Letter: In a democracy, true individual freedom is myth

Friday, Oct. 5, 2001 | 4:31 a.m.

The opinions being parroted by many news columnists, regarding purported risks of losing "liberty" in the face of terrorism, hold no water nor harbor any logic.

In formulating our Constitution, did Benjamin Franklin foresee biowarfare, was Thomas Jefferson so omniscient that he foretold the potential for instant and indiscriminate annihilation of untold numbers of people, was George Washington so prescient that he understood the many dimensions of nuclear terrorism?

Did any of our country's founding fathers understand that our nation would meet a faceless enemy that bears no vestige of human likeness? Continually looking back to days gone bye ensures an anachronistic line of thought that ensures oblivion.

No nation in the history of the world has ever enjoyed true individual freedom -- for such a state of affairs is no different than anarchy. Indeed, that's what terrorism desires of us the most -- to value our individual selves above that of our governing nations. With a focus solely on the individual, a nation cannot survive.

"Freedom" is not free -- never has been, never will be. It is encumbered with endless sacrifices and compromises and requires the many to forgo their self-interests and perceived "freedoms," most of which are merely conveniences and contrivances.

"Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." -- Benjamin Franklin at the American Declaration of Independence, 1776.

CHRISTIAN DAUGHTON