responding to 'terror'
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"Letting the 'Terrorists' Win"
It's become a cliche by now, exactly because it is true! The steps the United States has taken to "fight" "terrorism" has in actuality allowed "the terrorists to win!" Why, because in our ill-conceived responses to terrorism, we have ceased to be what has made us unique as Americans. We have thrown aside our values and squandered our liberty in the name of increased "safety."
National 'Security'
Is there anyone out there who really believes that all the measures we have taken to increase the cost of air travel, to inconvenience and invade the privacy of travelers, and to interfere with the operations of airlines that are already facing the threat of extinction has stopped a single terrorist attack? Has any of this made us safer? And what about the ways we hurt ourselves in the name of "protection?"
Transportation 'Security'
Just as it is said that we are always fighting the last war, we are also always preventing the previous attack. We assume those who threaten our society have only one playbook and will simply repeat the same plan, ad infinitem.
Of course they won't. And if the next attack is not likely to come as a repeat of September eleventh, why are we spending so many resources, not the least of which squandered liberty to prevent the last attack and not the next one?
Does frisking Grandma actually make us safer?
The only thing we do accomplish by burderning air travelers, interfering with free movement, invading privacy of our own citizens is to give the terrorists a sense of smug satisfaction that they have caused us to surrender the freedoms that they, our enemies, could never have taken from us.
The best way to fight terrorism is to return to pre-airport security, when anyone could go to the gate to meet a flight, send off a passenger, or simply watch the planes come and go. The best way to fight any enemy of a free society is to reaffirm freedom, and flaunt it, not dial it back.
Libertarians beleive that liberty is the best defense. Free people are ultimately more secure than those who have fewer freedoms. We'll invoke another cliche: slippery slope. When we start to de-sensitize ourselves to compromising our freedoms for the sake of security, and when we give the government more power to "protect" us from external threats, there are no guarantees that the government we have trusted to protect us will not become, at some point, a greater threat than the external threats from which it claims to protect us. Remember, "a government that does everything for us, can take everything from us."
Coming Soon: Why war, torture, and holding alleged "enemy combatants" without trial increases rather than decreasing the treat to our security.