Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The price . . .

The quote:

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

has been attributed to several sources throughout history including amongst them Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. No matter if either of these icons actually said it, they both definitely knew it first hand. And it is somewhat of their legacy that our vigilance is required not only eternally but constantly, and arduously.

The checks and balances of our governmental powers serves us by giving us many opportunities to prevent any tyrannical power from subjugating us. Certainly our founders could predict that tyranny could come forth not only from a monarch, but from the people as well . . . the tyranny of the masses. But did they predict the tyranny of the gerrymanderers, the loophole hounds, the push pollers, and the hatemongers? It's hard to say. What is clear is that the complexity of our system protects us, but also requires a level of vigilance that can only be described as . . . complex. Because those that would deny you of your rights have figured out every way of working this complex system to do so.

The most endangered right in this country, is probably a woman's right to choose. This right, which was specifically guaranteed by the famed case of Roe vs. Wade, is under constant assault on every front imaginable. But here's the rub; at odds with a woman's right to decide the fate of her own body, is the imagined right to life of the fetus. I say imagined not in a pejorative fashion, but only to highlight the point that there are no grounds yet established for any rights to the potentially human.

The purpose of this site is to reduce the price of liberty. Perhaps through a disciplined exploration of this issue, we can find a way to either accept our differences and live with the choices that our neighbors make (that don't affect us), or reduce the size of the battlefield upon which this war would be fought. Either way would be a welcome reduction in demand of our scarce and valuable vigilance.