"the central choice the Founders made"

I'm fond of this Sarah Vowel quote:

Whenever I hear the president mention, oh, every 12 minutes, that his greatest responsibility is "to protect the American people," the insufferable civics robot inside my head mutters: "Actually, sir, your oath, the one with the Bible and the chief justice and the Jumbotron, is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. For the American people are not mere flesh whose greatest hope is to keep our personal greasy molecules intact; we, sir, are a body politic — with ideals."

I mean, yes. That's it, exactly.

Now Glenn Greenwald puts it like this (his emphasis):

In his speech last week, Obama himself adopted this distorted view of the Presidency, announcing: "my single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe." That just isn't what the Constitution and the presidential oath say is the most important responsibility of the President. He's required, above all else, to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" (in other passages of his speech, Obama emphasized that he "took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" and that "we must never -- ever -- turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake"). ...

The President doesn't have some broad, vague duty to "protect Americans." The Constitution really couldn't be clearer about the President's primary responsibility: it's to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Sometimes, the duty actually assigned by the Constitution is consistent with the duty to Keep Us Safe, but many times, Constitutional imperatives are, by design, in conflict with the goal of maximum security.

It's just so basic to our entire system of government that some Constitutional guarantees will impede efforts to maximize public safety (barring the police from searching homes without probable cause might make it more difficult to apprehend a dangerous criminal; banning double jeopardy and self-incrimination, and guaranteeing the right to counsel, might make it more difficult to convict a dangerous criminal; the guarantee of due process, free speech and a free press can make war-fighting more difficult). But that's the central choice the Founders made: that there are more important values than maximizing safety. If they didn't think that way, they would never have risked fighting the most powerful military on earth -- all for some abstract political liberty. By itself, that choice reflects the view that there are more important goals then keeping us safe. Tyrannies might be the best guardians of national security (though it is highly dubious that indefinitely locking up Muslims with no trial and no charges will Keep Us Safe), but either way: the U.S. wasn't created to be a National Security State. That's why the Constitution imposes numerous limits on the government that conflict with maximization of safety, and it's why the President is required to swear to defend the Constitution, not do everything possible to Keep Us Safe.

As usual with Greenwald it's cogent and on-target. Read the whole thing; you won't be sorry.

ps - comments are closed due to porn-spamming. send me email if you'd like to comment on this one.