The Inherent Rights of Man
Far too often, when a government is presented with an apparent threat to perceived safety they tend to take actions with respect to individual freedoms that some may feel oversteps certain boundaries. The infringement of freedoms are the things that we can come to expect when we allow our actions to be guided by fear for as Voltaire said, “it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” There seem to be few words that are more capable of illustrating what seems to be a recurring truth throughout history, most recently displayed with the enacting of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) newest policies. As is most often the case, the new TSA policies are not an issue of safety, but an issue of whether the government is overstepping its bounds. More people have died as a result of drunk driving than by terrorist hijacking of planes. While the possibility of terrorist attack remains an ever-present concern, there may be more effective ways of protecting ourselves from that threat than turning the U.S. into something approaching a police state. If there are any doubts of a police state being possible, one need only look to the past: The Spanish Inquisition, The Salem Witchcraft Trials, Pre-War Germany (1930s), and 1950s America and the age of McCarthyism. These events illustrate what can happen when ruling parties begin to trample on the inherent and universal rights of man. While certain documents that have outlined the rights provided to man during each of these eras, the United States Constitution is the one most applicable to Americans and seems to go furthest to define these inalienable rights.
The major point of contention at the moment is the TSA’s new policies on personal screening practices of passengers, which have recently become significantly more aggressive and arguably may infringe upon the fundamental rights of fundamental citizenry. While these actions may be somewhat appalling to many, they should not come as much of a surprise given the recent history of America and humanity as a whole. With a look back through history similarities can be drawn between each of the aforementioned events. In each of them there is the presence of fear, a religious and/or political factor, a target and/or scapegoat, and the suppression civil liberties and freedoms. Each of these events has their own atrocities for which they have become famous. It is both sad and awesome, in the most literal sense of the word, that such atrocities can be committed under the guise of nationalistic pride, patriotism, and in this case security.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, colloquially and hereafter referred to as the Spanish Inquisition or just the Inquisition, occurred in Spain around the turn of the 16th century spanning the preceding and subsequent decades. The Inquisition is most well-known for the persecution, expulsion and/or conversion of Jews, Protestants, and Muslims from the borders of the Spanish Kingdom. (Kamen) Throughout this time, these religious minorities were given the option to either convert to Catholicism, or leave. While viewed as drastic, if not obscene, by today’s standards of religious freedom, in those days it was not uncommon and it didn’t seem unreasonable if somebody didn’t want to leave, to just become Christian. However, the problem with the inquisition was, that if someone was a convert and suspected of still practicing “the old ways” they were suspect and therefore subject to questioning that would lead to torture, if not death. Torture aside, the Inquisition is guilty of many other atrocities. Accusations based on conjecture alone were used as sufficient evidence of heresy. For example, if a previously Jewish household that had converted that had converted to Catholicism did not have chimney smoke on a Saturday; it was presumed that they secretly were still practicing Judaism and keeping the Sabbath. Other times all that was needed to condemn one’s fate is the testimony of another.
Other common practices and methods of limiting citizen’s rights and knowledge during the Spanish Inquisition were censorship including book burning. Of the Spanish Inquisition, the German playwright Heinrich Heine stated, "That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also".(“Book Burning”) Through the loose burden of proof and the common seizure of persons and property throughout the Inquisition, many people fell victim to this violation of basic human rights. However, it soon became evident that these desecrations to the rights of man were not to be unique to the actions of the Spanish crown.
The Salem Witch Trials were based more on fear and mass hysteria than on religious persecution. The transgressions against civil liberties that took place were so pervasive, so appalling, that the trials themselves are frequently used as rhetoric for those wishing to provide warning to society in current times. These rhetorical uses are not without purpose or warrant either, as the clear lack of due process exhibited by the jurists of the trials extended past the purported halls of justice and into the populace at-large. The end result of which would be that even a simple accusation often resulted in the condemnation of the accused, if not in a court of law, at least in the court of public opinion. The presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” had not yet come about in the colonies, as it was in fact an American idea. What this meant was that the burden of proof fell to the accused to show evidence that they were not in fact a witch. Effectively, they were in “guilty until proven innocent”. This standard presents obvious problems in that it is virtually impossible for one to provide evidence that they do not believe in something. Because of this, once an accusation has been made and circular logic set in, it seemed that the fate of the accused was sealed before it could even be contested. So was the case of one Giles Cory, who witnessing that the courts to that point had exonerated not even one single accused person, chose instead to protest by not submitting a plea and as a result was subjected to an archaic form of torture and coercion by which heavy stones were stacked upon his chest (peine forte et dure) in an effort to get him to plead guilty. After two days of this punishing treatment, Cory died. (Snyder). It is a wonder how such atrocities could be committed by the very institutions that are sworn to protect those that they victimized.
