(no subject)

[cnoocy]

This is a political entry, so please don't feel you have to read it.

I can understand the belief that the threat of terrorism is a new sort of challenge.

From that, I can fully comprehend the belief that new tools are needed to meet that challenge.

And it is not unreasonable to state that the chief executive needs to be able to react quickly to new threats.

Taken a little further, one could assert that the executive should be able to ignore laws as necessary.

And therefore that when he chooses to do so, that he should not be held accountable.

One could say that. But to say that is to say that terrorism is too strong an enemy for a free society to deal with.

I don't.

Comments

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

Yea.

It pisses me off too.

[libskrat]

The question is not whether a free society can deal with the threat of terrorism. The question is whether a free society can deal with demagogues using the threat of terrorism as a banner to remove freedom.

I'm deeply unsure about that one. Wish I weren't.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, I think terrorism is too strong an enemy for a non-free society to deal with.

[cnoocy]

I certainly agree, and have the general attitude "In liberty we trust". But that's a less clear-cut argument.

[libskrat]

Well, this gets tricky... is Israel free? Because they certainly seem to be dealing. The political machinations overlying the terrorism have gone noplace, but I still get the (possibly erroneous) sense that the fact itself of terrorism has not made any appreciable changes in Israeli society for quite some time.

[joxn.livejournal.com]

Because Israel is 100% terror-free? What?

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

Not a good example, imho. Terrorism may not have proven effective as a tool for changing society in Israel, but it has been effective in blowing people the f___ up. I think that a society, free or otherwise, has to want to address terrorism in a way that prevents its members from being blown the f___ up.

[libskrat]

No. Because the threat of terrorism has not forced them into changing their legal or cultural infrastructure.

[libskrat]

I don't know that I agree. I do not think that total safety from explosions is a feasible goal under any organization of society -- even the most totalitarian imaginable.

So the question becomes how to minimize explosions (to the extent possible, always with the understanding that zero is unattainable) while not casting away our bedrock freedoms.

Put another way, I accept a risk of being blown up, if the alternative is the Patriot Act. (Not just talking out my hat, either; I live in the DC area.)

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

I guess my point is that neither the Patriot Act nor Israel's rather hamfisted policies constitute reasonable strategies for dealing with terror. A better example, about which I don't really know enough to get too loquacious, might be Northern Ireland, where serious political engagement seems to have proven effective enough to push terror to the margins and eventually supplant it as the dissidents' mode of interaction.

[jadelennox]

Israel is ... mixed. Whether terrorism provoked limited freedoms or limited freedoms provoked terrorism or they both spiral around in a widening and depressing gyre is a matter of some debate. That being said, Palestinians who live in the country and non-Israeli Arabs (there are plenty of Israeli Arabs; they're a special case) have no privacy and ridiculously restricted civil rights, including weeks at a time when they aren't allowed to, say, go to work. Israelis have decent civil rights, but live a reasonable chance of getting blown up, and -- more importantly -- have a first world nation by education and skills that's mired in poverty because the endless cycle of terrorism and response (not to mention the amount the IDF spends on defending and providing infrastructure to legal and illegal settlements) has sucked the coffers dry.

Israel's a good example to look to for coping, but they're also a good example to look to for failures. I'd say limited freedoms in the territories has a direct connection to increased number of terrorist attempts and decreased number of terrorist successes. Is that a long-run win? God, who knows?

Blargh

[aatish2.livejournal.com]

In my (let's face it not-so-humble) opinion, I think the problem here lies with viewing "terrorism" as something new (since 9/11) and external to our society from which we (U.S. residents / citizens) must protect ourselves.

Terrorism is not external to the U.S.

Prior to 9/11, the most acute terror-provoking events in the U.S. were the acts of white, american males (cue pictures of the KKK, unabomber and oklahoma bombings). Additionally, Columbine and similar shootings have provoked terror on an unprecedented level. Yet we did not pass the Patriot Act in the face of any of these. To get the Act passed, America had to be convinced that terror was the product of some outside "axis of evil."

The silent truth is that terrorism is a natural consequence of the freedom and globalization of knowledge and goods. As these occur, the ability of an individual (of any ethnicity, nationality or race) to cause harm increases.

When all you could get your hands on was a sword and a horse (and that too with great difficulty), there wasn't a whole lot a single person that did not control an army could do to hurt the world. When you can get your hands on the recipe for a toxin via the web or a book, buy all the necessary ingredients at walmart, take classes at the local vocational academy on water purification and locksmithing and then poison an entire city - and do all this for less than $4k, that's a bit different.

The problem is that Bush and his supporters react to this changing world by attempting to reverse the tides of freedom. This is, as history has repeatedly shown us, impossible and dumb.

Instead, the logical conclusion is that if every individual can cause more harm, then we as a society must do more to raise the level of contentment and happiness for individuals around the world. Fundamentally this amounts to creating more resources globally so that the rest of the world (and portions of our own society) can come somewhere close to the obscene quality of life the American middle-class enjoys.

There is a single factor which influences the availability of more resources than any other - energy. Hunger is a transport and distribution, hence energy problem. Clean water is a desalinization and purification, hence energy problem. Much of the political hell of the middle-east is an energy problem.

If we can innovate a cheap, renewable source of energy and make that technology freely available to the world (!note! freely, not with a bunch of U.S. fiats and dictates attaches), we will make a serious dent in terrorism. Given where we are technologically, this is a very real possibility within 3-4 decades given the right funding. Of course, U.S. spending on alternate energy research has been steadily declining since the 80s. At the same time our spending on health care has more than quadrupled. We live longer, consume more and worry less about renewable energy. Hmmm. Wonder why.

We need an Apollo Project focused on solar/wind/fusion energy. In my opinion, this is the best way to fight "terrorism."