America is a series of stories we tell ourselves. Some are true, some were once true, some are ideals which we’ve never particularly honored. The truth of the story has little to do with how important it is to us.
One such story is that we come together during national tragedy, and this refines and improves us as a people. This is seen as our sacrosanct inherent nature. But it’s not true, and it never was.
9/11, of course, is the primary recent example, and many people like to repeat stories from New York City about how people came together after the attack. Less repeated, and less noticed, was how our national unity stemmed primarily from bloodlust and revenge, without much particular concern about whom was in the crosshairs. 63% of Americans thought at one time that Saddam was behind 9/11, but oddly, since he was decapitated by Shi’ite fundamentalists whom we recast as democratic idealists, these people haven’t felt any safer.
Now we’re supposedly bound together in mourning post-Arizona, as if this will be a great national defining moment when we regain our sanity. Today’s twitter stream is replete with newscasters asking, “Have you altered your language? Are you discussing it at your dinner table? How has this changed you?”
Changed us? Psychotic madmen with powerful weapons go on a killing spree on a regular basis here; it’s the automatic result of a country with 320 million people with easy access to guns. You don’t need a Ph.D. in probability to understand that. Six dead would be national headlines regardless; six dead and a brain-damaged Congresswoman makes for lingering headlines. But to say that the national character is changed in January 2011 should be easily disproven no later than July when the Republican attack ads begin to air for 2012.
The engines that refine political division into outright hatred are fed by money and power. There’s too much money in right-wing commentary for anything as minor as a murdered child to slow it down. There’s too much power in right-wing demagoguery for anything as trivial as a disabled Democratic elected official to ablate it. The sole thing that will stop these engines is starving it of fuel, and to do that, we need to shame the supporters and consumers which feed them.
Tragedy does not improve us. It brings out short-term benevolence and largely empty goodwill—I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told to pray for Arizona—at the price of long-term fear and a backlash of savagery. I’m sure that today in many quarters it is being whispered that Giffords brought this on herself by being a traitor to America—and that before long, such sentiment will be spoken aloud by people who couch it in codewords to make it palatable. Already you hear the standard platitudes—that the actions of a deranged individual says nothing about the millions of decent, hardworking Americans who believe that assassinating treasonous liberals would be good for America, if only such things were possible in our society. Surely there can be no connection between the two.
Change is possible in America, but it does not come from tragic events. 9/11’s creation of a Kumbayah Moment did not last, if it ever really existed. Vietnam caused a rejection of the military, followed by a rebound cultural requirement to love our soldiers regardless of their actions or orders. Kent State is forgotten. Pearl Harbor did not cause a near-universal rejection of fascism; the Nazis themselves did that after their actions came to light. The Civil War led to the abolition of slavery—only after over a century of anti-slavery movements, and leading to another century of the repression of people who were once enslaved.
The actions which did lead to lasting social change—abolition, universal suffrage and women’s equality, civil rights, rejection of anti-Semitism, and today’s struggle for gay rights—came from decades of work on the ground by hardworking activists. Community organizers, if you will.
We can become a more peaceful nation. We can return to communal discussion between those who disagree. But we won’t do so without a great deal of work—and not before we recognize the cancers causing our national illness for what they are.
Note: I wrote this a few days ago, before Obama’s speech. I haven’t seen it yet, but already I’ve heard that his key pull-quote is in contradiction to my title. Once I have the chance to watch the speech, I’ll post followup comments if I have any.
I hate to poke at something that was not nearly your main point, especially in an otherwise very moving piece.
But speaking as one of those storytelling New Yorkers, the feeling of unity I experienced (however sadly short-lived it was) was *not* bloodlust. And it hurts to look back on those memories with that filter.
In every other point, I agree with you. So sorry–I’m unsure why I even feel the need to say this.
I’m with Jess. The number of individual stories I can tell you, from people clearing burning rubble in hopes of finding just one survivor, to people working day and night to set up a fully functional family center on the West Side pier, to the simple smiles and hugs afforded NYPD & NYFD members by total strangers had nothing to do with bloodlust. And they still don’t. Even today, people buy cops cups of coffee as a quick way of saying thanks; people give up their airplane seats so soldiers can get home quicker; the image of a man or woman in uniform on a baseball stadium screen illicits spontaneous applause.
