Ignoring the Reflection in the Mirror

Trey Smith

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.
~ from 10 Reasons the US is No Longer the Land of the Free by Jonathan Turley ~

I have noted before that, in many ways, the US is following the blueprint of Nazi Germany. Instead of eviscerating our hallowed civil rights in one fell swoop, our leaders are doing so incrementally. By doing this slowly, but surely, far too many of our fellow citizen don't realize what's happening and it won't dawn on them what's going on until no civil rights remain.

At that point, it will be far too late to do much about it.

As with any nation, we have been conditioned to embrace a certain image of ourselves. America is the land of the free and the brave. We always take the moral high ground. We are the good guys in the white hats who ride into the scene to rescue the damsel or the wagon train from bloodthirsty savages bent on murder and mayhem.

The myth has been told to schoolchildren for generations. It is drummed into our heads by the mainstream media, the educational system and both our political AND religious leaders. So, when we look in the mirror, we see the image we have been taught to see. And it makes us feel good and proud to be Americans.

But the image reflected in the mirror is nothing like the conditioned image we have been brainwashed to see. As Turley points out in his fine essay, we aren't half as free as we use to be! Not only are we not as free as yesterday, but our leaders already are plotting the next salvos to remove even more of our once vaunted freedoms.

Another aspect of the genuine reflection in the mirror -- one that too many refuse to acknowledge -- is that the US almost never takes the moral high ground. We charge into war even when peaceful solutions are on the table. We expect other nations far and wide to toe the line, but we rarely do. We demand that other nations deal with us in an honest and straightforward manner, but we lie and use trickery as frequently as we breathe air!

Worst of all, in far too many situations, we are the ones wearing the black hats, not the white ones. We are the aggressors who threaten the damsels and wagon trains with murder and mayhem.

It only is when we can look at ourselves in the mirror without preconceived notions that we can see the seething monster we have become. We must be able to recognize the gargoyle staring back at us if we ever hope to begin to repair the damage...before our national soul is lost forever.