Sex, the slave girl and national security

Over the past year, I've found myself in the unfamiliar position of coming to admire a New York Times columnist. Unlike most of his cowardly, left-liberal ilk, Nicholas Kristoff is not afraid of the truth, regardless of whether it comfortable or not. He has not only called out the sanctimonious would-be moral supremacists on the Left for leaving the battle against the global sex trade to the religious right, but even got his own hands dirty and purchased two Cambodian slaves from their owner a year ago in order to set them free.

This is astonishing proof that there is at least one left-liberal who does not confuse a responsibility to help others with expressing verbal support for the government doing so.

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Kristoff is a good writer, and he does not hide the depths of his personal disappointment nor his feelings of helpless failure upon learning that one of the two slave girls he'd freed had voluntarily run away from her village and returned to her former brothel. He does not profess to understand why the girl should prefer her enslavement – Kristoff rather innocently attempts to ascribe this common phenomenon to methamphetamine addiction – but it clearly grieves him:

Maybe that's what I find saddest about Srey Mom: She is a wonderful, good-hearted girl who gives money to beggars, who offers Buddhist prayers for redemption – but who is already so broken that she seems unable to escape a world that she hates and knows is killing her.

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But the harsh truth is even sadder. Most individuals, like the unfortunate Srey Mom, do not love freedom. Instead, they fear it to such an extent that they will accept a security that they know full well will eventually prove fatal to them.

This is true of people around the world. But while we Americans have little trouble recognizing the predilection of others for the security of slavery, we do not see it so clearly in ourselves. In our terror of the extremely unlikely event of the black flag of Islam ever waving over the nation's capital, the American people have not hesitated to embrace the most openly anti-American, anti-freedom presidential program in over 60 years. After all, they can't hate our freedom if we throw it all away, can they?

But as the apostle Paul writes, God does not give us a spirit of fear. Decisions that are based on fear rarely, if ever, stem from the font of all that is good – they are rooted, instead, in that which furthers the evil the Bible describes as the prince of this world. The formula is an old, old one: The fear of one evil inspires actions which enable the appearance of an even greater evil.

The gradual encroachment on American liberties by their government is one that is primarily inspired by hypothetical fears. One cannot legally buy an anonymous cell phone because of the possibility that a terrorist might do so. One cannot withdraw more than $3,000.00 from one's bank account without a report being filed because of the possibility that one might choose to spend the money on chemical substances deemed illegal. One cannot even drive an injured woman to the hospital without being repeatedly interrogated because of the possibility that one might be the culprit responsible for those injuries.

Thus fear triumphs over all, ensuring a disastrous end. For whether one seeks security in a brothel or from Congress, the results are likely to be the same. Indeed, there is more honesty to be found in the whorehouse. Consider Chuck Colson's take on the president's inaugural address:

... the president's address focused on liberty and what it means to the world. This was the most idealistic and moralistic presidential message since Franklin Roosevelt summoned us to the heroic task of saving the world from tyranny in World War II.

Although the Three Monkey Republicans never seem to see or hear them, their Dear Leader is never shy about announcing his intentions to those few with the wits to pay attention to the fine print. I have no doubt whatsoever that Chuck Colson is right – I am quite sure that George Delano, like his archetypical predecessor, is committed to idealistically and moralistically saving the world from one form of tyranny while simultaneously delivering another at home.