quote:

By the way, such acts were automagically classified

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
It wouldn't seem to threaten the survival of the nation-state except when said nation-state overreacts to terrorism.

Yet, it kills thousands of people a year, many of them Americans.

But it isn't threat in the way Japan was a threat.

Or is terrorism the modern threat of fascist imperialism in a new guise?

quote:

quote:

By the way, such acts were automagically classified

I am hoping this is not a typo but instead a deliberate neologism, but I love it either way.

quote:

The Future of the American Idea
November 2007
Atlantic Monthly
by David Foster Wallace
Just Asking

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, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”?* 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 Franklin’s 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 they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t 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)

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

quote:

Originally posted by cbarreto:

quote:

quote:

By the way, such acts were automagically classified

I am hoping this is not a typo but instead a deliberate neologism, but I love it either way.

Automagically: that's very used around here... Especially in those engineering classes where you don't have patience to develop a full demonstration of a theorem...

quote:

Where and when was the public debate on whether they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?

quote:

Osama bin Laden has owned us for over half a decade, and we're only just beginning to realize it.

quote:

Originally posted by theminx:
I lurve DFW.

His analogy to the car is apt; however, the America of his idea is also the America that requires endless disclosure statements and graphic warnings not to run your hairdryer in the bathtub, and cautions that the filling in a Hot Apple Pie is hot.