Individual Rights vs Safety

Yesterday's Boston Marathon was so tragic.  The top finishers had already completed the race, and the crowds had died down.  Family members were still on hand to see their loved ones come past the finish line and congratulate them on completing the race.

Apparently, from what we learned last night on the news, there were more explosive devices and they did not detonate.  It could have been so much worse.

In the United States, there has been a tug-of-war going on since the very beginning really over the rights of individuals versus the safety of society's members as a whole.  This undercurrent of a battle goes on in police departments, the courts, the appeals courts, and even in schools every single day.  America's founding was based on freedom, and at that time it was the freedom of religion that most drew the pioneering families to its shores.  Today, the freedom of religion is probably under more attack than most would realize. 

When Virginia Tech's massacre unfolded, and when Newtown's children were murdered, it makes everyone think about the price we do pay for our freedom.  College campuses have long been heralded as open.  Any of us can get in the car and drive to Harvard, Yale, Michigan, or Ole Miss and visit the campus.  One of the professors I worked with at UA wrote the book used most often in marketing classes around the country.  He loved to visit college campuses and particularly the bookstores to see if they used his book.  Then he would visit the marketing department and say hello.

Just as the voice of freedom can be spoken on college campuses, so can the voice of oppression.  Just as truth can be spoken on college campuses, so can lies.  Just as faculty members can be a model of behavior for their students, so can they twist the subject matter in favor of their own particular brand of brain washing.  I've always wondered -- who is most vulnerable to this sort of thing?  Almost certainly, it would be the most disturbed, most confused, most damaged students who would be hooked and drawn in.  If a person can't think for themselves, then they are attracted to someone who can do their thinking for them.

At Newtown, the children were just going through a normal day.  The crazed gunman entered through a broken front window, not by means of a locked front door.  The laws that are being proposed now may not be able to stop someone driven to do wicked things, and this frustration over the rights of individuals versus the safety of our schools spills over everywhere.

The battle over individual rights vs safety continues and likely will always be discussed in a free society.  The idea would be that the scales of justice might swing a little one way, then right itself, then perhaps swing the other for a while -- but overall the balance is maintained. 

Comparing ourselves to other places in the world, we have to ask ourselves what we want our society to resemble.  Are we willing to give up freedom for more safety?   It's a tough one, isn't it?

The person or persons who wreaked havoc in Boston yesterday will be caught.  Perhaps we will hear his perverted thought processes that began somewhere when he listened to a voice and rather than think for himself, followed. 

An absolute blessing of yesterday's marathon was the way that people turned and ran TOWARD the blasts and ripped off their belts, made tourniquets out of their own clothing, comforted the injured, gave aid to the dying, and ignored the danger.  Isn't that really the victory?  No terrorist or terrorist organization can take away the love that we have for others.

As for me, I will follow God the very best I can.  He is the true giver of our freedom.