I could just as easily be as cynical as you’re being and tell you that the those who sneer at these folks and call them “security kabuki theater” have lost their sense od decency. When Bush’s press secretary got cancer, some lefty pundits publicly wished him dead and said he deserved it. Maybe we should blame the national obesity problem on all those jokes about Cheney’s next heart attack?
I choose to believe that most people are decent & kind most of the time. Then there are those on the fringes that see enemies everywhere they look – in our leaders and in those who simply disagree with their politics and have the temerity to say so. Then there are the truly crazy folks who turn to violence at some random provocation.
You casually mention “millions” of people who believe that assassinating liberals would be good or America. I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I fear you’re ascribing that horrible belief to anyone who would, say, vote for Sarah Palin in an election. I don’t count myself among that group, but that doesn’t mean I ascribe to them a predisposition to violence. That’s quite a leap…
Both of you missed the word “national” before the word “unity.”
I wasn’t in NYC after 9/11, so I can’t comment on what was going on there. I was however in DC, where we had our own 9/11 incident, and I saw how quickly otherwise rational people thought it was a nifty idea to unleash a can of military whoop-ass so they wouldn’t feel so frightened anymore.
What I can comment on, however, is the video from Bush’s famous speech from the rubble pile. It took him maybe three sentences to get to the line, “and the people who did this will be hearing from us real soon.” On the audio I heard, that’s the phrase that got the biggest cheer. And it was immediately followed with a chant of “USA!”, indicating a general conflation of war with a fucking football game.
Another president wouldn’t have pulled revenge out of the bag of rhetorical tricks immediately. But the crowd happily followed him there. I *don’t* believe that the only thing going on in NYC or DC in the weeks that followed was the fear-induced bloodlust that soaked the rest of the country—nor is there any evidence that these cities were magically immune from it.
On to a few other Brian points:
1) the canonization of the military started long before 9/11; it was a Reagan-era rebound from the post-Vietnam trashing of anyone in uniform. All that 9/11 did was to make *any* criticism of the military short of “hate the sin, love the sinner” impossible to express. You’re absolutely right that the NYPD and NYFD were added to the list of the beatified—and in many cases, they deserve to be. But we all know that no matter what the uniform, that doesn’t mean that the wearer is automatically angelic. We just pretend because it makes us feel better.
2) Regarding “security theater”: false equivalence. I can show you data proving that the bullshit we go through does not make us safer. You want to sneer at me for presenting facts? Be my guest. The sole argument for the other side is “it makes us feel better.”
3) Cite the lefty pundit who wished Ari Fleischer dead, please. Now compare his audience and following to, say, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or any of the drones on Fox.
Next question: do you wish Osama bin Laden dead? Because I note that he felt justified in launching a war which killed 3,000 civilians, while Fleischer et al. launched a war that killed ten times as many because *they* felt justified in doing so. I’m not equating the two. I’m saying that while I don’t wish harm on the Bush administration, I’m sure as hell not going to mourn them or pity them, either.
4) Most people *are* decent and kind most of the time. You don’t have to “choose to believe” that—sociology will back you up. However, the sticky point is how they define decent and kind. The reason I’ve been on this particular soapbox for ten years is that I want these decent, kind people to give a damn about what happens to civilians living in countries where we feel like waging war.
5) Re “millions” of people: how many people listen to Rush? How many books has Coulter sold? It’s no leap. I’m expected to be decent and moderate in my language, but I and people like me have been thoroughly dehumanized by the hard right. I’m not sure why I’m expected to be so fucking polite and not say so out loud.
Another president wouldn’t have pulled revenge out of the bag of rhetorical tricks immediately. But the crowd happily followed him there
The “crowd” he was talking to were construction workers, firemen, and other first responders from all over the country (not just New York) who had been digging through burning asbestos looking for bodies. His job was to inspire and he did it so effectively, that his political enemies simply cannot let it stand. Judging the degree of “blood lust” in New York from that single moment is like sending in the riot police after watching the Yankees win the World Series.
I can show you data proving that the bullshit we go through does not make us safer.
