The NY Times has a great opinion piece today written by Robert Harris, a historian of the Roman Empire. He draws a connection between the attack on the Roman port city of Ostia by a group of pirates and the 9/11 attacks in America.

In both cases, he notes that the attackers were not a part of a state. They were individuals who were not a part of a state. They were terrorists. But more disturbing is the fact that in both cases the people of Rome and the US moved quickly to hand over some of their rights to the government in order to be protected. In Rome, this eventually led to the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire. The people gave Pompey absolute authority to protect their freedom. Anyone who dissented was called “soft” or “traitorous.” It spelled the end for the Roman constitution.

Harris draws parallels between that vote in the Roman senate and what is going on in Congress right now.

Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the
similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.

It is commonplace to say in such situations that those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it. Given the state of education in the US, it is not surprising that many people do not know history. What is sad is how many people who read Harris’s piece will still not learn from history and will still willingly trade their freedom — and ultimately their humanity — in exchange for security.

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