Did You Start the Fire?
By: Eric Schmidt
Authority must always be questioned. It is simply inherent to a modern democratic society. As college students, we can certainly appreciate this sentiment and should act on it. Our system of government operates with the understanding that some of our basic liberties will be given away in order for the state to function. Laws impede some of our liberties since, by definition, they determine what people should and should not be allowed to do. Absolute liberty would result in anarchy where those with physical power oppress those without it.
Because our laws require a mechanism of enforcement, police are a necessary evil in a democracy. Their goals of ensuring safety and civility will often be at odds with personal liberty. The suggestion here is not that police are themselves detrimental to society but that their power will inevitably infringe on citizens’ rights. The police are needed to arbitrate disputes and to serve as a neutral authority to guarantee that all people are allowed to live as freely and safely as possible. It is the right and duty of citizens of a democratic system to be on guard as a check on those who are given power over us. We willingly hand over essential rights with the understanding that the police will provide fair protection and that laws will be upheld.
Nonetheless, police are human beings and therefore capable of overstepping their authority. This is why we must remain vigilant – when government is given power, it will not voluntarily return it to the people. That is why citizens must constantly and actively protect their rights. Citizens must defend liberty and democracy even in the event of popular complacency, as is visible in America today.
A blatant example of the police trampling the civil rights of an individual is the case of Cheye Calvo, who had his house broken into about a year ago by a SWAT team during a botched drug raid. Mr. Calvo was innocent of any sort of drug smuggling. The police broke down his door and shot his two dogs, which were allegedly non-hostile. Despite the egregious violation of his civil rights, Calvo is still fighting for compensation. This sort of behavior on the part of law enforcement is unacceptable.
The “no-knock” policy of many police and SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) organizations has been hotly contested in court, yet remains a widely-used practice. Are citizens and their privacy to be considered less important than ending the marijuana trade in this country? Nothing can be more important than these civil rights. We owe it to the men and women who died for this nation’s freedom to not accept these barbaric practices. Even the notion of a SWAT team is something that ought to be received with caution. Why is it necessary for nearly every county in America to be armed with a paramilitary organization? Several of these groups are involved with weapons and drug trading themselves. The most widely known of these cases is the police department of Hoboken, NJ, which dismantled their SWAT team after serious corruption charges emerged. The growth of these “militarized” police has increased at a frighteningly rapid pace in the last few years. According to the CATO Institute, the number of SWAT team deployments has jumped from 3,000 a year in the early 1980s to more than 40,000 a year by the early 2000s. This vast and deliberate militarization of police departments is unnecessary. Again, most police officers do their jobs with honesty and integrity, but we must be awakened to the reality that sometimes law enforcement will cause us to be less free.
Although most Lehigh students will not suffer such serious civil rights violations, we will undoubtedly experience or become aware of police crimes against liberty. As a student body, we must never become complacent in the face of infringements on our civil liberties. We need to be aware of police actions and speak out when they cross the line. An alert community is a democratic and free one. As Thomas Jefferson said: the government should fear and serve the people, not the other way around.
College students have a great and defiant history of fighting against the “man.” We led the charge against the Vietnam War. We have never hesitated to take up a cause that is important to us – even if we’re just whining about the drinking age. We need to make noise and use our voices, both in and out of the voting booth, in order to keep the authorities in check. Their job is to protect and serve, and we must continuously remind them of that.
We must also recognize the alarming trend towards government control over society. We are seeing how the government rescinds more and more of our rights for the sake of ‘security’. The ironically named Patriot Act and any similar legislation that restricts the rights of the people for the sake of collective ‘security’ should be contested and overturned. It is a travesty that we are selling away our liberties out of fear. As Benjamin Franklin put it, those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.
The founding fathers would be ashamed of the unwillingness of the masses to put their liberties above all else. We must follow their example and lead the charge to defend liberty. Question authority and do not submit to injustice! Be defiant and recognize that you have certain inalienable and undeniable rights. Vigilance must be a hallmark of our society. When we witness injustice in any form, it is our duty as free persons to speak out against it. We can not call ourselves the heirs to the noble idea of America if we failed in this sacred duty to protect our liberties.
