THE WANDERER, SEPTEMBER 2, 2004

JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH

Et Tu, Ypsilanti?

     I couldn't decide whether the week I spent in my 
hometown, Ypsilanti, Mich., seemed like living in a time 
machine or a parallel universe. My anxieties about my 
class reunion -- class of '64 -- turned out to be 
needless. It was a beautifully organized event (let the 
record show that my old friend George Ridenour performed 
heroically to make it so), and I was happily, joyously 
surprised to rejoin so sweet a group.

     Old friendships were resumed almost as if we'd never 
lost touch. Terry Larson, my best pal from grade school, 
a splendid athlete, and our co-valedictorian, looked 
almost younger than his senior picture! Dave Farquharson 
and the former Marcia Thomas, the cutest high school 
sweethearts of all time, are not only still married but 
as obviously in love with each other as they were 40 
years ago. The pretty girls I used to flirt with are now 
pretty grandmothers. I expected to see a lot of decrepit 
geezers, but I was the only one.

     These were the people I loved before I had any 
interest in politics, and the subject hardly came up, 
except when Marcia told me she and Dave are now active 
Democrats who devoutly hope Bush will be defeated this 
year. Gently registering my dislike of John Kerry, I 
offered at least limited sympathy and a few jokes at the 
president's expense. Marcia laughed her beautiful laugh, 
as of old, and Washington seemed far, far away.

     All week I was able to keep an eye on our nation's 
capital through THE NEW YORK TIMES and cable TV. I 
gathered that the city was still brawling over Kerry's 
war record and the Bush partisans' TV ads -- this year's 
version of the Willie Horton war of 1988.

     Out in Michigan Washington's obsessions seem not 
only remote, but silly. Even the Iraq War seems too 
distant to be worrisome, and we're still wrangling about 
Vietnam? It was only at the airport that I felt the 
surreal security measures that are ubiquitous in 
Washington. Every airline stewardess -- excuse me, 
"flight attendant" -- is now a little Stalin, giving 
stern orders to suspected terrorists -- excuse me, 
"passengers." They used to make you feel welcome.

     It's nice to be reminded that most Americans, 
including my old classmates, hardly feel touched by the 
anti-terrorist mania in their daily lives. I rarely flew 
in the old days, but when I did, you just walked onto the 
plane like a guest. There weren't even metal detectors! 
You could smoke on the plane!

     It was a different country. You took all sorts of 
freedoms for granted. It never crossed your mind that 
they might be taken away. Today you wonder what you are 
still permitted to do. Things you once did without a 
second thought may get you arrested, or at least provoke 
a sharp warning from superfluous airport and airline 
personnel who think of themselves as government agents -- 
which, after all, is what they have become.

     I hoped to escape all this by going home. And for 
the most part, I did. But I wonder if I'd have found the 
same crackdowns in government buildings, for example, if 
I'd stayed longer. Even in the Washington suburbs you 
can't enter a courthouse without passing through a metal 
detector now. Every citizen is a suspect. We've come to 
expect subtle humiliation as a way of life.

     Terrorism has become an excuse for government to 
assert myriad new powers over us, always in the name of 
security, safety, protection, defense, and even health. 
Signs advise you that "This is a smoke-free airport." 
Smoke-free! Even a prohibition, backed by an implicit 
threat, is disguised as a freedom. It's really telling 
you who's boss. And these little bans add up to create a 
new atmosphere, in which we get used to a new relation of 
subservience to state authority unknown to our American 
ancestors.

     I waited an hour at the airport for the friend who 
was supposed to pick me up on arrival. I was afraid 
something had happened to him, because he is never late. 
It turned out he'd been forced to keep driving around 
outside, because the security guards wouldn't let him 
park on the curb for even a minute while he popped into 
the baggage claim area. At last I reached him through 
another friend; luckily they both had cell phones.

     A mere inconvenience? Yes, but one of many our new 
way of life has forced on us.

     Just as, under Communism, every citizen became a 
titular "comrade" but, in fact, a suspected "class enemy" 
meriting constant surveillance, so the anti-terror regime 
must regard each of us as a potential enemy. No matter 
that this is offensive not only to justice but to common 
sense; to make obvious practical distinctions would be 
"discrimination," so enforcement must be universal.

     We already joke about the absurdity of 
strip-searching grannies, but this is where the 
hysterical logic of "security" leads: to a petty tyranny 
that spares nobody.


A Lost Ideal

     Where will it end? Well, there is no reason to think 
it will ever end. When government, under the pretext of 
crisis, assumes new powers -- of taxing, legislating, 
making war, fighting crime, finding enemy agents -- it 
never specifies a terminal point beyond which it will not 
go. If there is one thing experience should have taught 
us, this is it.

     The U.S. Constitution, which our rulers pledge their 
immortal souls to uphold, has utterly failed to confine 
the federal government to the powers specifically 
delegated to it. Today its powers are virtually infinite, 
its debt in the trillions. What else do we need to know?

     I say this with a heavy heart. I once believed that 
the United States could return to constitutional 
government; and I still admire those who fight for 
constitutional principles. But I now regard the 
Constitution chiefly as a lost ideal, remaining as a 
measuring stick by which we may judge the mendacity, 
hypocrisy, and tyranny of our rulers.

     I wish I could offer a solution. But surely the 
first step toward recovering our liberty is to realize 
that our whole civilization has gone insane. It no longer 
shares the faith or even comprehends the language of our 
ancestors.

     The problem isn't confined to Washington. I find the 
fatal delusions of politics just as deeply implanted in 
the minds of the dear people of Ypsilanti, Mich.

                 +          +          +                  

     Two new books by Bill Buckley and Pat Buchanan offer 
sharply opposed views of what has happened to the 
conservative movement. Both are assessed in SOBRAN'S. If 
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                                        --- Joseph Sobran

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