Freedom Isn't Free

This is a bit hokey, but I was walking down Constitution Avenue yesterday when I found myself noticing an inscription on the National Archives building that read: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Coming on the day that a terrible surveillance bill got over forty votes in the Senate, it struck me as incredibly sad. We're compromising important parts of the meaning of America.

Fortunately, it seems that Chris Dodd's moves paid off and the bill has been pulled until the New Year. We'll see what happens then.

UPDATE: Of course I mean that the terrible bill got over seventy votes, not "over forty" (except in the sense that seventy is greater than forty).

Photo by Flickr user Chris and Kelly used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

I happened to be reading something Alan Watts wrote about that phrase yesterday. Watts seemed to think that it meant that everyone should spy on their neighbors. Any bright high school student should be able to come up with a more insightful take on that quote. Eternal acquiescence doesn't seem to be an adequate way to defend liberty.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | December 18, 2007 8:38 AM

I think you'll find that it's also just another word for nothing left to lose.

Posted by charles pierce | December 18, 2007 8:48 AM

One time on "Wait Wait," Roy Blount exclaimed out of nowhere to Kinky Friedman, "Hey, I think I've got your new slogan! 'Friedman's just another word for nothing left to lose!'" I'm pretty sure he actually wound up using it.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | December 18, 2007 8:53 AM

Hokey, no. Sad, yes.

Posted by Led | December 18, 2007 8:57 AM

OT: If you look up in NYC at the large Post Office across from Penn Station & Madison Square Garden you can see the motto "Neither snow nor rain Nor heat nor gloom of night Stays these couriers From the swift completion Of their appointed rounds" which is NOT the official motto of the USPS but something that the architect of the building added as a nice touch when the building was built in 1913. The phrase is from Herodotus and predates the founding of the United States Postal Service by roughly 2100 years, or 400 years after Isaiah and 2400 years before Isiah ruined the team across the street.

Posted by joejoejoe | December 18, 2007 9:07 AM

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Vigilance comes from vigil, from vigilia, which is latin for "watch". Watching is surveillance. So you see, eternal surveillance is the price of liberty.

Posted by Njorl | December 18, 2007 12:30 PM

full marks to dodd and feingold for getting the importance of the issue (and fuller still to feingold for calling the bush administration a bunch of liars), but come january, telecom immunity will pass.

you've got the combination of stupid dems fearing looking "soft" and the enormous bribery capability of the telecoms through campaign donations. the constitution doesn't matter in the face of that dynamic duo....

Posted by howard | December 18, 2007 1:14 PM

That's a damned lie, and a pernicious one.

Freedom IS free.

It is the natural state of mankind, and the birthright of every man, woman and child.

Beware those who would take it from you, or convince you that it comes only at a cost.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | December 18, 2007 8:35 PM