One of the greatest failings of humanity, throughout history happened in relatively recent times. The rise of the Nazi Party in antebellum Germany brought forth one of the darkest times for human behavior much less human rights. To put it as succinctly as possible, The Nazi’s, with the knowledge acquiescence and even support of the populace, stripped twelve million people of their lives through methodical, meticulous, and murderous extermination that came to define the worst of humankind for now and the foreseeable future. The following words seemingly describe the actions of the Nazi’s best and are found on the official website of Yad Vashem, (translated to mean Hand of God) the Israeli Holocaust Museum:
There was no escape. The murderers were not content with destroying the communities; they also traced each hidden Jew and hunted down each fugitive. The crime of being a Jew was so great, that every single one had to be put to death – the men, the women, the children; the committed, the disinterested, the apostates; the healthy and creative, the sickly and the lazy – all were meant to suffer and die, with no reprieve, no hope, no possible amnesty, nor chance for alleviation.
Never before had a state government become engrained in such a way in the lives of the citizenry on such a vast scale. Its Gestapo hunted those that were undesirables, be they Jew or Gentile. Anyone who opposed the Nazis was targeted as hostile. In Sept 1935, Germany passed the Nuremburg Laws, stripping the Jews in Germany of all rights. These laws were highly indicative of what was to come in the near future. On 9-10 November 1938, The Nazi regime sponsored what some might refer to as state run terrorism against the Jews of Germany and Austria as Kristallnacht or as “The Night of Broken Glass”. Houses of worship were set afire, buildings destroyed, and many Jewish people taken into the streets and killed. Either way, the actions of the Nazi, in retrospect, seem so abhorrent, and appalling that it leads many to question how anyone could have let this happen.
It is here, in attempting to answer the question of how the actions of 1930s pre-war Germany could happen, that the quote from Voltaire may well reflect on current times. It started to become dangerous, in Germany, to be right and to do the right thing. Speaking out against the Reich could lead to the loss of status, livelihood, freedom, or life. In the face of these consequences, why would anyone dare to stand up and do what was right?
Furthermore, one might ask, “How do the actions of the Spanish in the 14-1500s, the colonial Britons, or the Nazis of the Weimar Republic and subsequently the Third Reich relate to the current situation in America or even America in general?” The answer may lie in the actions of the American government in the 1940s and 50s. Some would postulate that the first time a culture of fear started was with the Japanese internment camps during World War II, these camps had such striking similarity to what happened in Germany. The major issue arose with the coming of the Second Red Scare during the 1950s. When it comes to the political persecution of supposed communists during this time there are two entities that run integral to these events and the fear that came along with them, the names are: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The name of Senator McCarthy is so ingrained in to this phenomenon that it is used as a pejorative (McCarthyism) to succinctly describe the kind of persecution and witch hunting that he and the HUAC stood for. Like the Nazis, McCarthy and his ilk hunted down anyone who either was or could somehow be linked to communism. Even the slightest hint of communist conduct would be enough to be brought forth to appear for questioning at behest of the committee. The actions of the congressional inquisitors stirred the nation into a patriotic fervor. While patriotism can cause a nation to do great things (such as winning world wars) there is another side to this sword. When people begin to fear for their safety against a seemingly intangible foe they so often start to surrender their rights in an effort to obtain a modicum of safety. However, it seems that when people do give up their freedoms, the citizenry is apt to trade one potential foreign oppressor for a home grown, friendlier one. Then it seems that in an effort to keep the ever watchful eye of the government off of themselves, they point the proverbial finger at each other accusing anyone they can think of, of being a communist. In terms of McCarthyism someone either cooperated with the government, or they were ruined. Be it de facto, or de jure, the consequences of being a communist, either by admission or omission, were dire. In a world where mere speculation can cause the ruin of a person’s interests and livelihood, words and unsubstantiated accusations can be virulent and dangerous. During the era of McCarthyism, if a person wanted to ruin someone’s life or career, all they needed to do was accuse them of being a communist, thereby allowing people to exploit the court system, settling personal feuds through legal venues. This draws similarities to the Salem Witch Trials in where people just engaged in an accusatory, he said she said finger pointing match. In both instances there was government sponsored fear-mongering and persecution. Fortunately McCarthyism was halted before anyone could be burned at the stake, at least not literally. People were, however, ostracized and let go from their jobs if they were deemed to even be harboring pro-communist feelings. United States law (50 USC Sec 781-858) went so far as to define what made someone a communist and also criminalized being a communist. Because being communist was, by way of this law, deemed subversive, any citizen who was naturalized could have their citizenship revoked and then be deported if they refused to testify at a congressional hearing or it was determined that a naturalized citizens actions were in fact subversive. What the government did with the creation of this law was to make it punishable to have an unpopular opinion. How is one to stand up against the state when their very right to do so has been stripped by the laws of the very government tasked with the responsibility of protecting these rights? While it was obviously not possible for the government of the United States of America to restrict the freedom of speech and other enumerated rights present in the First Amendment, they did not have to. All that was required of them was to draw up baseless charges of communism against any given person and they were, in effect, silenced by the government. The actions of the 1950s and aforementioned eras each illustrate what happens when the government oversteps its bounds and does the unacceptable.
