A sense of purpose

A sense of purpose
Rather than suppressing participation, we can show the world how it's done

September 20, 2001

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are talking about taking advantage of national unity to make progress unobstructed by partisan politics.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., expressed that spirit well over the weekend. "We can quibble for days or weeks. We can argue the legalisms. We can parse over every word," Lott said. "The American people expect us to act. They expect us to act as a team."

Yes, they do, and Lott, with a long career in politics, may have forgotten that ordinary citizens almost always have little patience with the way business is conducted in Washington. Much of the parsing and partisanship of national politics has always seemed petty, but now it seems downright unpatriotic. For a short while, at least, Americans will present a united face to the rest of the world and keep our quibbling behind closed doors. That’s a relief for nearly everyone.

While setting aside differences in the face of immense tragedy is a national virtue, though, the suppression of spirited debate is not an American value. The American people, accustomed to participating, at least by proxy, in discussions about how this country is run, may find themselves alarmed at the speed with which decisions now take place.

For example, the Social Security surplus, long a topic of heated debate for some very good reasons, is basically given up for gone, and federal budget priorities will be abandoned. The "war on terrorism," or whatever this war will come to be called, is going to be horrendously expensive, and war bonds aren’t going to cover the financial cost. Now would be a good time for the average citizen, who really has no role to play in preparing for war, to begin thinking about how well our foreign "investments" are paying off.

The less tangible costs will be high as well, and perhaps not as immediately apparent. Right now, for example, most of us are more than willing to submit to intensified search procedures at airports, again for some very good reasons, and yet we’re reluctant to talk about our right to be protected from what we usually think of as unreasonable (if not illegal) search and seizure. Some of us are willing to turn in our neighbors because their reading material looks like it might be Arabic (or worse, kill them because they might be Muslims), and yet, freedom of speech and religion are foundational premises of the United States of America. How will we regain our equilibrium when the immediate crisis has passed?

It’s hard to talk about such topics right now. We believe in America, and we are outraged almost beyond belief that it has come under attack. We believe in showing terrorists that we will, to a person, stand behind our leaders. And yet, we are perhaps all too willing to back away from participating in representational democracy, at the very time when we should be most active.

We should not return to partisan bickering. Perhaps we can learn from this crisis that who gets credit is far less important than what we accomplish. We can, though, if we commit ourselves thoughtfully to our principles, prove to the world that our system of freedoms works even under tremendous stress. We could prove that public dialogue can be thoughtful and responsible, rather than inflammatory and irrational. We can show that, if given the choice, we would choose to commit our money wisely. We could even, if we could maintain civility, talk about the role our foreign policy might have played in leading the world to perceive us, as a British newspaper, the Guardian, characterized this week, as "a bully with a bloody nose."

Hiding our heads in the sand is not patriotic. Taking up the responsibilities we should always have shouldered is a better plan, and performing them openly, with the rest of the world looking on, would be the best response the American people could give.