Yes, yes – and I can show you data proving that it does. That’s the wonderful thing about this kind of “data,” right? It proves what we want it to prove. And meanwhile, a trajectory that culminated with blowing a hole in a U.S. aircraft carrier and four simultaneous kamakazi hijackings has been reset to bombing train stations and shooting up hotel lobbies.
“Security theater” defines every success as an accident, ignores the actual goals of the program being discussed, and turns every flaw or short-coming into a declaration of failure. Worse yet, it presumes to redefine the intent of the program’s creators. Hence, we say things like “it only makes us feel better,” which, of course, serves no purpose other than to make us feel worse.
Cite the lefty pundit who wished Ari Fleischer dead, please.
I meant Tony Snow, not Ari Fleischer. And you and I both know how the long tail works – you don’t need a large audience anymore, you only need to “go viral.”
My point was, and is, that these kooks do not define America. It would be as ridiculous to say that “millions of people wanted Tony Snow dead” as it is to say that “millions of people believe that assassinating treasonous liberals would be good for America.” And as ridiculous as saying that anyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh on the radio or buys a book by Ann Coulter automatically feels that way as well.
If you are to be dehumanized, it’s not because your opinions lean left, but because you point at the fringe, call it the middle, and paint a silent majority with that broad brush. And if my criticism dehumanizes (which, of course, is not my intent at all), then President Obama’s does so too, most eloquently in the speech that I’m presuming you’ve now seen/heard.
The “crowd” he was talking to were construction workers, firemen, and other first responders from all over the country (not just New York) who had been digging through burning asbestos looking for bodies. His job was to inspire and he did it so effectively, that his political enemies simply cannot let it stand.
The first two sentences, and already I’m standing knee-deep in bullshit.
1) You’re proving my point of waving the banner of “first responders” as if that makes everyone bearing that title a saint immune from all criticism. You can infer a hell of a lot of bravery and altruism from it, absolutely. Such people can also show negative traits.
Best analogy I can think of: you can go through Civil War histories and come up with plenty of examples of bravery and sacrifice on the part of Southern soldiers. I could draw an equal analogy to German soldiers in both World Wars (and let’s call them “Germans” so I don’t lose the argument). It doesn’t necessarily diminish their bravery, but you also don’t ignore what they were fighting for.
2) You think this was an effective speech? Can you quote from it (aside from the line I pulled), or from the speech at the Cathedral? My personal assessment is that GWB is going to be fairly forgettable outside of his tremendous blunders, and you’ll never hear any historian in our lifetimes calling him inspirational. As I’ve been saying for years: during a time of tragedy, American looked to the presidency and saw what they needed to see.
3) As for “not letting it stand,” Brian, I was proved right in damn near every opinion I held in 2002 by subsequent events. I don’t need to throw more dirt on the rotting corpse of Bush’s image.
Judging the degree of “blood lust” in New York from that single moment is like sending in the riot police after watching the Yankees win the World Series.
Having been in Philly after the Phillies did so, I’ll mention that riot police are a fine idea in some situations. But for some reason, we mainly send them in for shows of force only at leftist political demonstrations. They’re oddly lacking at the rightist demonstrations where the attendees openly carry firearms.
As for judging: all I can tell you are my impressions from what I see. I saw GWB reaching, in a moment of unscripted rhetoric, immediately for the can of American whoop-ass, like any scared bully. I see the crowd responding accordingly. If you want to make a valid point, you could mention that my point of view in retrospect equates “they’ll hear from us” to two wars—and that might not be what the crowd heard that day. I think that’s a weak argument, but it could be made.
Yes, yes – and I can show you data proving that it does. That’s the wonderful thing about this kind of “data,” right?
Please. You’re better than this, to resort to argument from anecdote. And you probably take your shoes off more often than I do, so it really makes me wonder why you’re supportive of walking around barefoot.
Facts: we take off our shoes because of a “shoe bomber,” despite the fact that there are dozens of other places we can store a few ounces of explosive. We can’t take liquids on board the aircraft, despite the facts that a) you can’t mix a liquid explosive in mid-air, and b) these “dangerous” liquids are then left in a bin next to thousands of people for the rest of the day. And we now have naked millimeter backscatter scans, although they are entirely useless at finding the plastic explosives that someone shoved in his underwear.
