Alert, Alerter, Alertest :: September 11 Terrorism Essays

Alert, Alerter, Alertest "Our military at home and around the world is on high alert status and we have taken the necessary security precautions to continue the functions of your government." President George W. Bush, September 11, 2001 As an American, I am on a state of high alert much of the time. I tend to be alert to inequities, discrimination, intolerance, injustice, restriction of liberty. "Give me liberty or give me death," was Patrick Henry's cry. "Live Free or Die" is New Hampshire's motto. I am alert to affronts to democracy. My American nervous system is on alert, like a smoke detector, to tell me of dangers and threats. I have American sensors, receptors, antennae. They are set to pick up any trace of insults and injuries to the American way of life. We Americans have a sensitivity to mistreatment of people, to bias, prejudice, abridgements of democratic principles. We've got 10 of them in our secular form of the Ten Commandments of Moses. But more than this bill of particulars, our Bill of Rights, we have additional rights. They include the Declaration of Independence's "inalienable rights"--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They probably include Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms- "The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. "The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. "The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. "The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world." (Jan. 6, 1941) In addition to such explicit statements, we are concerned about other rights that are implicit. And we are alert to them as well. Social conscience is one form of our patriotism. A patriot of democracy believes in disagreement, in unpopular ideas, thoughts, and opinions. What is unpatriotic is mob behavior, complacency, conformity, when everyone does the same thing.