9 Responses to “Our Foolish Security Theater”

1. #1 |  UCrawford |  July 18th, 2008 at 8:21 am

   I agree with everything except the government compensating the victims. It was a horrible precedent Bush set with giving the 9/11 families money because it wasn’t the U.S. government that bore responsibility for what happened to the families (especially by the logic of that proposal)…it was bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Therefore he and the people who carried out the attacks are the only parties who should be required to financially compensate the victims.

2. #2 |  Already done |  July 18th, 2008 at 8:25 am

   After a quick scan of the paper, all he seems to be suggestingis doing a consequence analysis. This is already done in the DHS risk assessment model: risk = threat * vulnerability * consequence. Here is more info on how DHS does its risk modeling: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33858.pdf

   Now, that isn’t to say that he might not have some valuable insights, but I dare say the majority of Americans aren’t going to buy the logic of rebuilding and compensation over prevention (even if that preventative policy is itself flawed).

3. #3 |  MikeT |  July 18th, 2008 at 8:29 am

   Cutting back immigration by people with visas from countries that are known hotbeds of terrorism like Saudi Arabia would do wonders too. Where Turkish and Albanian muslims tend to be moderate, fairly laid back people, the world’s worst fanatics tend to be Saudi or Pakistani. It would be far more sensible to give priority to people from Islamic countries that are generally moderate.

4. #4 |  UCrawford |  July 18th, 2008 at 10:06 am

   MikeT,

   Cutting back immigration by people with visas from countries that are known hotbeds of terrorism like Saudi Arabia would do wonders too.

   Except, of course, that the majority of people from “hotbeds of terrorism” who come to this country aren’t terrorists. They’re usually students, or workers, or tourists, all of whom contribute far more to our culture and economy than they take away.

   Of all the ridiculous “preventative” measures government uses to futilely try to reshape reality, I think their willingness to validate and empower racial prejudice and hatred through immigration laws is one of the most despicable.

5. #5 |  HtownGuy |  July 18th, 2008 at 10:13 am

   …”but I dare say the majority of Americans aren’t going to buy the logic of rebuilding and compensation over prevention (even if that preventative policy is itself flawed).”

   The purpose of our govenment, as stated in the Constitution, is to “…establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity..”

   Our politicians are exploiting the ignorance of the population that our Federalized educational system has wrought, to directly betray these principles. The systemic spying, kidnapping, suspension of due process, and torture are an affront to every principle our country was founded on, and every principle that made it great.

   So it doesn’t matter what the majority of Americans are going to buy anymore, the whole point of our Constitutionally-limited democracy was to protect some key liberties from democratic erosion.

   It’s going to be time to refresh the tree of liberty soon.

6. #6 |  Dave Krueger |  July 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am

   I agree with UCrawford. Paying off the families of the 9/11 victims to the tune of 2.5 million bucks each is not only a bad precedent, it doesn’t balance against the pittance we pay the families of soldiers who suffer the ultimate sacrifice after voluntarily putting their lives on the line to deliver our national response to those attacks.

   Disasters in the U.S. are becoming a regular windfall for all kinds of opportunistic entities who learn to cash in on the government’s poorly managed philosophy of throwing unlimited funds at any major event that poses a PR problem. When the event happens, the news is filled with damage estimates. Then later you find out that the actual outlays were an order of magnitude higher than even the highest projections. I refer to it as the Disaster Industry.

   It’s bad enough with natural disasters, but terrorists also capitalize on this open ended, fiscally brain-dead approach, making our government a partner in their plan to bankrupt the country.

7. #7 |  PA |  July 18th, 2008 at 10:51 am

   UCrawford said: “It was a horrible precedent Bush set with giving the 9/11 families money because it wasn’t the U.S. government that bore responsibility for what happened to the families …”

   Under insurance law theories, the 9/11 victims can be said to have subrogated their tort claims against bin Landen to the US Government. Therefore, if criminal action against bin Laden fails, maybe we the US can bring a civil suit against him, and saddle him with a huge judgment…. then we can send him to a debtor’s prison…

8. #8 |  Jim Collins |  July 18th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

   The Federal Government didn’t pay the victims of 9-11. They saved the States of New York, New Jersey, the City of New York and two airlines from being sued into bankruptcy.

9. #9 |  MikeT |  July 18th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

   Of all the ridiculous “preventative” measures government uses to futilely try to reshape reality, I think their willingness to validate and empower racial prejudice and hatred through immigration laws is one of the most despicable.

   There’s nothing racially prejudiced about a policy that discriminates based on religion or nationality. That is especially true in a region like the Middle East where you have essentially the same ethnic group spread over multiple countries.

   Alternatively, we could just open our borders to Saudi Arabia and other extremist-ridden states, and the just sit back and watch as they steadily poison our cultural with fundamentalist Islamic ideas and values.

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