Memorials and conquerors
In Albany, N.Y.’s Crossgates Mall, there’s a memorial to the Karner Blue butterfly under a staircase. It’s there because, in building the mall, one of the Karner Blue’s rare habitats was virtually wiped out. So instead of the butterflies, the people of Albany have a steel and glass reminder of them.
In New York, N.Y., there’s a memorial to freedom being built: the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower that’s replacing the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Instead of our freedoms, we have a glass and steel reminder of them.
The old style of war was a war of conquest: One group tried to conquer another by occupying its land. Your fight against the invaders was a fight for your freedom — if they won, they’d impose a law and culture you didn’t want.
In fighting the war on terrorism, though, we aren’t fighting against an enemy intent on conquering our lands. That’s one reason this is a very different kind of war. There is no realistic point in which the Bad Guys will have won. The Western world will not become an Islamic caliphate; the United States will not be wiped off the map.
There is no agenda and there are no demands. They are simply trying to hurt us.
The fight, for us, is simple: Do not let that happen. And there are many ways to accomplish that goal, offensive and defensive.
The problem is that in a desperate attempt to fight that war, to stop ourselves from being hurt, we’ve found a way to lose the other kind.
What does it mean to be conquered? It means that different people set the rules — people you may not like creating laws you may not like. Sometimes those laws are based on ideology, sometimes on religion, sometimes on something else. If those ideals or gods or what have you are not yours, you have lost.
Which is why we as a people are losing that other kind of war. We have enabled a different kind of government to set the rules.
It’s one that taps our phone calls and collects our phone records, then lies about doing it.
It’s one that tells us we must sacrifice our privacy for security, then demands for itself absolute secrecy in its dealings.
It’s one that feels it doesn’t need warrants to search our homes, stamping the paperwork “National Security” and telling us it’s for our own good.
It’s one that gives itself the right to look at our library records, our health records, our phone calls, and our e-mail, but denies us the right to know when this is being done.
And it’s one that portrays anyone who disagrees with it as an enemy.
The age of conquering armies is over. But the potential for the effects are the same: the loss of our ideals, our values, and our freedoms — the very things that make us who we are. When those are gone, we are a different people. Perhaps we should consider this for what it is before we hail our conquerors.
Bob Francis says:
Amen! and we accept it with a smile.