What have we citizens lost?

I'm not talking about 40 years ago, and I'm not talking about 40 years from now; but in the present, the term freedom is frequently an illusion.

I am not talking about Bush and the Patriot Act. Yes, there is shrill noise across the globe complaining about wild losses in our civil liberties and freedoms. By and large, I truly do not know what they're trying to refer to. I personally have never felt any sense of having lost the right to do anything because of the Patriot Act. On the other hand, if it is helping to catch terrorists who would gladly destroy my freedom to be alive, then I'm in favor of the act.

The important freedoms we have lost in United States are not the ones you're probably thinking of. They're bigger than that. They've been eroded slowly over time, and thus have not been so noticeable. But they matter, and they matter a lot!

Let me start with a description of a particular situation:

I'm a single man. I go out to get a couple beers, not because I'm a drunk or I'm angry, but because my job blows. It's dumb. So I go get some beers to forget, to relax - and readjust to a healthier disposition with the world around me.

Suddenly, over next to me, a child arrives, alone and by himself. The child is crying. What do I do?

I'll tell you what I do. I get another beer, set my jaw, and pretend I don't notice. Because I could go to jail for doing anything. My desire and my impulse is to take the child's hand, say something comforting, and set out calmly to find the lost parent. But that would be insane in modern America, unless I could collect other adult witnesses to the situation. Sorry, it would be. Take the child's hand?! With alcohol on my breath? A single man and an unrelated crying child hand-in-hand? I might not go to jail, but I might damn well get arrested. Because I don't actually have the freedom to care. I don't actually have the freedom to get involved. I don't have the freedom to be trusted. I don't have the freedom to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Why don't I have these freedoms? For the same reason you don't have the freedom to leave your door unlocked. For the same reason your children don't have the freedom to go on adventures without an adult. For the same reason you don't have the freedom to drive your car in our urban environments feeling safe that you won't be carjacked. This list goes on.

The root of all of these descriptions is a system of justice which has become obsessed with the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment". We tolerate madness. We tolerate career criminals. We tolerate pedophiles and rapists, the pathological and the sociopaths. Even after conviction, a process that must go to extraordinary lengths to succeed, we feel we must provide niceties and comfort and relief within the punishment prescribed. Our justice system is terrified of being pointed at by someone reciting the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment".

What we get then, is a relatively fearless criminal class. No matter what you do, you will not end up in the sun-baked rock quarry, breaking large rocks into small rocks for the rest of your years. So you don't really have to worry, enjoy your crime spree.

Meanwhile the rest of us, those of us who seek to respect our neighbors and obey the reasonable and necessary laws of the civilized culture, must endure our own brand of cruel and unusual punishment. Gigantic freedoms, freedoms of peace and tranquility and trust, are lost. They've been stolen. Even the freedom to be friendly to children you don't know. Because we can't trust our society any more.

A phrase I have some difficulty with, is the regularly pronounced "better 100 guilty men go free, than an innocent man is convicted". Well, actually... not really. Our law system is in place because we need social order and definitions of proper conduct, and hard responses to significant breaches in this order.

There have always been wars; wars are fought primarily by innocent people, not criminals. They are innocent people who must necessarily make profound sacrifices in the pursuit of the survival of their way of life and their neighbor's way of life. Our justice system is itself a war. It is a war against chaos and crime. There will be innocent victims. The supreme tragedy of an innocent victim, is when it is unnecessary, meaningless, or a distortion and intentional manipulation of true justice. If tough laws and easier prosecution are truly endeavors to rid a soiled, grotesque social landscape of the elements which steal fundamental freedoms from everyone, then this is actually a noble cause. This is a noble cause in our war against criminal cancer threatening the health of the nation. If an innocent man is wrongly convicted by justice system which is actually attempting to achieve a noble goal, it is sad and regrettable, but it is a part of an important battle. Great lengths should be gone to to prevent the innocent from prosecution! On the other hand, when a system seems to bend over backwards to find almost any way possible to prevent the worst elements of society from full and hard prosecution, there are ramifications. We all lose. Talk is cheap, but I genuinely feel I would rather go to jail (an innocent man), then have 100 guilty pedophiles released into my neighborhood. No, it isn't necessarily better to have 100 guilty men go free. Innocent individuals must, will, and have always lost Liberty in the pursuit of noble causes. The question that really matters, is, "is the cause noble?" Indeed, a society free of cruel and pathological crime is a very, very noble cause.

The return of some of the American citizen's greatest freedoms, will begin with a justice system which offers no apology for earnest, aggressive response to significant criminal activity. Our sympathies must lay with the good people in our midst. And the chain gang should replace the cable television in our prisons.

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©2008 King David Caul