August 24, 2005
Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)
excerpt from chapter three of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel
Although [September 11] was the most spectacular, it was far from being the only example of a clear-sighted American analysis that foresaw the emergence of a new kind of terrorist warfare on home territory. The fact that defenders of human rights wouldn't take into account the right to national defense, which goes in tandem with the defense of liberty, and that they managed to dismiss these sensible warnings as the racist ravings of defense-obsessed fanatics only goes to show once again the naive blindness of democratic regimes. As long as calamity isn't actually crashing down on them, democracies are careful to maintain their vulnerabilities. But in no way does this ingenius propensity for suicide entitle Europeans to brandish slogans denouncing a supposed erosion of American liberties--as if the danger of "fascism" were particularly severe in the U.S.A., a land that in over two hundred years has never known a dictator, while Europe has been busy making troops of them.
Read chapter four for Thursday.
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Dorian, I agree that every nation needs to resources to defend itself from imminent threat and invasion. However, we had plenty of mechanisms in defense, both infrastructure and intelligence, in place pre 9-11. Regardless, a cultural flaw (or rather a communication flaws) in our defense system didn't allow those systems to work. Agencies didn't work with agencies.
A free society is where we live. A small percentage of freight goods are checked at the border. Trucks transport interstate commerce with little interference and searching. The only place I see every vehicle dilligently searched everyday is at the World Financial Center garage right next to the WTC. Kids walk around with backpacks we hope are full of explosives. America will never be a police state and the privacy right granted in the 4th amendment is certainly not hindering law enforcement and defense from pursuing terrorists domestically.
Even with the greatest working web of defense infrastructure and intelligence, let us remain a free society.
Posted by: toby at August 24, 2005 11:29 AM
