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

— edharo@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Edgar Haro on Twitter @EdHarodude.