Since 9/11, the U.S. has taken many steps not to find itself the victim of terrorists.
So, then, how are we doing – and how would we know?
Differently put, what does a terrorized society – what we wish to avoid – involve? What conceptual structures or processes define it?
If we lived in a terrorized society, what would we expect it to look like?
(For the more perspicacious reader, the same structures or processes we may be talking about here have very likely been raised or discussed in another recent post, just differently.)
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
The following from Federal No. 8 come to mind:
In a country in the predicament last described [i.e., often subject to, and always apprehensive of, invasions] . . . . The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions, to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations supported by the military power.
The frequent lionization of our troops worries me. It puts us too far down this path. Never mind that we already have large standing armies that was a concern to the Founders.
Steve
H.M.: I don’t feel terrorized. I never have, not even on September 12, 2001. But then, I’m from Buffalo–we don’t scare easily.
A society can be terrorized either by the threat of attack from outside, or by the measures taken by that society’s institutions to avert that threat. We in the US seem to be suffering more from the latter than the former. Osama Bin Laden isn’t the guy making me stand in line at the airport for 90 minutes.