Security Comes Second To Freedom

I read a great "Letter to the Editor" in today's Chicago Tribune:

Security comes Second to Freedom

The Supreme Court's decision to grant due process to the prisoners at Guantanamo highlights the extensive freedoms we enjoy in this country.  The majority of the dissenting opinions revolved around how the Supreme Court's ruling may degrade national security and possibly lead to the deaths of more Americans.  However, this is one of the downsides of living in a free society.

Freedom gives people the right to free will and therefore the possibility to harm others.  We have the right to bear arms, a right that certainly causes deaths in the form of gun violence; however, it would be an unjust restriction of our freedoms to take that right away or restrict it.  The Patriot Act, although helpful to make America more secure, degrades our amended rights and freedoms.

What the Supreme Court did was underscore that security comes second to freedom.

That is why America is special.

That is why America is the greatest country on Earth.

And that is why America will prevail against evil Islamic radicals.

Just think: Possible Al Qaeda prisoners have more rights as prisoners of America than they do as free men in the very society they are fighting for.  We are certainly the land of the free.

  - Andrew Sargis

   Chicago