Reflection #jafdfjkldagha

I found it strangely difficult to get engaged in the class discussions about national/economic security.

Or really I shouldn’t generalize national security—I mean terrorism.

I’ve always been very apathetic about terrorism. 9/11 does provoke a emotional response, but I don’t really concern myself with thinking about what ELSE the government should be doing to protect us. By living, we accept some level of risk. Terrorists put bombs up their butts, vending machines fall on people, small children crawl into pedophiles’ vans looking for candy. Or to use an example from class: cars crash.
The government should be doing SOMETHING to protect us from all of these, but at some point both policy makers and citizens need to accept a level of insecurity. Metal detectors, check. Bag searching, check. Security cameras, check. Etc, etc, etc. Be on the lookout for a terrorist but that list of security measures has to stop somewhere.
Of course, all of those measures are defensive towards terrorism. I don’t have a problem with the government attacking terrorism, but terrorism is tricky in that there’s no state/organization to target. Instead of victoriously beating back terrorism, I see the United States weakly scrambling to find the elusive terrorists. Terrorists are not a nation that can be beaten down with a conventional army and then restructured with a treaty. Terrorists are born from an idea; Ideas can’t be stifled.

I don’t think it’s possible to effectively confront terrorism. It’s like a disease: it ALL has to be stamped out or it will just jump back again. The United States shouldn’t frivol away its resources and world-wide image on an impossible task.

So why do I think that Americans shouldn’t live in fear? Because by submitting to the fear, you are very easy prey to manipulation. As a politician, fear is a good tool to use, and as a citizen I think we need to be aware of that. Being aware of the threat of terrorism is good, but ‘aware’ and ‘fear’ do not work together. By being fearful you lose a level of sanity.