LETTER TO A SPOOK

BUT YOU DON'T KNOW ME

Sam Smith

I don't know for sure that you're out there at all, but from what I read
and hear there's a pretty good chance, so I thought I would pass this
along.

You may be tapping my phone, scanning my e-mails and collating my other
electronic ephemera, but you don't know me.

Any writer can tell you this: you don't reveal character or describe an
individual by just dumpster diving for data. Your efforts are not only
intrusive, they're ineffective as well.

An individual is a product of experiences, some of which - though
influential - may have been lost to memory, some of which - though
searing - may never be mentioned again, and some of which - though
exhilarating - may lack the words to describe them.

You are eavesdropping only on my front to the world. If I am down, I try
not to bring my friends down with me. If I am mad about some public act,
I try not to bore my friends too much about it. If I am mad about some
private act, I try for the calm and restraint I do not feel. If I am
really happy, I often lack the words to express it well. And if I have
been given something, I try for gratitude even though I have no idea
what to do with the damn thing.

You do not know my dreams, my fears, my stupid excesses of doubt, or how
I alternately rebel against, resent or am resigned to the entropy of
aging. You do not know how sad I am about the world that the people you
work for will leave my children and their children. You do not know that
I do not like vinegar, have never read Joyce's "Ulysses," sometimes fall
asleep while waiting my turn in a board game, never watch football, or
that two of my uncles were killed in wartime service to our country. You
do not know that my utopia would have, above all, no need for dentists
as well having "This Land is My Land" as our national anthem.

If you were to really know me, you would need to hear hundreds of
stories, visit hundreds of places, and meet hundreds of people. Only a
few of them are listed on my credit cards.

But you are not only misinformed. You are also a thief. You are stealing
my privacy, my civil liberties, my peace of mind, and the incalculable
pleasure of not having to worry about what someone else is doing to you.
You are also a vandal. You are throwing rocks at the Constitution,
scrawling graffiti on our national conscience, wrecking our reputation,
and scratching the face of America.

And still you do not know me.

I don't know you either but I suspect you are earnest and were attracted
to your dubious trade by its romantic and macho aura, recruited by the
excitement of being a spy. Deceived by your employers, however, you have
ended up just another technician in the dismantling of the First
American Republic.

I believe you sincerely believe the contrary but I wonder about some
things. For example, how many courses in American history did you take
before embarking on this task? Did you ever read Benjamin Franklin's
autobiography? Do you know who Thomas Paine was? What do you think
Patrick Henry meant when he said, "Give me liberty or give me death?"
Would you have tapped his phone, too?

And what about those who rebelled against the law to win rights for
slaves, for women, for workers? Many of them broke the law. Were they
bad Americans because they sought to become full Americans?

Do you know what the Palmer raids were? Do know why good Americans stood
up to Joseph McCarthy? What did Woodrow Wilson mean when he told a group
of new citizens "You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United
States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be
God. Certainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this
great government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal,
to a great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race." What
are some of those principles? Did Wilson know what he was talking about
or should he have been under surveillance, too?

If you have a hard time with these questions, maybe you're in the wrong
business. You're judging people without knowing the rules of the game.
You're determining who is a good American without knowing what that
means. You're mistaking loyalty to the ambitions of a particular set of
politicians at a particular moment as loyalty to a country, its land and
its people.

But even though you are a thief and a vandal, and even though I suspect
you don't know enough about America to judge me fairly, I'll make a deal
with you.

You come out of your hole long enough to meet me someplace over a drink
or over dinner. I'll tell you my stories and you tell me yours. No
interrogation, no tape recorder, no probing into each other's private
business. Just two Americans sitting and talking about what it means to
them to be an American.

If you don't take this deal, I'll think of you not only as thief and
vandal but as a coward as well.

If you do take this deal, you'll probably discover that we're both
pretty good Americans, that you've been wasting your time, and that you
may even want to find a new job.