Whitening Teeth and Freedom

I was applying Listerine teeth whitening strips to my teeth this morning (don’t ask why) and thinking about how our teeth yellow so slowly as we age that one doesn’t realize it is happening. And using over-the-counter teeth whitening strips the effect is reversed so slowly that one can’t really notice any difference day-to-day, though in the end the teeth are, in fact, significantly whiter.

It occurred to me that the same is true of our freedoms and civil liberties in this nation. I was reading a piece on the web that argued that the ObamaCare individual mandate (that REQUIRES everyone to buy health insurance) is indeed constitutional, and detailed convincingly all the court precedents that support this. In fact, the interstate commerce clause of the constitution has been stretched and stretched again over the decades, by one small extension after another, until it really does (based on legal precedent) allow Congress to REQUIRE American citizens to do just about anything. Like teeth yellowing, it has happened so slowly that few noticed and even fewer objected.

Think about it. We now torture (water-board) prisoners (though the justice department argues it is legal). We now execute Americans and others with missiles from the air, without trials and without declaring war (though the justice department argues it is legal). We now confiscate property (houses, cars, property) associated with drug running, even if the property belongs to someone else who was unaware of the criminal activity (though the justice department argues this is legal). We now bomb countries like Libya without a Congressional declaration of war (though the administration argues this is legal). We incarcerate prisoners at Guantanamo for decades without trial (though the Justice department argues this is legal). Our phones and emails can be tapped, and we can be followed with GPS devices attached to our cars and phones on the basis of warrants issued by secret star chamber proceedings, or in some cases no warrants at all. What happened to the “illegal search and seizure” clause of the Constitution?

How did we get here? 50 or 100 years ago these actions would have been unthinkable to the American public, yet now it goes on with only a few grumbles from a few fringe complainers. For the most part we quietly accept it, as we will no doubt quietly accept the ObamaCare mandate, if the Supreme Court doesn’t overturn it this fall.

It seems to me that like teeth yellowing, we have allowed American civil liberties to be eroded decade after decades, each step so small we hardly noticed, each step justified by eminently reasonable arguments and supported by judicial review, until we have arrived at such an invasion of personal liberty that the next small step (like the ObamaCare individual mandate) hardly matters.

I find this an alarming thought, and it has made me look again at the “extreme” views of libertarians like Ron Paul. Maybe his views on liberty aren’t so extreme after all. Maybe what is really extreme is the degree to which we have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed, one tiny reasonable step after another, into accepting one government curtailment after another on our Constitutional liberties and rights for freedom. Maybe it is the “reasonable”, “mainstream”, commonly-accepted, widely-held political views of our nation that have become extreme.