Expansion and the Role of Government

When I was about seven years old, my dad decided it was about time to try some sort of parent style advice. He said to me, “you know, there’s a few things you’ll need to remember when one day you go out into the world.”

After a few WC fields quotes, like “never cheat an honest man, never give a sucker an even break,” he said something that still sticks with me.

He said, “don’t do anything that will result in you losing your liberty. If you do something wrong because you’re angry, and don’t see you’ll later regret, you’ll find that you’ve traded all of your freedoms, for a life with a cell mate named bubba, or in your case, bubbaette.”

The reason why he wanted me to know this, was because the way he’s lived his life, it has shown him, that aggression will only lead to further suffering. and the key to avoiding aggression is to have a plan to counter it.

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In our history, we decided we wanted a government where they would protect us, help us organize our needs and resources, and make our lives more stable. According to social contract theory, consent is the basis of government. It is because people have agreed to be ruled that governments are entitled to rule. In other words we give them our consent, to make laws regarding how we will live, and in return they have an obligation to do what is right by us. Our government for a lot of people, is like a father figure, they are obedient to its requests, but expect they will be cared for in return. In times of crisis, we look to our government to help us.

When there is famine, we look to the government to provide relief, When there is wrongdoing we look to our government to find justice, and provide compensation. When there are enemies at bay, we look to the government to protect us, specifically to our President, The Commander In Chief.

We expect our government to provide us with certain unalienable rights, including right to life and liberty. We expect those rights presented in the Bill of Rights and Constitution, we expect them all, and in return it is understood that if we act illegally and to the detriment of other citizens or to the government itself, it is within the right of the government; on behalf of the people to give punishment for those actions. If we kill another person, it is expected that some sort of justice will be sought on that person’s behalf, we expect that should we attack the liberties of others, we will be punished for it, by having our liberties abridged. We expect that should any part of the government do anything destructive to these ends, wrongfully limiting these rights endowed to the people, that it is within the rights of the people to alter or abolish said government.

In those times of crisis, we allow Expansion of Government Power.

Within the tenure of the Bush Administration, Government Powers have Expanded to Protect National Security. As a result of this there have been three key responses that I have seen, and I will organize them into three “camps,” there are several topics where they bridge into one another, and that is to be expected.

The first camp, consists of people who believe the government is acting within its rights to protect the common good. They agree when the President says, for example, “law abiding citizens need not be concerned.” They expect based on historical trends, that the government will act to their benefit, and that the systems of checks and balances will help ensure this.

The second camp, consists of people who believe that while the Expansion of Government power is meant to protect national security; to achieve that security the government has threatened many personal freedoms, and in fact acted to the detriment of the people. Only if the government is not infringing upon their liberties such that their daily lives are changed will they support its actions They believe that many of the methods employed by the government, are not justified by their intentions. And while in some cases “in order to do good, you must first do evil” they do not endorse recent activities which in their view have not been acceptable even in such circumstances.

The third camp, is made up of people who do not believe nearly any part of the Expansion of Government Powers are in their best interest. They are instead likely to point that the government is responsible for infringements on liberties disproportionate with the things they claim to provide. They are also likely to ask whether the public in fact gave their consent, and may condemn the Governments actions as paranoid aggression, and atrocities.

There are prominent examples supporting the ideas of each camp, and so I plan to address them in order of approval of what the government is doing.

The camp which depends on the idea that the government is following its contract with the people to do what is in their best interest, will be willing to cope with any limitations put on them because of that understanding. When the current administration feels it is necessary to revoke the right of habeas corpus, the people who are part of this camp will probably refer to President Lincoln’s decision to do so, as a support for the current activity. They see how Lincoln, in response to mass chaos and rioting, imposed Martial Law, and revoked habeas corpus. They will argue that Lincoln had in mind the best interests of the people, and in spite of personal conflict in doing so, after intense thought, decided it would be necessary to revoke those rights, temporarily.

They believe that efforts to protect national security ensure protection of their rights and liberties, and that what threatens the government, threatens them, and should be responded to as such.

This means that there are a litany of concerns the government has their consent to act on. If Illegal Immigration poses a threat of criminals and drugs and weapons coming into the United Sates, then the members of this camp will be willing to authorize the government to minimize and prevent that activity.

If there is a threat of terrorist actions by people in other countries, the members of this camp will approve of the United States intercepting telecommunications from those areas, to scan for areas of concern.

Should there be a threat of domestic terrorists, or “home grown terrorists” the members of this camp will authorize increased surveillance, the formation of task forces, and increased punishment for individuals caught with materials implicit in terrorist activities.

Just as somebody who is seen with a big bag of dope and a wad of cash is arrested on suspicion of dealing drugs, if you are caught with a bathtub full of acetone, guess what, this camp will allow your arrest, and see the reasoning behind it as “beyond doubt”

Many people who participate in ways encouraging this Expansion of Powers, are parts of the government themselves. People like John Yoo, and the advisor to V.P Dick Cheney, David Addington. You may remember them from the frontline programme, Cheney’s law. Yoo was the guy responsible for the memorandum which led to the definition of torture being so limited that it would be almost impossible to be guilty of it. Yoo justified his argument using the Constitution and Federalist Papers, he believed that the Executive branch was destined to be as powerful as he intended to make it, and felt that his argument was supported using those documents.