I’m not (generally) opposed to genuine security measures. I’m opposed to bullshit. This is bullshit.
And meanwhile, a trajectory that culminated with blowing a hole in a U.S. aircraft carrier and four simultaneous kamakazi hijackings has been reset to bombing train stations and shooting up hotel lobbies.
You have an interestingly selective memory, omitting 7/7, anthrax, snipers in DC, and maybe a Congresswoman shot through the head. That’s an oddly linear narrative you’re imposing on a decentralized and nonlinear storyline.
By the way: hotel lobbies? Are we referring to the Indian shootings? Because that was pretty damned horrific.
“Security theater” defines every success as an accident, ignores the actual goals of the program being discussed, and turns every flaw or short-coming into a declaration of failure.
Wow. It’s rare that you make an argument from ignorance, but you’re coming very close here.
Check out some of the security experts I cite, starting with Bruce Schneier. We do not use the term “security theater” for all of the tactics we oppose. There are quite a few effective techniques that are not theater, but also aren’t indicative of living in a free country. But the crap you go through at an airport falls into both categories easily.
Feel free to name a goal of millimeter backscatter which has a chance in hell of being fulfilled. It’s okay, I’ll wait for the results. But seeing as how it can’t spot the explosives that are being cited for their installation, I’m kind of thinking that the odds are on my side.
So — what isn’t theater? Explosives swabs—they’re going to turn up around a thousand false positives for everyone they catch, ruining the lives of those folks for a long while, but it’s all in the name of safety.
BTW, if you’re interested in a technology that does catch plastic explosives, it exists. It’s furry, quadripedal and shorter than your children. But since it would only cost a few million to set up kennels at the airports, and a few million more for dog and police handler training, there just isn’t the political willpower that you’ll find behind billion-dollar expenditures on new machines.
Hence, we say things like “it only makes us feel better,” which, of course, serves no purpose other than to make us feel worse.
I have extremely specific times when I say such things, and damn straight, if the sole purpose of a political exercise is to subtly terrify then reassure the public, a psychological method which either demonstrates that the public is safe, or that the public is still exposed to danger afterwards, is completely valid politics.
I meant Tony Snow, not Ari Fleischer.
Okay. Cite the lefty pundit who wished Tony Snow dead. I heard people say that he was involved in the deaths of thousands of civilians—which he was—and that it was hard to feel a great deal of sympathy for his suffering—about which I’m pretty much neutral, much as I am about all celebrity suffering. But please note for me the leftwing pundit with an audience of more than 500 who wished him ill.
And you and I both know how the long tail works – you don’t need a large audience anymore, you only need to “go viral.”
I’m really not clear what you’re saying here—unless it is that since I could *theoretically* have an audience the size of Glenn Beck’s, his views and mine balance out? I’m having a bit of trouble with that theory.
My point was, and is, that these kooks do not define America.
My point was, and is, that since your definition of America excludes kooks, you’re the last one to notice the percentage of kookiness in the country. To which I’ll respond: Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are both running for president. Clearly, they must be doing so with absolutely no support whatsoever from your non-kooky America.
It would be as ridiculous to say that “millions of people wanted Tony Snow dead” as it is to say that “millions of people believe that assassinating treasonous liberals would be good for America.”
Again… you’re clearly forgetting what it was like to be liberal between 2001 and 2006. I’ll say, for the thirtieth or so time, that millions of people agreed with Ann Coulter’s book accusing moderate Democrats of treason, and that treason is a crime which carries the death penalty. Personally, I think that a very large number of these people hold profoundly un-American views, but I would stop short of accusing them of committing capital crimes.
Really, the thing I’m most tired of is false equivalencies. Rachel Maddow gets an hour on a cable news show, and suddenly all is right with the world.
And as ridiculous as saying that anyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh on the radio or buys a book by Ann Coulter automatically feels that way as well.
So your thesis is that the majority of Rush’s and Ann’s audiences don’t agree with them? They’re moderates, they just like the advertising?
Wow. I’m just not sure what to say to that.
