The Need For Speed

On July 16, 1945, our country fundamentally changed in a very big way. On that date, the first nuclear detonation took place at the Trinity site in New Mexico. From that point forward, an arms race began between the old Soviet Union and the United States.

The era that began with the end of World War II, and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s was known as The Cold War. It was called The Cold War because it was fought without the use of arms - it was not a "Hot War." Essentially, each side built up a nuclear arms stockpile, along with highly developed delivery systems, until we had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times over. One side finally reached financial collapse. The old Soviet Union’s communist economy imploded from within; the United States' capitalist economy emerged as the victor.

The Cold War brought about sweeping changes in the way our government operates. Not all of our constitutional liberties were given up during The Cold War, but some of them were. And, because of some of our actions during that period, seeds were sewn that laid the groundwork for taking away future liberties. We should ask weather some of these changes should undergo modern day scrutiny to determine if they are still needed. We might ask ourselves whether some of these Cold War holdovers are actually harming our country. 

The major change that The Cold War brought about was the need for speed. Our system of government was deliberately designed to operate slowly. The founding fathers had a fundamental fear of government to begin with. They had an even bigger fear of government acting out of hasty passion. They wanted change to come about slowly, deliberately, and in degrees.

Again, going back to The Cold War. Once a rocket was launched with an assumed nuclear warhead attached, each country needed to decide whether a response was necessary. If the attack were deemed real, presumably there would be a nuclear response by the country being attacked. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian country. If the leader said launch, you launched. In the United States however, we had this little annoyance: the constitution.

The question arose: because Congress, not the president, is vested with the power to declare war, and because a nuclear exchange could happen so quickly, how could the United States respond to a first strike in a timely manner? After all, if missiles were on the way, it was intuitive that a meeting of Congress, a debate of the pros and cons, and the passage of a resolution would not be possible. There would not be time for congress to declare war.

So congress ceded war-making powers to the president, and thus was born the nuclear suitcase. The nation could now respond in a timely manner. Of course, the Soviet Union knew that the president had been granted this power. We wanted them to know that we could strike back swiftly if need be. The massive size of both country’s nuclear arsenals meant that there was now a possibility of annihilating all life on earth, the doctrine of attack and immediate response became known as Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD.

The paradigm had changed: the concept of their sometimes being a need for speed was in place. There would not be time for the constitution. We had given up one of our essential constitutional provisions for safety’s sake. Being safe, instead of being free, began to catch on.

On September 11, 2001, with little or no warning terrorists attacked our country. Thousands of American lives were lost. During the ensuing nationwide indignation, Americans were willing to cede even more of their rights in order to combat what was a new threat. The new threat of Islamic terrorism struck fear into the hearts of many of us. The Patriot Act was passed, and other anti-terrorist measures were taken. We began wiretaps, monitoring email, violating torture protocols, and imprisoning enemy combatants indefinitely. All of this was done, and justified, because of the need for speed. Sometimes, as the theory went, information might be received allowing very little time to react. There might be the possibility of capturing or killing a terrorist ringleader, or even preventing another attack. There simply might not be enough time to go to congress for a declaration of war, or permission to use military force. The War On Terror was a war that was never declared. Again, the need for speed, this time with a new twist: a need for speed and safety. We must keep America safe, at all costs.

We have a new administration now. But, the need for speed and safety is so entrenched that it has carried over, almost without question. During the presidential campaign of last year, Senator John McCain suspended his campaign and flew back to Washington because of an impending financial disaster. For what can only be described as political reasons (not that politics is always bad), Barrack Obama followed suit. Congress was told that the problem was so big that there really just wasn’t enough time to explain it all to them. If congress didn’t act with speed, the entire American economy would collapse, along with the world economy. With the need for speed paradigm so deeply entrenched in our culture, congress acquiesced and passed a bill granting powers to the president to appropriate 770 billion dollars to bail out a failing banking system. It was essential that the money be granted with no oversight. Isn't that part of congress' job, to oversee things for us?

New legislation has been recently passed under the Obama administration. AIG and other financial giants have been given large sums of money, some of it used on lavish junkets to island getaways, in order to “do business” for the companies in question. Now, 165 million dollars has been paid out in bonuses to the same people who ran AIG into the ground. Americans are outraged! Congress is outraged! The News Media with pretend outrage, gleefully gloms onto a great news story.

But how did all this happen? The answer is simple: we have been sold on the concept of there being a need for speed, and a need for safety. Congress simply does not have time to read the bills it passes anymore. If congress does not read the bills it passes, how can they, or we, have an effective debate? We stand stunned that we were told that 770 billion dollars had to be given out to failing businesses with absolutely no congressional oversight. There was little protest from the rest of us because, well, it all happened so fast! And again, congress didn't even read any of this stuff. How would they have time to oversee this huge, ultimately a multi-trillion dollars, bailout? Our form of constitutional government has broken down; all because we have been told, and we have believed, that there just isn’t enough time to do it constitutionally. That is because the constitutional way is just too slow. Well, that is the way it was designed. Are we starting to get a glimps as to why? Maybe those founding father guys were pretty smart dudes! 

Is a need for speed really that important in a post Cold War era? That is a question we must all ask ourselves today. Don’t we want our politicians to read the bills they pass? Do we not want them to oversee these huge amounts of money that they ultimately take from us? Was there an adequate debate on whether to intervene in natural market forces, or whether to simply allow those market forces to work toward a natural balance? These are questions we must all consider. Should we return to the constitution? Or, will we allow our fears to dictate that safety is more important than liberty? Is it not time that the true American spirit reemerges? Benjamin Franklin once commented, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Do we, as today’s Americans, deserve liberty?

Americans have always been a hearty people. We are made up of folks who have undergone the hardships of traveling the high sees to get here, sometimes with very little money, all for the opportunity that America offers. In the recent past, people from Viet Nam stepped out onto impossibly small boats to what was an almost certain death, in order to glean the slightest chance of coming to America. We are genetically descended from risk takers. Isn’t it about time that we reinvest in our fundamental asset, as Americans, and that we demand more liberty and less safety? Safety, and its allure, has caused us to slowly migrate toward a concept that says that, in the world we now live in, we simply no longer have the time for constitutional democracy. We have allowed our most sacred document to be shredded so that we might be safe. Well, how safe do we feel now? The politics of fear has been passed from administration to administration ever since the end of World War II. 


We have become a nation that, instead of coveting our freedom, has developed a need for speed in order to be safe. Speed overrides the constitution. Speed is when most mistakes happen. As my father, a TWA airline pilot for thirty years, used to tell me, “When the red lights flash and the warning bells sound in the cockpit, the first thing to do is to sit on your hands.” Let’s slow down. Let us demand of our politicians, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, that we want them to slow down and return to our constitutional values. Just follow the constitution, that’s all we ask. We are not afraid. We are not a fearful people. We choose freedom.

John Dill