It was awful beyond words. Jet fuel burning up buildings and the people in them. Masonry and steel falling on more people in the streets. Police officers and firefighters killed while trying to help. Horrible suffering.

But don’t lose perspective.

Don’t forget Iraq’s use of nerve gas on its own people. Or the slaughter of a half-million Tutsis in Rwanda. Or the 1.5 million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge. Or the Russian gulag system. Or the Nazi death camps.

All noncombatants, and all just as dead.

Human suffering on this scale, while thankfully rare, is not unheard of. And our nation’s presence on the world stage surely makes us targets for those who oppose our policies or practices.

But the protections we seek can easily destroy us.

Remember, the central purpose of terrorism is to create fear. And just like a child afraid of a school bully, a nation that is afraid will, under the banner of public safety and national security, do things that are in fact self-defeating.

The solution, while not easy, is simple: Just don’t react in fear. React instead with courage and deliberation and razor-sharp resolve to maintain those things we value as a nation.

Here are some actions that will be proposed, but I urge you to reject:

° Don’t let boarding an airplane become a strip search of your life. One of the findings already out is that airport security is often enforced by untrained, underpaid persons who don’t know how to use the equipment and don’t follow established procedures. Before adding more layers of intrusion, let’s fix what we already have in place.

° Don’t relax the legal standards for stop, search and seizure. Under our system of law, police curiosity is not sufficient grounds to interfere in your life. Keep it that way. And be particularly wary of “profiling,” the practice of stopping and questioning persons who fit a particular description, regardless of any behavior that would otherwise constitute a legal stop.

° Don’t relax the standards for surveillance of citizens through phone taps, computer taps, access to bank records and such. Remember the McCarthy era: paranoia breeds more paranoia.

° And don’t let this tragedy spawn yet another attempt to ban private ownership of firearms. Yes, I know, one thing has little to do with the other, but trust me, it will be proposed.

This is what I want you to do: When your elected representative starts scrambling to look like he or she is doing something, tell him or her to stop posturing and to simply kick hell out of the ones who did it and anyone who helped them. Against such a national policy, even the suicide-ready would have difficulty finding the political and logistical support they need for another try.

And when your representative suggests limiting your rights or your ability to enjoy the freedoms inherent in your citizenship, throw eggs and tomatoes. Short of revolution, liberty lost is never regained.

Yes, to resist these (and other) remedies will be risky. But so is life. And the possibility of injury, however grievous, does not justify abandoning the values we hold as a nation, the values that define us as a people, the values that keep us free.

One more thing: When you’ve fallen into a ditch, the person who offers you a hand back up is not necessarily your friend. He may be there to rob you while you’re still shaken up.

Never forget that.

(Lewis Garnett, formerly of Maggie Valley, is now attending graduate school in Winston-Salem. He will continue to write occasional columns for The Smoky Mountain News.)

 

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