It ain't easy being free

Those Jihadi are a tricky bunch:

Friday, a new al-Qaeda salvo attempted to embarrass Obama, a day after the new president announced his plans for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Appearing on the videotaped message were two men who enlisted in al-Qaeda after being freed from that detention center.

This, to me, is an interesting question. My perspective on civil liberties vs. security has generally been that you pay a price to live in a free democracy, much like you pay a price to have a "just" justice system. So the presumption of innocence means that some guilty people will get away. We've decided that it would be worse to jail an innocent man, than to let, say, a pedophile go free. I think this is actually a pretty entrenched feeling in the country.

But what happens when we start paying the price for living in a free democracy? How bad do we really want to see Guantanamo closed? Enough to see some fool taunting us after having gone back to terrorism? God forbid, but when the next terrorist attack happens, will we be screaming for water-boarding?

Bush likes to brag that he kept America safe, and that no attacks (besides 9/11) happened on his watch. Whatever. No one's ever burglarized my house. Must be because Harlem has heard that I pack tool. I'm hoping Obama reminds us of the price of living in a free society, and does it in a way that inspires folks, that takes us away from this "democracy on the cheap" bullshit.