Balancing freedom and security

Deep in the heart of mankind are two opposing emotions. The first emotion is security. We all need to feel secure in our lives. We need to feel secure in our relationships, in our employment, in our health and against other people unlawfully taking advantage of us. The second emotion is the need for freedom. We all want to be able to pursue our own dreams, live our own lives and to succeed by the strength of our own backs and the sweat of our own brows.

America and Alaska stand at a fork in the culture road, and we have been here many times before. One path leads to Old World governmental security. The other path leads toward New World limited government and personal freedom.

When our first ancestors in England came to that fork in the road, they chose a path leading to a rickety ship bound for Roanoke Island off the Carolina Coast in 1585. The second time our ancestors faced a major fork in their path was when the Old World finally caught up with the New World almost two centuries later and demanded that colonists pay their share for the their Old World security. The person who led the military action to reject the trade of freedom for government security was George Washington.

Writing to his friend George Mason in 1769, George Washington said, "At a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors."

During the last 236 years since our founding, the battle between the conflicting human emotions of freedom and government security has raged unabatedly in our hearts and in our legislatures. Most Americans value the principles our Founding Fathers stood for - the right to life, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We value our private property rights and the unfettered ability to purse the American Dream. We nonetheless have a conflicting emotion in us that always urges ascendancy in our collective consciousnesses. The emotional need for governmental security, however, is such a powerful one that it has overwhelmed liberty in most places in the world.

The '76ers - as Thomas Jefferson called the Revolutionary generation - had almost no government security net whatsoever. If they lost their jobs or their farms, they didn't have unemployment insurance, welfare benefits or food stamps. Theoretically, this would have left a gaping hole in that portion of their psyches that craved security. The one security that they had was in the laws and protection of the British Empire they had soundly rejected. How did they fill that security void in their hearts? Faith. They had faith in God's provision as is reflected in the phrase on our currency, "In God we trust." They had faith in individual freedom, in limited representative government and in free markets.

Remember, freedom and security are opposing forces - the more you have of one, the less you have of the other. Every government law, regulation or benefit is paid for by giving up some amount of freedom. The key then is to maximize the amount of personal freedom we have by keeping the government as small and as unobtrusive as possible. Thomas Jefferson said, "The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."

Today, we live in an age where the natural pendulum swing between freedom and security has swung almost all the way to the governmental security side. The great national debates rage on the subjects of health security, entitlement security, financial security and environmental security.

Environmental security directly affects Alaskans. We now have elevated environmental security over national security. For instance, when we import oil, we either directly or indirectly fund our enemies who kill our sons and daughters serving in the military on foreign soil. Our insatiable demand for foreign oil keeps oil prices in the stratosphere and terrorist organizations fully funded.

And yet, we have tons of oil to explore right here in Alaska such as Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and offshore in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. By fearing to develop our own resources, in effect we place our environmental security over national security. We fear spilling a few drops of oil on our own soil over the spilling of blood of our own soldiers on foreign soil. We shouldn't have to value the safety of our frozen tundra over the value of our most precious youth. We can and should develop our resources right here at home using the latest in environmental protection technology and thereby keeping all our wildlife, our jobs and our soldiers safe and secure.

Daniel Hamm lives in Palmer and is an international Boeing 747 freight pilot.