Several people have observed that I am opposed to nearly all of the supposed anti-terrorism measures taken by the Bush administration, and sometimes ask me if I have a better idea as to how to fight terrorism. A few people have said that it’s OK for the government to take away our civil liberties as part of the war on terror, because there isn’t a better plan, completely ignoring the fact that taking away our civil liberties won’t save the life of a single person.
Imagine if you took your automobile to the mechanic because it was backfiring several times a day, and the mechanic said that he couldn’t fix it, but that you should not wear a shirt while driving. You might ask “will that help?” When he replies, “no, but there isn’t a better plan”, will that convince you that you really should in fact take your shirt off while driving? Of course not! Yet the government is doing things that are just nonsensical, and claiming that they are justified by the war on terror.
In point of fact, a much better response to the threat of terrorism is to do absolutely nothing at all, rather than pointless actions that take away our civil liberties. Taking away our freedom by turning the US into a police state is in fact one of the objectives of the terrorists. Instead of doing that, if we go about our business as usual, we have not increased our risk of being harmed by terrorism (which is incredibly minute to being with), and may even have reduced that risk. If terrorist acts don’t advance the agenda of the terrorists in some way, eventually they will stop committing them. They may be crazy, but they’re not completely stupid.
Recommended reading: How to Fight Terrorism by Sam Hughes.
I am not opposed to security measures with a rational basis, such as strengthening cockpit doors and putting air marshals on planes. What I object to is the useless supposed security measures which take away our civil liberties without any increase in actual safety, such as:
- wiretapping without warrants
- requiring airline passengers to present photo ID
- the no-fly list, which just prevented a U.S. Marine returning from eight month’s service in Iraq from flying from Los Angeles to Minneapolis
- requiring passengers on city busses passing through federal government property to show picture ID, even though the IDs are neither recorded nor checked against any list, and the federal property in question is a non-military site that is open to the public