Imagine you live in a town of 100,000 people, in which most everyone gets along in harmony. You're proud of your town - it has a set of rules that everyone agrees to, and these rules help maintain the tranquility and prosperity that benefits all. Of course, people being what they are, not everyone in your town is law-abiding. Some people do harm to the property of others or even to their physical welfare, but you have a police force to deter such activity, and arrest such criminals if necessary. In fact, you are so civilized that your rules - which you call your Constitution - guarantee that even these criminals will not be tortured, and will receive a fair trial and an appropriate punishment.
There are towns nearby of various sizes. Many of them have their own set of rules, and they live in tranquility and prosperity just like you do. Of course, they don't have a Constitution quite as perfect as yours, but at least they are civilized. But you can't say the same about some of the other towns. A few of them seem to be completely lawless; the rule of
might makes right is the only principle that appears to govern their behavior. You don't go to these towns unless you have to, to buy something maybe that you really need, and then you hurry home because as far as you can tell, these people are barbarians.
Barbarians tend to live in towns much poorer than your own and they always seem jealous of your town. You wish there were a way they could be civilized quickly; in fact that is your official government policy when it comes to dealing with all other towns. You want to spread your way of government to everybody, so that all the world can enjoy tranquility and prosperity. The benefit of this policy is that in such a world no town would be jealous of any other town, and no one would bother you.
Recently this has become a much more urgent desire, because from one of these towns barbarians sneaked into your own town, and they did terrible damage, including killing some of your citizens in a very brutal way. It is the sort of crime that you have never seen before, and it shocked everybody, especially since you really can't understand why these people did this, other than they are barbarians.
The response of your government was to mobilize your army, go over to the other town, and overthrow their government, which after all didn't follow any rules of civilization in the first place. Your government also arrested a number of people that were said to be involved in the attack on your own town, or they were sympathizers to this barbaric behavior. The question arose, what to do with these people?
Your government put the ones they thought to be the worst in a special prison, where the government said your Constitution didn't apply. The government argued these people could be tortured, deprived of a proper trial, and even executed just on the government's whim. And for the past few years that's exactly what your government has been doing, except for the execution part, though word has gotten out that quite a few of these barbarians have already died under torture.
Your government is saying in essence that the Constitution only is for citizens of your town in their dealings with each other. When you leave the town, your behavior is no longer governed by the Constitution. The government has also begun to cut back on some of the rights and privileges each citizen of the town enjoys, especially those dealing with your privacy. The government says that it is necessary to take away some of your liberties in order to save your life, even if the risk of your being killed by barbarians is very small.
Some people are beginning to say that this reminds them of the old myth of Faust. The citizens of your town are like Faust - they are being offered temporary pleasures and safety, but in exchange they must give up their soul, which in this case means the essence of citizenship under the Constitution, with all its individual liberties. This is beginning to seem like no bargain at all, especially since the government may be exaggerating the threat from barbarians.
In fact, your highest court has now said the same thing, at least in relation to the prisoners the government is holding. The court has ruled that these prisoners, barbarians though they are, deserve the rights and privileges of citizens under the Constitution, which means they deserve fair and open trials, with just punishment if appropriate.
People in your town have felt that they were experiencing a mortal crisis when it came to barbarian attacks; in other words, the entire existence of the town was under threat. But now some people are beginning to see that a whole other crisis has arisen. It centers around what it means to be a citizen living under the Constitution. The Constitution clearly governs your behavior with each other citizen, but does it govern your behavior with other towns? Is the Constitution and rights and obligations of citizenship an integral part of who you are, how you think, and what you do - to be followed at all times; or is it a set of guidelines to follow in some circumstances but not in others?
If the government is right, and the Constitution can be adopted only when convenient, is it really possible to keep the distinctions between citizens and non-citizens clear? This is not simply a question of knowing which non-citizens are barbarians and which are civilized. This involves the serious question of whether you have the right to decide which citizens of your own town might actually be a lower category of citizen. Maybe they have a different economic or religious background from you, or maybe the government or society decides something about them from the day they were born isn't normal.
If the Constitution is a robe of convenience, worn only when your government, or some people, or you yourself decide, how long will it take for your own town to descend into the same practices as the barbarians? This is the real crisis facing your town: in dealing with the safety threat posed by some barbarians, is your town slowly adopting barbaric practices? Has your town decided that its magnificent Constitution resides only on paper, to be used when necessary, and that it does not reside in the heart and soul of the people it is meant to govern?
You sense the importance of this real crisis, but most people in your town do not. Most people are afraid of the barbarians and are afraid for their life. While they love their town and like to brag about the Constitution, they don't understand all of its details and implications. If everyone in your town is supposed to live according to the rules even when dealing with outsiders, first it is necessary to get them to appreciate why being a citizen means that the Constitution does not just govern your behavior some of the time.
How do you teach people this, and how do you get the government to accept the rules at all times? In a normal fable, there would be an easy answer and a moral at the end. But this isn't a normal fable. No one knows how this story will end, but it is not clear that your town's tranquility and prosperity will last too long. The barbarians may triumph in a way they never anticipated. You, your fellow townsmen, and your government, may hand them a triumph by destroying the Constitution - the very thing that makes you what you are.
It's up to you to decide how this fable ends.