It's depressing how true and yet pointless these sorts of essays are. Very smart people have been pointing out for years that our current security apparatus makes no sense, but it's still political suicide for any politician to admit this obvious fact. Instead we get non-sensical additions to an already silly system every time someone like the underwear bomber gets through.
What's the answer? Perhaps it's just the conventional wisdom that Americans can't be treated as adults and told the truth about the true costs of absolute security (an impossibility). I would like to see a politician brave enough to say that, though I fear that the conventional wisdom is correct and such talk is impossible for a candidate wishing election.
I think both the cause and solution to the problem lies in education. The general American public is alarmingly undereducated, and a well educated population is the foundation of a functioning democracy. This is btw. also why democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is such a mirage.
Too late. Education may have done the trick at one point but now the internet has stepped in to fill the void. Citizens can now get all the education they can eat in whatever half-baked ideology they crave.
The new problem is polarization. Truth is not an absolute fact to be uncovered, it's a trophy to be won by the team with the loudest and sexiest ideas, though the game never really ends.
Just look at the comments for that article. You can pigeonhole every one of them and they're all trying to pigeonhole the author.
The only thing we need to be educated in is rational, critical, dispassionate thought and I have no idea how to teach that.
Good observation. But I would say that the key takeaway from a good educational system isn't so much facts as it's the ability to discuss matters in a civil manner. Good discussion helps against polarisation.
The Internet hasn't exactly helped in teaching the public civil discourse. As you point out - just look at the comments in the article. Or on youtube, Digg, etc. A proper educational system will teach people to disagree based on facts and evidence, learn from their mistakes, and help them discern fact from anecdotal evidence, bad science, and good old-fashioned yelling.
It's a known fact that electronic communication actually encourages disagreement, as opposed to face-to-face communication which encourages agreement, and from that you could draw the pessimistic conclusion that people will never learn to broaden their minds by discussing things over the internet.
But at least they're talking to other people. At least they're actually exposed to differing viewpoints, many many more differing viewpoints than if the internet didn't exist. There's probably something good coming out of that, even if it looks like people are as small-minded as usual.
"At least they're actually exposed to differing viewpoints, many many more differing viewpoints than if the internet didn't exist." (citation needed)
It isn't at all obvious to me that this is true. It seems quite plausible that the vastness of the internet allows people to find specialised forums of people who all think exactly the same way they do. Eg, conservapedia.
Much as the internet evolved from anti-social to ultra-social, I have to believe that one day, with the invention of the right tools, it will come to promote wisdom rather than exacerbate an existing form of ignorance, as it does today.
In an earlier age people were skeptical that you could ever get good policy from a mob, well-educated or not. Popular opinion will always be subject to the influence of demagogues.
> (2) If terrorists should manage to kill or injure or seriously frighten any of us, they win."
Terrorists win when they achieve their objectives. Terrorism is a tool, not an end. As I understand it, Islamic terrorists want to provoke the US into armed confrontations with the Islamic world, and thereby increase extremism and generally cement the positions of hardliners, with particular focus on overthrowing the US-friendly Saudi regime.
You're talking about reality; he's talking about politics. If somebody succeeds in blowing up another plane, the political fallout will be much, much worse than what comes of armed confrontation with the Islamic world--which, after all, happens practically every day.
Well... an attempted bomber comes from Yemen, now people start thinking about maybe focusing attention on Yemen. Maybe Somalia too. And there are riots on the streets of Egypt because the US is paying off Mubarak to isolate Gaza, what with their democratically elected government not being popular enough with the Israel.
The US seems to me to be playing a very predictable game, manipulated into being the big bad guy in the Islamic fundamentalist story. And when a chunk of the US citizenry won't stand for doing nothing in the face of terrorism, the body politic is paralyzed by its fear and can be directed like a herd of cattle. I have read supposedly rational people actually say that "fighting them over there is better than fighting them here", as if terrorism was some kind of thing you beat by killing people. The mind boggles.
"Other bad things are happening" has never been a convincing argument in any arena, regardless of the statistics. The source of the terror is not that there are deaths, but that the murderous intent is emotionally directed at them.
The rally cry needs to be "We refuse to be intimidated."
"Other bad things are happening" has never been a convincing argument in any arena, regardless of the statistics.
I agree with you that there is a very serious qualitative difference between traffic accidents, spousal murders of passion, and gang-related murders on the one hand, and acts of terror based on ideals and intended to intimidate us on the other. However, any time you have a limited set of resources and a practically infinite number of possibilities on how to allocate them (which is pretty much always the case), rigorous statistical risk/reward analysis is the only sensible way we know of to make good decisions. I agree that qualitative differences must be taken into account, but I think current policy is far too reactionary and sensationalist (furthermore, it doesn't fill me with too much confidence). 9/11 was not what some blogger referred to as a "sucker punch" - it was a big deal worthy of reorienting the foreign policy precisely because of the qualitative difference you mentioned. Some incompetent schmuck with some flammable (not even explosive) material in his underwear - I really don't need to hear about that on TV.
I disagree. If I'm dead, I'm dead regardless of whether I died in a traffic accident or a terrorist attack. This emotional reaction is what people have to fight. A terrorist attack is only more scary because you let it be.
Fun fact: modern security measures are adequate. Any threats which can get through can be easily prevented by passengers.
All we need to do is add another segment to the airplane safety films: "In the unlikely event of a muslim looking passenger trying to set their shoes on fire or inject chemicals into their underwear, pour water on them. After they are thoroughly soaked, start punching them in the face."
Of course, I don't expect any politicians to admit this. "You need to protect yourselves" doesn't get as many votes as "I'll protect you from those bad scary foreign devils."
This is a problem of amplification. The modern media greatly amplifies any small incident, and to many people this translates into a high probability threat that they need to urgently pay attention to. Also, when incidents are reported no additional contextual information is given which would permit the viewer/reader to better evaluate the situation. This was especially true with some of the vaccination and food scares, which to the casual observer appear highly alarming but are statistically insignificant.
Given these statistics, there is little doubt that banning private gun ownership and making life without parole mandatory for anyone convicted of murder would reduce the homicide rate in America significantly.
While there are 200 million guns in private ownership as mentioned in the article, it does not necessary follow that it positively correlates with murder rate. In fact there is no mention of any correlation of ownership of guns to murder rate in the article.
The only mention is that guns are often the weapon of choice in attempting suicide.
Recalling from memory, legal ownership of guns, are in fact, correlated with crime reduction.
There is no correlation between gun ownership and murders because if you want to kill someone and plan for it you have fair odds of succeeding even if you use rolled newspaper as your murder tool.
On the other hand there is a correlation between gun ownership and homicides because killing human accidentally is most easily achieved by use of gun (maybe I'm wrong and the car is best tool and gun second best?).
Not only that, but while there may or may not be enough evidence at large to support his claim w.r.t. mandatory life without parole, it certainly cannot be derived purely from the fact that some past murderers have since been released on parole.
There is no better tool for improving government image that terrorist threat. It's objectively pretty harmless threat that can be medially inflated to such great size that control and security provided by government will seem absolutely essential for all citizens.
I can't think of another harmless thing that will make having government along with army, security and spies appear equally useful.
War is good at justifying existence of army but it's devastating so should be avoided at all costs. Cold war was playing nice for few dozen of years but enemy collapsed. So now we have terrorism. Good thing is it's much safer for us.
What's the answer? Perhaps it's just the conventional wisdom that Americans can't be treated as adults and told the truth about the true costs of absolute security (an impossibility). I would like to see a politician brave enough to say that, though I fear that the conventional wisdom is correct and such talk is impossible for a candidate wishing election.