Recently, many Americans have become increasingly concerned with the loss of liberties associated with post 9/11 federal legislation, most namely the Patriot Act(s).

Those concerned have nicely described the government’s legislative attempts to prevent terrorism as little more than a “rights grab.” Some have went as far as to compare President Bush, and Republicans in general, to Nazis.

Well, I also have major concerns about constitutionally questionable legislation, but it seems to me that the tact of some who agree with my concern is simply wrong and counterproductive. Again, I am very concerned, but how this concerned is vocalized is what really matters.

Allow me to offer a novel idea; President Bush is not a Nazi and perhaps he does not have “secret” intentions to strip Americans of their constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms. I know, perhaps he does have these intentions, but let me show that giving him the benefit of the doubt does nothing to diminish a legitimate concern, and will actually, through less personalization of the issue, make for a far more meaningful plea.

There is an important difference between manifest and latent functions. Without getting into complications, a manifest function is the actual intended consequence of an action.

For instance, the manifest function of compulsory education is so that children will become knowledgeable and become educated. But we all know that this is not the only purpose or function of school.

This is where latent functions come into play. One latent, or secondary, purpose of school is to keep kids “off the street,” or as my parents would say, from “raising hell.” Thus, the actual purpose of anything might have very little to do with what it was actually created for.

Thus the Patriot Act was created to prevent terrorism, this I believe, but this intention might have very little to do with what the legislation actually does — strip Americans of their rights. Now we know that the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is true.

Bad purposes or functions are usually not intended unless the party is evil, which I have asked we assume President Bush not to be. However, the unintended (latent) powers of an idea have a strange way of often taking over the intended (manifest) idea. Often the intention of something becomes lost in its actual effect.

We often mean to do good, but in this attempt very bad things can happen. This is my fear with President Bush’s zealous attempt to fight terrorism. Likely he means to do good, but who cares? Hitler probably meant to do good, but this is yet another reason why intentions don’t really matter.

President Bush and many of our federal legislators have “good” manifest intentions, but — and this is this hard thing to come to grips with — original intentions, as far as the final product is concerned, matter very little.

We must look at the actual act and potential consequences thereof, not the intentions of the actor. I assume President Bush to be a moral man with good intentions, but this is far from enough to alleviate my concerns.

If we want to protect the liberties that Americans have died for 250 years protecting, we had better quit the childish games and name-calling and start looking at actual acts as opposed to the actors. We need to predict the latent results as opposed to guessing about the manifest intentions.

Eric Roark

Graduate student

Sociology