Liberty, Federalism, and Hurt

Sometimes I read Daily Kos, not to get all outraged at some of the comments - because they hardly offend me, and mostly bore me with their Lefty one-upsmanship. Instead I read for comments made by sensible people possessed by both an honest, non-resentful sense of patriotism and the the liberal perspective. They do exist, and they are good people, and they should be thoughtfully engaged on the issues that matter. In this otherwise goofy thread (about a person who would die to protect Valerie Plame) I found this nugget:

If you want freedom, you have to be prepared to have some risk associated with it. To me, and you, our civil liberties far out weigh the small chance that I will be killed in a terrorist attack. After all as horrific as the 9/11 attacks were, less than one tenth of one percent of the population was killed. If we give them up (civil liberties) then what is the point of being safe from terrorist, only to be vulnerable to the politician that has the least scruples?

My first reaction was amen. You cannot live in a free society - or, I might add, a technologically-advanced, pluralistic, creative, and market driven society - without assuming a substantial portion of risk.

My second reaction was to think of the press conference I witnessed last week after the Minnesota bridge collapse, in which presidential spokesperson Tony Snow had to answer question after question from reporters about what the government would do in response, whether the should be greater control and oversight and possibly an investigation. The implied presumption was that either somebody in George Bush's government wasn't doing their job or that there should have been a greater amount of federal control.

They could have just has reasonably asked, "What is the federal government doing to give control back to the states?" - but that would have violated the implicit presumption behind the politics of the folks who join the media - which is that centralized, collectivist model of government is somehow better, and less riskier, than ceding control to the states.

You can't argue the importance of civil liberties while also making almost every problem a government issue, one that can only be solved by legislation and lawsuits. If our civil liberties really means freedom - and not a nanny-blanket of laws and agencies and institutionalized state protections - then it means freedom to get hurt, and not just from terrorists. Free speech hurts, natural disasters hurt, and the daily struggle to compete in the marketplace hurts. It's never the intended outcome - any reasonable American wants everyone to prosper - but it cannot be entirely avoided, and we should not contort the foundations of our democracy to make everything safe, or legally actionable.

Also, looking at the original quote (and making too much of it, really) - I have to admit, I'm just not that paranoid about my government. Democrat, Republican, all of them - in jail or at large - I'm simply not as concerned that their scruples are worse than Al-Qaeda. Politicians can erode our liberty, but they do it with bureaucracy, not by listening to your phone conversation. It will be done under the auspices of "taking care" of the people. And I'm much more concerned about my fellow citizens who play up that angle, who flap their arms about getting the federal government involved (or accountable) every damn time anything bad happens.