With threats to the American way of life which have occurred over the past nine years, people’s opinions of what is acceptable in terms of national security has changed and fluctuated in a myriad of ways. From the reactionary to the radical, most people surely have their opinions on this. This is of course the feeling that the safety of the nation reigns supreme above all else. They allow their fears to preside over rationality, carrying them and the rest of society into actions or conduct that they so often later regret.
However, it is not simply the reactionary that can be the cause for problem, but also the radical libertarian who values the personal liberties of the individual above all else. If the rule of law is to be suspended each given the right to do as their hearts desire, then surely anarchy would ensue. In an effort to avoid either of these scenarios, we must, as a nation, be able to find balance between freedoms and national security. In each of the major historical events previously cited, they were the result of the government sounding the horns of danger and stirring the public into fear. These situations bring to mind a passage that is often attributed to Julius Caesar, but whose actual author is unknown, goes as follows:
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
These alleged words of Caesar describe ever so cautiously the ubiquitous reaction of the masses in response to attack from an outside threat. This is evidenced in many positive, as well as, negative ways. Examples run the gamut from the almost universal flying of American flags throughout the nation following the attacks on 11SEP2001 or the blind passing of laws, rules, and regulations that seem to circumvent the rights put in place by the Constitution of the United States of America. The most recent furor is as a result of the new millimeter-wave full body scanners or the seemingly over invasive pat-down regulations being implemented in airports across the country by the TSA. There are those that have opined that they are perfectly fine with having people be able to see nearly nude pictures of themselves or to have the hands of a stranger feeling parts of their body that, should anyone else touch the same place, would normally be grounds for criminal assault charges. Others would allow “anything in the name of safety”. It seems that in the times of fear the laws that protect our rights are compromised and are replaced by laws that would skirt the line, test the line and sometimes cross the line of what ought to be allowable.
The principle that some people may fail to realize is that the Constitution, which is the presiding guideline of inalienable and immutable rights in America, exists for several reasons; however not among those reasons is the protection of the rights of the majority. In a democracy where the majority rules, writing protections for the majority would seem to be meaningless. Aside from a variety of procedural and jurisdictional rules, the other primary purpose of the Constitution and more specifically the Bill of Rights/Amendments is to protect the minority from the majority. The reason for this is that in times of national strife, cooler heads will prevail. However, if there are no cool heads, there must be some basic level of safeguards in place to prevent the government from seizing the rights of the people and turning into a police state. There are those that would state that if this is what is required in order to be safe then so be it because we are at war and safety is of the utmost concern.
While the safety and security of the state is important, it bears mentioning that the unjustified fears of the masses may have done far more damage to the American way of life than any bomber may have. There possibly is a reason they are called terrorists and not bombers or assassins. The terror and fear that is caused by their actions is far more damaging than the loss of life caused. However it seems anymore, that people would gladly send our military off to war to fight and die to protect the liberties and freedoms that many would just as easily turn around and surrender. Should the blood of others be spilled in vain so that ours may stay pumping ever so safely? If we are to sacrifice our freedom, then why should they sacrifice their lives? If the only wish is to be safe, then that is rather easy. Allow the government to herd us all as if we were cattle. Brand us with identification (ID) numbers, require radio frequency ID implants in everyone so that the government can track our every location. Then remove freedom of assembly, the right to bear arms, and most every other right and freedom we have come to enjoy. We will have then surrendered what many have concluded it means to be human and American. But, at least then, we will be safe, neither living nor dying, merely existing.
Allowing the government to strip our civil liberties in the name of state security can be a rather slippery slope. Safety and security is important but, the interest of the nation needs to be balanced with respect to the rights of the individual. The test of this balance should be based on reasonability and rationality. It is imperative to maintain basic human rights if we as a nation are to survive in times of danger and strife. It is not evil we need fear, but the indifference for decency or respect for common sense rights. We as a people cannot stand by idly watching, what we know to be wrong, continue. History teaches us what will happen if we allow these immoralities of man and government to continue unchecked. After all, words of man and government have taken more lives and mended more hearts than any blade in history. It is for this reason that it is most imperative that we be able to choose them both wisely. We as a nation of Americans are responsible for the words we choose, the actions we take, and the weapons we wield. Let us live up to the ideals that have made America what we have come to love and not be afraid to do what we know is right, even if the government is wrong.
