My Experience Calling Verizon
As encouraged by a previous diary I called Verizon to express my concern regarding their complicity in the NSA domestic spying. The first number I called--for the Ethics line--is apparently for Verizon customers only, but the woman on the line was kind enough to get me to the correct customer service.
While the fellow on the other end of the phone operated with a polished courtesy, he felt the need to engage me in an off the record debate at the end. Since I was at lunch, I felt obliged to do so.
His first statement was as follows: "What if we have another 9/11 or Oklahoma City? What are you going to do then?"
My response is below the fold.
((Warning: peppered with expletives, because I have a mouth like a sailor.))
I think the answer to that question is pretty simple, so I told him: (This is all paraphrased, as I didn't record the call): "That's a moot point. Every modern country lives with terrorism. It's the price of modernity. But I refuse to let the irrational fears of my countrymen infringe on my civil liberties. I refuse to let fear govern me. I am an American."
He responded by saying: "Well- I want to be safe. Coming to work in an office building like this I want them to do everything they can to prevent those people from flying planes into buildings."
This is sort of where my composure slipped because I have utterly no patience for this thumb-sucking pissant fear. Be courageous. That's what we need to do; we need to have the courage to live fearlessly; the courage to cope with what our enemies would do to us and the courage to oust those bastards that would use our fear to rule us.
My response was: "That's answered pretty easily and by Benjamin Franklin, no less. Those who would sacrifice civil liberties for security deserve neither." Of course that's a paraphrase, I think- so you'll have to forgive that.
He actually conceded that point but tried to counter with: "That was a different time period with different technology. It's different now."
This is my second most hated argument by people too cowardly to live as Americans. Nothing is different, not even after 9/11. Not in the scope of our national character. A great deal of our citizens are suffering from undue loss and for them I am truly truly sorry. But we are a country of laws, of liberties and of equality. We are in a different phase of history and must learn how to preserve those ideals in the current climate.
But the world did not change on 9/11. We just entered the current one.
My response to him, however was as follows: "They forged our ideals and we're a country that is governed and inspired by those ideals. I will not let your fear, anyone's fear erode the basic rights for which colonists rebelled and people since have died. Technology changes, but the soul of our country as embodied by the Constitution does not. The only thing that changes that are people too afraid to stand up for their God given rights."
There was a bit more where I explained that the Constitution is as much as a grant of protection to the people as it is a grant of authority to the government. But he ended the call shortly thereafter and I felt that mix of excitement, anger and concern that seems common during my discussion of opposing view points lately.
But the entire exchange made me think of something I have been considering for a while now. Much emphasis is placed on the "slacker" attributes and "tech-savvy" of Generation X; yet no one has spoken about or named the following generation: my generation.
I was born in 1980, so I was 9 when the Iron Curtain fell. I came of age during a period of unrivaled peace and prosperity. I did not have to think of missiles pointed at us. Unlike my parents, older cousins and even my brother- I spent very little time consciously aware of the Great Fear of the Cold War.
And I refuse -- UTTERLY REFUSE -- to learn a life of fear now that I am in my middle twenties. We are a courageous people. We are a strong people. Not because there is anything inherently special about the people in this country but because our history has proven that through strength and courage we prosper and flourish. It is through timidity and fear that great houses are ruined.
Perhaps it is the onus of my generation--the only one to grow up without the presence of international fear in the past 50 years--to explain this. Or maybe others in my generation have lost their memories of a peaceful youth and now cower like the fellow in Verizon. But it's a lesson we have to learn again if we are to survive.
We cannot allow a power-mad President to erode God given rights because we lack the courage to tell him no. We cannot allow our lapsed memory of courage to allow a religion-addled madman (Choose Osama or Bush for this one) to allow their demons to ruin our legacy.
This is all about fear. Anyone that counsels that we succumb to fear to prevent a manifestation from the "What if...?" universe is a fool and should be ignored. I don't care if he was elected twice.
I for one will not be afraid.