If you are to be dehumanized, it’s not because your opinions lean left, but because you point at the fringe, call it the middle, and paint a silent majority with that broad brush.
Again, I have little idea what you’re saying here. I don’t lean left—I’m at the far left of the American political spectrum, which the rest of the world generally defines as “center-left”. The people you’re calling a fringe: is that the 24% of Republicans who support the Tea Party? The Americans who put the GOP back in power in the House so the government couldn’t take over their health care?
Your definition of “fringe” is pretty damned circular.
Late getting back to this, but…
You think this was an effective speech? Can you quote from it (aside from the line I pulled), or from the speech at the Cathedral? My personal assessment is that GWB is going to be fairly forgettable outside of his tremendous blunders, and you’ll never hear any historian in our lifetimes calling him inspirational. As I’ve been saying for years: during a time of tragedy, American looked to the presidency and saw what they needed to see.
Well, first of all, a speech need not be memorable to be inspirational. The only line I remember from Reagan’s Challenger speech is “touched the face of God,” but that was an inspirational speech. Ditto “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ditto again “Gabby opened her eyes.” We didn’t always live in a sound-bite culture, let’s not pretend now that it’s the only thing that matters.
Also, “saw what they needed to see” is a pretty good definition of “inspirational,” don’t you think?
Facts: we take off our shoes because of a “shoe bomber,” despite the fact that there are dozens of other places we can store a few ounces of explosive. We can’t take liquids on board the aircraft, despite the facts that a) you can’t mix a liquid explosive in mid-air, and b) these “dangerous” liquids are then left in a bin next to thousands of people for the rest of the day. And we now have naked millimeter backscatter scans, although they are entirely useless at finding the plastic explosives that someone shoved in his underwear.
I’m not (generally) opposed to genuine security measures. I’m opposed to bullshit. This is bullshit.
It is, indeed, bullshit. Like saying Spanish class is bullshit because I didn’t learn a word of French. Security measures at an airport are not intended to find every device, every explosive, every box cutter or every tube of toothpaste that passengers bring aboard planes. It’s intended to turn the straight line between the street and the airplane into an obstacle course, in hopes that those who would do us harm are deterred from trying. Once the guy has explosives in his underwear and is on the security line, our measures have already (mostly) failed. At that point, if we catch him, we’re just getting lucky.
You know this. I know this. The folks who do the “research” about the non-existence of liquid explsoives know this. Every TSA or Homeland Security spokesman I’ve ever seen knows this and SAYS this. And yet the New York papers will still periodically send a reporter through the security line with a box cutter to “prove” that airport security is “theater.” Meanwhile, we’ll never know how many copycat crimes didn’t happen because everyone takes their shoes off.
You have an interestingly selective memory, omitting 7/7, anthrax, snipers in DC, and maybe a Congresswoman shot through the head. That’s an oddly linear narrative you’re imposing on a decentralized and nonlinear storyline. By the way: hotel lobbies? Are we referring to the Indian shootings? Because that was pretty damned horrific.
You’re confusing me with those idiots who claim there hasn’t been any terrorism since 9/11. Probably because your response to them is so well rehearsed that it’s easier to assume I said that. But what I said is “a trajectory that culminated with blowing a hole in a U.S. aircraft carrier and four simultaneous kamakazi hijackings has been reset to bombing train stations and shooting up hotel lobbies.” So I’m not omitting 7/7 (that was the train stations) and yes, I agree the Indian shootings were horrific. All terrorism is horrific, but any nutcase with a bomb can blow up a train station. It takes a network of hundreds of people, months of planning, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and various specialty skills to simultaneously hijack four aircraft.
Yes, terrorism still exists. Our actions since 9/11 did not prevent John Allen Muhammad or Jared Lee Loughner from committing terrible acts. But an organization that was growing, both in numbers and in their ability to carry out more and more complex and deadly acts, has been set back thirty years. The perfect is not the enemy of the good.
BTW, if you’re interested in a technology that does catch plastic explosives, it exists. It’s furry, quadripedal and shorter than your children. But since it would only cost a few million to set up kennels at the airports, and a few million more for dog and police handler training, there just isn’t the political willpower that you’ll find behind billion-dollar expenditures on new machines.
