August 26, 2005
Extremism
It was Barry Goldwater, that noblest of all patrons of conservatism, who reminded us that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” When all the shouts and applause and shudders resounding over this potential election-winning mantra died down, one might have thought he was a shoo-in for president.
Passing strange he might find it now only a short time since his ecstatic pronouncement, how we’ve turned our war with the terrorists into a struggle against extremism. Our leaders have a way of defining things for us to help us know what we think and apparently must have just got themselves another PR firm.
Yet people die all the same, maybe even more of them if for no other reason than that our “struggle” has turned up even more of the kinds of people who want to make some other kinds of people dead. In wars or struggles, whatever, there are no winners, only losers. It’s a helluva way to warm a globe.
Anyhow, we’re defending liberty all right. We’ve got ourselves the Patriot’s Act, named, I suppose, for all those worthies who won this country for us, but hardly consistent with their dreams. Trouble is, we’re defending liberty so vigorously that we’ve locked it up and thrown away the key. We’re even redefining justice to make it look okay.
But the senator was right. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. But you know, when all the hoopla died down, he went on quietly to say with a simple and correcting phrase we seem only too readily to forget.
“Let me remind you also,” he added, “that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”