Ashcroft's freedom
There is little doubt that John Ashcroft's tenure as Attorney General has been very destructive, as this article enumerates. His use of the word "freedom" in his letter of resignation (and in previous communications) has puzzled me a bit, but I think I have a grasp of it now. Given his record, he cannot possibly mean what the rest of us mean by that word. I think he uses it to refer to a fuzzy romantic notion of American superiority. It's a sort of grade-school nationalism in which an adult has mouthed some compulsory curricular platitudes about America being the greatest nation on earth, and from somewhere in the surrounding dribble a child might pluck the word "freedom," not knowing what it means in a social context but associating it with the general tone of venerating the homeland. Remember Ashcroft's attempt at song, which I found embarrassing due less to his performance and more to the gratingly mawkish sentiments expressed. Without any real concept of "freedom," is it surprising he has regularly acted to curtail it?
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There is some good scientific support for
Freedom as a solution to war and violence, but the implementation details leave a lot to be desired in this case. Of all of Bush's appointees, Ashcroft has been perhaps the least conducive to the Freedoms within our borders, which comprise his charter. I see his advocacy of freedom in general as a good, but his contribution to it domestically as a tactical retreat at best.
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