. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 9:49 PM, Rishab Ghosh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> i have a lot of respect for people who've actually fought in the >> army and risked their lives, even if i disagree with them when they >> think that it's the way to solve problems and such "macho" >> approaches are worth more than the principles of democracy and >> self-governance. > > Freedom, democracy, ...all lofty words when one is staring down the > barrel of a gun.
It is when one is staring down the barrel of a gun that one's principles become the most important. A few short years ago, I was standing outside my office at 14th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan on a perfect autumn morning, watching friends of mine die as the World Trade Center buildings fell. I cannot explain what that experience was like -- the smell of burning and death will be in my nostrils forever. Within hours a (now former) friend of mine who is not a believer in freedom sent me email asking me if I still believed that the internet needed to be uncensored and cryptography needed to be widely available -- essentially asking me if I would now sacrifice freedom for security. I told him I believed more than ever my principles, and I've never spoken to him since. Doubtless he has been in favor of the US government's policies on "enhanced interrogation techniques", and doubtless I'm better off not having heard from him. Another friend, a policeman and radical libertarian named John Perry who died when the second tower collapsed, would never forgive me if I changed my views because of how he met his end. I knew him well enough to hear in my head what he would say about standing for freedom and justice when the chips are down. I firmly believe that we are judged best not by the ideals we hold when they are easy to support, but by what we believe in when it is painful to stand by our principles. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
