[jivatmanx]

"The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is a quote from Abraham Lincoln, as the civil war really was an existential threat to the union itself.

Similarly, the cold war was clearly an existential threat to the union itself, the most obvious example being the hundreds of nuclear ICBM's in Cuba.

Terrorism of the Boston Marathon sort is now an unfortunate reality, but is in no way comparable to these two events, and I simply don't see how it poses any existential threat to the union at all.

It's important to put things into perspective by understanding the threats we have faced in the past, and all that has been sacrificed to bring us the freedom we have now, so that we don't throw it away due to overreacting.

[Nrsolis]

And you're wrong about the quote sourcing.

[jivatmanx]

Yes, looks like it's commonly but wrong attributed to him.

It's more interesting in the context of Lincoln's suspension of Habeus corpus in the Civil War than as an unpopular dissenting opinion in a free speech case, though.

[Nrsolis]

I'm sorry but I don't agree.

Non-state terrorism is an evolving and emergent threat that's been amplified by the interconnected global world we live in.

9/11 spawned two wars and countless societal changes.

The geopolitical landscape has changed and we would be foolish to ignore it.

[sanderjd]

The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 didn't start two wars and introduce countless (bad) societal changes, we did those things in response to the terrorist attacks. The distinction is important. We made a choice.

[Nrsolis]

Yes. We made a choice.

What I think you're ignoring is a prolonged, persistent, and increasing series of attacks against US persons and territories. 9/11 was just one of a series of attacks against us. Every previous attack was nearly ignored and forgotten here at home. I'm talking about the first World Trade Center bombing, the Cole Attack, and others.

And, honestly, it's easy for you to criticize. I lost three friends in the aftermath when our country went to war. This isn't an armchair argument for me.

I don't think it's fair to excuse the act of UBL and AQ only to denounce our response. I have little patience for pacifists.

[sanderjd]

I am not a pacifist. I do not excuse the actions of the terrorists, I denounce them in the strongest possible terms. There can never be any justification for what they have done. But I have less standing to criticize their actions than to criticize those of my government. Part of my job as a citizen of this country to hold opinions on its behavior, and my opinion is that since 9/11 we have been largely fighting the wrong people, and that the fight has been expensive in cost and in civil liberties. I believe the cure has been worse than the disease, and that the severity of the disease has been, and continues to be, overstated.

You are, of course, right that it's easy to criticize from an armchair, but representative democracy is all about finding a balance between the opinions of the experts with the most skin in the game and the wider populace, of which I am a part. I don't need to be a direct participant in the struggle against terrorism to be entitled to an opinion on it.

I'm very sorry about your friends.

[Nrsolis]

"I believe the cure has been worse than the disease, and that the severity of the disease has been, and continues to be, overstated."

I don't agree with you. Specifically, the threat of radicalized Islam is real and present. Downplaying that threat when it was still confined to overseas military targets led directly to 9/11. We (the US) missed several opportunities to effectively neutralize UBL and AQ in the decade before 9/11.

Where I think you're going wrong is to dismiss or de-emphasize the complete shift of military power away from large nation-states towards small non-state actors. Terrorism is winning as a strategy.

If we do not find some way to stem this threat, the world is going to get a whole lot more unstable and unsafe for everyone. And I'm not talking about just the USA. I'm talking about most of Europe and Asia as well.

I know some people look at the Arab Spring as a promising development, but history shows that there is a high likelihood of further bloodshed and tyranny taking root where there is a power vacuum. (n/b Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt)

[sanderjd]

I'm fine with you disagreeing with me, but I'd prefer you to disagree with my actual belief. I believe that the threat has been overstated, not that there is no threat. There is an extremely wide band between "no threat" and "such an enormous threat that our society must be fundamentally altered in order to meet it". The former would be a vast understatement, but I believe the latter is a (much less vast) overstatement. Of course I have no hard data to base any of these beliefs on, because any such data is secret, these are merely the conclusions I've drawn from what I'm allowed to know.

I completely agree with you that terrorism is winning as a strategy. The goal of terrorism is to make us afraid, and we are afraid. I do think it warrants a strategic realignment. I'm not against all new strategies, just the ones that appear to me to be illegal or outside what I believe to be the spirit of the law.

I totally get your argument though. It is a dangerous world. I think we are just willing to make different trade-offs in the mitigation of that danger.

[cointelbro]

Please unpack "radicalized islam" for me. It sounds a lot like "africanized honey bees".

[jivatmanx]

This isn't the first time the U.S. has faced a non-state organized group with worldwide ambitions killing innocents as a political tactic, the late 19th century anarchists were identical in all of these respects.