As I mentioned earlier, many citizens feel that if you are innocent, there is no need for concern. They believe that government action against individuals who commit acts of treason, espionage, or sabotage, or groups who threaten National Security, is in the best interest of the majority and serve the common good.

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This same quality is in the second camp as well, the idea that the government should protect against those threats. They agree with that, but also feel that the government has acted is a way that itself is threatening liberties and the rights of citizens. When the government deceives the people in order to gain support for something it is doing, the members of the second camp will be disgusted with that betrayal and refuse support, even if the cause would otherwise be worthy.

The second camp, will for example be offended, should they learn that some precaution the government has taken, is in fact unreasonable. If there is a fear that, in airlines for example, that there are individuals seeking to use explosives to damage a plain, members of the second camp will consent to have their bags searched, or the carry on items monitored. If they worry that there are terrorist plots where individuals on a plane mix small vials of liquid to make a horrible explosion, they’ll be okay with only being allowed 3 oz of tooth paste. This is something which to them seems a small concession. But should they learn the ridiculous and improbable circumstances in which that would be possible, they will be disinclined to capitulate to that particular guideline. Further, when they hear just how ridiculous it is, in more vivid detail, they will probably refuse other requests as well. In fact, they have learned how ridiculous it is, you see the substance in question, for the liquid bombers TATP, would take somewhere between 8 hours and three days to get the desired result, even in perfect conditions, so such precautions are extraneous.

Members of the second camp will argue that in many cases where privacy is pivotal, the ends do not justify the means. Where the first camp will view telecommunication interceptions as worthwhile and necessary, the second camp will be concerned about how the companies involved were retrospectively given amnesty. In fighting terrorism globally, the members of the second camp would probably advocate intervention only when approved by our allies, and the U.N. In our war with Iraq, members of the second camp will say that what the U.S is doing is trying to provide fertile grounds for democracy, and that is a good thing, but they probably will not agree with the liberties taken from the Iraqis to promote security there. or the forces deployed by our government which are not part of the volunteer army.

Currently some members of the U.S government are contemplating war with Iran. Dick Cheney has “been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz and perhaps other sites, to provoke Tehran into lashing out. around “ The members of the second camp would probably condemn this action as antagonistic and interventionist.

Members of the second camp are kind of like bandwagon fans, which are also called "fair-weather fans" who support their team only when it is winning. They will often ""jump" on and off the "bandwagon" of the teams having the most recent success. They generally don't care if their adopted team has a bad season, or even a bad game, as they ultimately don't care too much about the team. The second camp members feel like they are winning, if their personal freedoms are not infringed upon, but should the government infringe upon their rights too much, they will likely “jump off the bandwagon.” Like the fair-weather fans will not care if their team has a bad season, the members of the second camp will not take action to alter or abolish a government which abridges privileges of people other than themselves.

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This inaction would probably be unacceptable to more active members of the third camp. The third camp is close to, or full on belligerent in its dissent of many of the aforementioned government actions. They are likely to see habeas corpus as the litmus test between a Democracy, and a totalitarian regime. They will address the U.S involvement in foreign affairs, in terms of empires, saying that where the Government claims to be promoting freedom and democracy, that it really is promoting Capitalism, and political leverage. When members of the third camp hear of rendition, they are appalled. If they should listen to people like Fran Townsend, where she claims that information gained in interrogating less than a third of the one hundred people, who we claim to be ‘not torturing’, included 8500 pieces of intelligence on threats. The members of the third camp will find this type of thing disgusting.

Members of the third camp are likely to compare the coming “Next Generation Identification” system, which collects information like fingerprints, facial features, and other information to make a searchable database, to past infringements on privacy, and the ill motivations behind those. They will look at this system, and habeas corpus, and the war on terror, and draw connections to 1950 when the FBI had planned massive arrests, under then chief J Edgar Hoover; to counter what they felt was threats of ‘treason, espionage and sabotage.” The U.S; declassified documents revealed that “Mr. Hoover wanted the president to suspend the centuries-old legal right of habeas corpus, which protects individuals against unlawful arrest.
The FBI director planned to detain the suspects - whose list of names he had been compiling for years - in US military and federal prisons.” A note by Hoover in the document indicated that: "The index now contains approximately 12,000 individuals, of which approximately 97% are citizens of the United States," The members of the third camp know, using retrospective judgment, that had they done this, it would have been unnecessary, and they can look back on it, and condemn it. The new database has been received similarly, because of the parallels they see between the war on terror, and the McCarthyist witch-hunts.

I am generally a member of the third camp. But I think there is actually room for; a necessity even, for there to be people from all three camps. There needs to be a balance, and in order to achieve that you need to have people who keep the government in check, and those who allow it to provide what functions it does. The way you or I espouse a given system of government is the same way we would espouse a given ideology. Because people look to the government expecting different things, our satisfaction with the role it plays is driven by that. The value you put on your liberties, the considerations you will take to protect them, are driven from the core of who you are. You may prefer to be protected and denied, as is the case with the first camp. You may think that it is true, that innocent civilians need not be concerned with what the government is doing. You may be part of the second camp, whose satisfaction is attained so long as the ends justify the means. Or you may be like me, and see the efforts toward national security, as efforts which abridge liberties, and proliferate suffering and control, much like the aftermath of an aggressive mistake is life in a cell with bubbaette, these are the sometimes horrifying downsides of the Expansion of Government Powers in times of crisis.