I almost took a picture of all the security dogs I saw at Newark Airport for you yesterday, but a) I didn’t have my camera with me, and b) I have no desire to make the dog’s human counterpart nervous about me. They have jobs to do and I see no reason to distract them. So you’ll just have to trust me.
Okay. Cite the lefty pundit who wished Tony Snow dead.
I’m really not clear what you’re saying here—unless it is that since I could *theoretically* have an audience the size of Glenn Beck’s
My point was, and is, that these kooks do not define America.
Funny – because that was my point too. You’re happy to dismiss kooks like this as too insignificant to matter, but you’re willing to assume that kooks who listen to Rush Limbuagh and proclaim that “assassinating treasonous liberals would be good for America” do. It’s as absurd as me concluding that all readers of The Huffington Post want all Republicans dead. It’s hyperbolic rhetoric. In today’s world, though, the long tail gets this kind of crap on network television, and on widely read internet sites. No one with any media clout says these things, but they all talk about those who do.
Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are both running for president. Clearly, they must be doing so with absolutely no support whatsoever from your non-kooky America.
Heh…no they’re not. Running for President involves more than your political opponents announcing that you’re running for President, doing polls about you running for President, etc., so they can tear you down for doing so. Think of how Hillary and Obama went at each other, and imagine what Romney, Gingrich and the rest will do to Sarah Palin in the primaries if she even dreamed of trying. To my mind, the only reason Sarah Palin runs for President is if the Repulbicans determine that Obama is unbeatable in 2012. She’s much more effective as a “potential candidate,” which pisses liberals off to no end…
Back in 2009, you, among others, claimed that Rush Limbaugh was the de facto leader of the Republican party, and that they were so disorganized that they couldn’t possibly win another election. Two years later, a political rout. Now, Palin & Bachmann are the bogeymen. Two years from now?
So your thesis is that the majority of Rush’s and Ann’s audiences don’t agree with them? They’re moderates, they just like the advertising? Wow. I’m just not sure what to say to that.
I’m saying that people may simultaneously buy a book by Limbaugh or Coulter AND agree with what they read AND reject the idea of assassinating Democratic leaders. You seem to be saying that the only two opinions that exist are “Limbaugh is God” and “Limbaugh is the Devil.” There are tens of millions of inconvenient counter-examples out there…
Speaking of late….
Well, first of all, a speech need not be memorable to be inspirational.
You have a low bar. Under the right conditions and lack of sleep, I can be inspired by the Star Spangled Banner or a lively puppy. So I think it’s valid to say where a speech is valuable on its own merits, and where it’s easy to presume that the inspiration would have similarly come from the president reading a phone book to the crowd.
The only line I remember from Reagan’s Challenger speech is “touched the face of God,” but that was an inspirational speech. Ditto “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
We were in our teens for that. I have memories of the Challenger explosion, but no contemporaneous memories of Reagan’s speech. Likewise the Berlin speech. I’ve heard it often enough in the 25 years since to know that I was supposed to have been inspired by it, and I wonder if you can say the same.
Compare that to King or Kennedy (either one), neither of which I was around for, and I can easily say, “this is inspiring now.”
Ditto again “Gabby opened her eyes.”
Actually, that was the point where he lost me. a) That’s not the speech, that’s a lucky medical event that came in time to be included. b) Sorry, my first reaction to that is, “damn, this crowd doesn’t know shit about brain injuries.”
Gifford’s rehabilitation has been insanely fast, and that is inspiring in the same sense that anyone overcoming adversity can lay claim to the title. But that’s not the speech; that’s Obama getting a chance to scoop the press.
We didn’t always live in a sound-bite culture, let’s not pretend now that it’s the only thing that matters.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”
Also, “saw what they needed to see” is a pretty good definition of “inspirational,” don’t you think?
Also a good definition of “delusional.”
It is, indeed, bullshit. Like saying Spanish class is bullshit because I didn’t learn a word of French. Security measures at an airport are not intended to find every device, every explosive, every box cutter or every tube of toothpaste that passengers bring aboard planes.
Give me a break. Backscatter scanners were sold specifically to deal with plastic explosives, which they don’t detect. There is no use case where this investment makes any sense. It’s like you decided you want better access to your email, and buying an iPod nano for $5 billion because an influential friend told you to.
