During the last few months, we have all read Franklin’s dictum: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” In fact, we have read it so frequently that it’s almost achieved cliché status which is a great pity, for no truer words were ever spoken. As I grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia, I remember my father telling me “People deserve the government they have” It was hard to believe he meant it…why did we deserve to live under an oppressive regime? Later, his meaning got clearer. No one “deserved” to be persecuted or jailed. No one deserved being barred from attending college because his/her parents had been petite bourgeois factory owners. But as a whole, if the nation wasn’t able to find the will to rise up when the Communists had first staged their coup d'état in 1948, it deserved its fate.
It’s a harsh assessment but during my lifetime I’ve experienced the truth of it on a few occasions. When the will to oppose has been found (Berlin and its aftershocks in 1989, the radical government transition in Israel following the Yom Kippur War in 1973), all sorts of forces are let loose that lead to massive improvements.
Having lived in North America for 40 years now, I have gotten used to the enormous freedoms this continent offers. If people have the government they deserve, we have done very well indeed on the whole. There have been ups and downs but our governments (in the United States and Canada) never seriously impeded our freedoms. In those 40 years we have never allowed unopposed tyrants to be installed. We were good boys and girls and we deserved the good government we have enjoyed. Until 2020, that is. Within a matter of days in March of that years, we found ourselves no longer living in free countries. The United States, along with the whole of the Western world, had turned into a sort of twilight democracy. Yes, we could still say the President was a fool, and much worse, and we did not got to jail for it. But at the same time, our system felt more like fascism-light on many levels. As the weeks passed, a kind of high level consensus emerged (fashionably called a “narrative”). It was endorsed by the media, by all politicians, by all our friends, by our social media contacts. Deviating or opposing the “narrative” became unacceptable.
Fine, you’ll say, we all know that. What are you adding to the discussion? Well, to go back to what my good old dad used to say…”we got the government we deserve” and if that’s the case we should either do something about it or stop grumbling. Who could have predicted the American public would fold like a beach chair when faced with a respiratory virus? Perhaps not many people could have predicted it - but it certainly did not surprise me. The weakening of the spine, the chinks in our democratic armor, the stifling of small freedoms, the narcissism of low achievement but high self-regard - it had all been there. And when the crisis hit and our carefree way of life disappeared, there was no opposition. There was no one like the Czech playwright Vaclav Havel, who would stand up, lead the charge and staunch the bleeding from the wounds to our liberty. In fact, we had had it SO good and our governments had felt SO unthreatening for 40 years that many of us didn’t even notice the carpet had been pulled away from under our feet. “Defeating the virus” became the be all and end all. “We’re all in this together” became the slogan, echoing headlines from Pravda.
Think hard the next time when you say: “No one is doing anything about it” Because what you’re really saying is I AM NOT DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. And if you do nothing, you get the government you deserve. Our life should not be about safety or comfort or freedom from stress and strife. That is a dangerous childish illusion. Our lives should be about honesty, about service, about achievement, about contribution and above all about always guarding our liberty for which so many brave men and women had paid the ultimate price. Don’t just phone in a meager effort at life. Cherish and maximize your liberties and never entrust them to anyone. Freedom, baby!