[lbo-talk] Safe and Free?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

A good deal of liberty has already been destroyed in the US, and more
of what's left of it can be lost.  The way it happened is that a large
majority of Americans, for one reason or another, have decided that
safety (real or imaginary) is more important than liberty.  They are
encouraged to make that choice by politicians who exaggerate the
dangers of

criminals in general

but especially

drug users and dealers
rapists
child molesters
sex traffickers
terrorists
illegal immigrants,

plus

Islamists, who are not de jure criminals but are de facto regarded as such.

The reason why politicians have picked such eclectic targets is that,
with so many different objects of fear, almost everyone -- from
secular leftists to religious rightists -- can find at least one
law-and-order approach they can favor, and adding them all up makes
law-and-order politics hegemonic.

How should lovers of liberty counter that?

The American Civil Liberties Union has chosen the slogan of "Safe and
Free."  But apparently most Americans think that safety and liberty
are alternatives in a zero-sum game, and so do an increasing number of
Europeans, though their fears are more strongly focused on Islamists
and illegal immigrants, since they are tolerant of drug use.

-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>