It’s intended to turn the straight line between the street and the airplane into an obstacle course, in hopes that those who would do us harm are deterred from trying. Once the guy has explosives in his underwear and is on the security line, our measures have already (mostly) failed. At that point, if we catch him, we’re just getting lucky.
Exactly. And at some point, rational people are supposed to ask themselves, is this 0.1%, or 0.01%, change in outcomes worth the investment of billions of dollars, and/or the erosion of Constitutional liberties? Your presumption here is that more expensive techniques will naturally lower the probability of how lucky we need to get in order to stop a plot which has reached the airport.
Well, that happens to be my forte. So let me point out: 1) there are no measures of how much this will increase our security, so it’s impossible to make a rational judgment. 2) in the absence of probability, you’re making a gut call on what’s “good” — which you’re not evolutionarily designed to do. So America is the equivalent of the guy who draws to a gutshot without knowing the size of the pot — and in this case, the pot would have to be about 10,000 times the size of the expense (in my estimate) to make a difference.
If you want to catch a guy at the airport, what you need is dogs and people trained the way they are in Tel Aviv. Instead, we’re buying useless technology and hiring “security” for eight dollars an hour.
You know this. I know this. The folks who do the “research” about the non-existence of liquid explsoives know this.
You put “research” in quotes as if you don’t believe it, and as if your opinion matters. There’s a factual answer as to whether liquids are dangerous. Our opinions about it don’t matter, only whether they actually are dangerous.
Every TSA or Homeland Security spokesman I’ve ever seen knows this and SAYS this.
Actually, every TSA quote I’ve ever seen has either been 9/10ths lie, or completely unresponsive because to tell us anything would “damage national security.” They are slightly better under Obama, but not much. Please, point out the Kip Hawley quotes which gave you this impression.
Meanwhile, we’ll never know how many copycat crimes didn’t happen because everyone takes their shoes off.
Ah. So in other words, you’re just stating that if a measure makes you feel better, then that’s worth any expense. Because a statement like this is purely in the category of “feeling better.” If the answer is zero — which is extremely likely — then you’re still going to feel better, because this is unfalsifiable.
You’re confusing me with those idiots who claim there hasn’t been any terrorism since 9/11. Probably because your response to them is so well rehearsed that it’s easier to assume I said that.
Since you used an ad hominem attack here, I’ll allow myself a similar retort. I don’t rehearse my arguments. I repeat my arguments when the same idiots raise the same points. And when I’m debating with a proven non-idiot who makes the same points, then not only do I point out the same flaws, but I expect better from my rhetorical adversary.
All terrorism is horrific, but any nutcase with a bomb can blow up a train station. It takes a network of hundreds of people, months of planning, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and various specialty skills to simultaneously hijack four aircraft.
Again, I completely fail to understand why you carve out political violence and put it on a pedestal above other kinds of violence. Terrorism is only horrific if you allow yourself to be horrified by it. I’ve decided — and yes, in the early days it was a conscious decision — to think of terrorists as “criminals”, and so I’m no more horrified by a lunatic with a gun than I am by a criminal with a gun.
As for bombs, aircraft, and other ways of inflicting mass casualties — yes, our response should be commensurate with the impact. But people who are acting out of horror would have more of a leg to stand on if they were in the slightest bit horrified by the casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, which completely dwarf the horrors here.
Yes, terrorism still exists. Our actions since 9/11 did not prevent John Allen Muhammad or Jared Lee Loughner from committing terrible acts.
Well, hey, Loughner is white and non-Muslim, and Muhammad is schizophrenic. So they don’t really count, not according to general political calculus. If you write them off, you’re in good company.
But an organization that was growing, both in numbers and in their ability to carry out more and more complex and deadly acts, has been set back thirty years. The perfect is not the enemy of the good.
Your measurements are somewhere between “quaint” and “childish.” It’s the mindset of Israelis who believe they can bomb the Palestinians into oblivion. “Setting back the adversary” thirty years presumes that we’re already in a permanent battle, so “winning” three decades is a good thing at any cost.
