Liberty or National Security?

"Choose."
--Miyagi (The Karate Kid)

Jacob Hornberger argues that Americans must choose between freedom and the national security state. We cannot have both.

Our ancestors understood this well. John Quincy Adams said that, while brutal tyrannies could be found elsewhere in the world, America does not go abroad "in search of monsters to destroy." If America would do so, then "the fundamental axioms of her policy would change from liberty to force...She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit."

James Madison added, "A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have always been the instruments of tyranny at home."

As the national security state grows, liberty shrinks.