[Infowarrior] - OpEd: Just Asking

[Richard Forno]

This brief op-ed, part of the Atlantic's 150th Anniversary edition this
month, has strong sentiment both for politics and security risk management,
and in my curmudgeonly opinion, speaks volumes on how America tends to
handle both.  The author asks some of the same questions that I and other
security analysts have been raising for at least the past 7 years, if not
longer.......rf


Just Asking
David Foster Wallace

Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea* one such thing?
Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973
innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic
martyrs, ³sacrifices on the altar of freedom²?* In other words, what if we
decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the
price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of
Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our
democratic way of life‹sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of
our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few
years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us
may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic
cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very
principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the
40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility
and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is
monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory
trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200
years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin¹s time and ours? Why
now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the
inevitability of sacrifice‹either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some
portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so
incalculably precious?

In the absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to
value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the homeland? What
are the effects on the American idea of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Patriot Acts
I and II, warrantless surveillance, Executive Order 13233, corporate
contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act,
NSPD 51, etc., etc.? Assume for a moment that some of these measures really
have helped make our persons and property safer‹are they worth it? Where and
when was the public debate on whether they¹re worth it? Was there no such
debate because we¹re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have
we actually become so selfish and scared that we don¹t even want to consider
whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?

FOOTNOTES:
1. Given the strict Gramm-Rudmanewque space limit here, let's just please
all agree that we generally know what this term connotes‹an open society,
consent of the governed, enumerated powers, Federalist 10, pluralism, due
process, transparency ... the whole democratic roil.

2. (This phrase is Lincoln's, more or less)

The URL for this page is
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/wallace-safety

David Foster Wallace is the author of several books, including Infinite Jest
(1996), A Supposedly Fun Thing I¹ll Never Do Again (1997), and Consider the
Lobster (2005).