My thinking: our adversary has only been around for 20 years. They have always been fantastically weak compared to us, and the damage they’ve done to us were nothing compared to the costs we’ve incurred to combat it. (And here I’m not talking money, Brian.) Ensuring that we are “safer” until the next generation of children grows up and joins al-Qaeda is “how to remain at war,” not “how to be safe.”
Besides, as you stated earlier: these attacks require very little money or planning. Explosives are cheap and defenses are porous. If we weaken our enemy and ensure their ongoing existence, we’re guaranteeing an ongoing series of black swan successful attacks. Take it from a guy who works for nonprofits with few resources: al-Qaeda is Evil Pugwash. The only way to beat them it to strike at their recruitment.
I almost took a picture of all the security dogs I saw at Newark Airport for you yesterday
Good for them! Glad to hear it.
You’re happy to dismiss kooks like this as too insignificant to matter, but you’re willing to assume that kooks who listen to Rush Limbuagh and proclaim that “assassinating treasonous liberals would be good for America” do.
Apologies for putting on the “Annenberg so I’m an expert” hat, but suffice to say: language does matter, no matter what the Palin crosshairs apologists want to tell you. Incendiary language dehumanizes the opponent. Liberals have been dehumanized for thirty years in a way that we do not use for our rhetoric.
An example: a friend related a story about a psychologist who said, “If you take the Republican party platform and apply measurements to it, they’re clinical sociopaths.” That’s a scientific statement (although DSM measurements are always a bit mushy compared to, say, whether a liquid explosive is dangerous). But those of us who cited evidence to say, “hey, W shows similar traits,” were dismissed as hateful. Why? Because liberals play Marquess of Queensbury rules — even when we have evidence to the contrary.
Yeah, I know, it’s a bitch, but facts do matter sometime.
Meanwhile, sorry, but I remember the language that was used against me in 2002. Treasonous supporter of terrorism, that was the start. Oh yeah, and I hate America. Repeat that for ten years, and you do change how some people are valued by other members of society. It’s not wondrous that edge cases choose to act on that — it’s nearly inevitable.
It’s as absurd as me concluding that all readers of The Huffington Post want all Republicans dead.
Cite ten years of liberal media saying the same hateful things, and you’ll have a leg to stand on. Instead, you’re drawing a false equivalence and ignoring what’s taking place right in front of you, because it’s the standing meme that you should do so.
No one with any media clout says these things, but they all talk about those who do.
Wait. Did you just really say that Beck, Limbaugh, and Palin have no media clout? Really? Did you really just say that?
Think of how Hillary and Obama went at each other, and imagine what Romney, Gingrich and the rest will do to Sarah Palin in the primaries if she even dreamed of trying.
Again, Annenberg hat: that’s what was said about Reagan in the 1970s. Sure, I’d be thrilled if Palin runs — I think it cements an already inevitable Obama victory.
The only problem is if Palin or someone like her wins.
Hypothetical: al-Qaeda decides that they want another GWB in office. (They’re on record that they prefer militaristic US leadership.) So they time a high-profile attack or failure in late October 2012. Do you think that just maybe this might tip the balance? If not then, how about 2016?
Back in 2009, you, among others, claimed that Rush Limbaugh was the de facto leader of the Republican party, and that they were so disorganized that they couldn’t possibly win another election. Two years later, a political rout.
That’s all still true, and the Republicans won largely because the Democrats remain as bafflingly ineffectual as they were under Bush. They’re excellent at passing legislation, and horrid at actually leading. This is the main reason why I think Obama has a cakewalk in 2012; he personally has a spark (still) which is missing among most of the party.
I’m saying that people may simultaneously buy a book by Limbaugh or Coulter AND agree with what they read AND reject the idea of assassinating Democratic leaders.
Of course. The problem is that on the analog line between “anti-assassination” and “pro-assassination”, there are many stops. I’m not the one being binary. I’m the one who’s saying that when the line is moved in the direction to make the impossible a consideration, we should take note.
I remind you that government policy is still in favor of war crimes, and a majority of Americans are in favor of that. To me, the takeaway message from this is that there is no magical safety net preventing Americans from embracing an evil which is sold to them with enough sugar and frillery.