This country was founded on several highly valued principles: they are outlined in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Many are so basic and fundamental that they are easy to take for granted, especially if you have been born and raised in the United States and have had your rights respected all your life. However, rights are easily undermined; usually it isn’t an abrupt transition, but a slow and gradual one. The transition is one of incrementalism, where a slippery path is embarked upon and at the beginning you don’t notice, but perhaps by the time you do notice things have gone too far and you wish you could get back to the “good old days.” As a rather extreme example, tyrants like Mao, Hitler and Stalin do not come to power instantly — there are circumstances leading up to their rise to power, and in many cases that includes elections.
I say this not because I think we’re headed for a tyrannical disaster, but because I think it’s always important to consider the future ramifications of actions we take now. I respect people who are against policy that maybe in and of itself isn’t harmful, but they see the potential harm down the road.
One area where I see small, incremental changes (but dangerous nonetheless) is with government checkpoints. In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court (Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz) ruled that checkpoints for the supposed purpose of catching intoxicated drivers were legal. Checkpoints were further expanded post-9/11 for the supposed purpose of immigration enforcement, with these checkpoints being allowed as far as one hundred miles from a border. Americans are routinely stopped and asked about their citizenship even when they don’t cross a border. All of this is contrary to our fourth amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizures. I fear that checkpoints will continue to grow in number and their purposes will expand as well.
Another example is firearm registration. There are many different forms of firearm registration, but generally I think people who are opposed to firearm registration aren’t as opposed to firearm registration itself as much as the ramifications and the slippery slope that it entails. If a firearm is uncovered at the scene of a crime, law abiding citizens probably wouldn’t mind if it was traceable back to its owner. However, firearm registration (as the saying goes) leads to firearm confiscation.
I think it’s fairly easy to understand that during Katrina, when law enforcement and the National Guard unconstitutionally (and therefore illegally) went around confiscating firearms, that citizens wouldn’t want their firearms to be registered, as it would make them easier targets for an unlawful confiscation. History has shown that firearm registration has repeatedly led to confiscation, so people are rightfully very wary of any registration laws. Registration leads to more regulations of buying and selling firearms, as the registration must be kept current and it also means that there is a database somewhere of people who own firearms and the quantity and types that they own. This is sensitive information that can be easily misused. I’d imagine it’d be a criminal’s dream to access a list of who owns what firearms as the country would turn into a virtual superstore for that criminal.
We should stand up for even the smallest infringements on our rights. Too many people don’t pay attention to small infringements and after a while the infringements seem normal. Once a small infringement of our rights is allowed, it makes it easier to expand that infringement subtly. After a decent amount of time they are no longer small infringements of our rights, but rather big, huge violations of them. It is much harder to restore our rights as Americans at that point and much easier to have dealt with the small infringement at the beginning. It’s important to stand on principle and not let things slide, so to speak. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” How true a statement, and yet people seem to be doing just that every day.