Americans Chose Liberty Over Security A Long Time Ago. School Shootings Don’t Change That
A life of total 'security' would be psychologically intolerable, and would expose us to the great evils of an overbearing government.
February 19, 2018 By Robert Tracinski
Every time there is a school shooting or some other high-profile act of violence involving a gun (this time at a school in Florida), everybody pretends that America has never before bothered to consider the tradeoff between liberty and security — and that we haven’t long ago settled the debate on the side of liberty.
There are, after all, a great many ills that could seemingly be solved by placing every person and every aspect of life under the control of government overseers who would manage us for our own good. But most of us realize that such a life would be psychologically intolerable, utterly impossible to implement, and would expose us to the far greater evils that come from an overbearing government, whether through official incompetence or outright malevolence. So we have decided to brave the risks and uncertainties of a free society rather than long for the illusory security of an all-powerful state.
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http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/19/school-shootings-pit-liberty-against-security-a-debate-long-settled/
