Fear-based policies now rule nation

John Havelock
Comment

As we all know now, in the early years of the Great Depression, FDR famously said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Too bad this didn’t occur to President Bush in facing 9/11. His personal fear became the fear-based policies of the nation.

Failure to protect the country resulted in overdrawn policies that are seriously damaging our democracy

Fear is a simple, reasonable explanation for the irrational policies whose unintended consequences are changing the nature of our society. We not only got the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, but we also got fear-driven interpretations of these acts and administrative actions that have helped to make America, at huge financial cost, into a more authoritarian country, reminding us daily to be afraid.

Fear is a simple, reasonable explanation for the irrational policies whose unintended consequences are changing the nature of our society. We not only got the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, but we also got fear-driven interpretations of these acts and administrative actions that have helped to make America, at huge financial cost, into a more authoritarian country, reminding us daily to be afraid.

More uniformed personnel are telling you what you can do and where you can go. Secret operations such as wiretaps that you can’t know about have proliferated. There is less reporting to the Congress and less public accountability. This shift will never be reversed.

The al-Qaida crowd must have high-fived all around. The real focus of the attack was America’s myth of invincibility, a psychological vulnerability. Our reactions exceeded their wildest dreams.

We have since been daily under threat of attack, security level "Code Orange." Do you really believe it? The fact that no more attacks have happened is credited to our authoritarian turn. But the truth is that the al-Qaida attack was unrepeatable from Day One and that improved intelligence alertness closed the rest of the gap. Al-Qaida can blow people and buildings up but rarely beyond countries where their operatives are home-grown.

Rather than enhanced security, we are left with fresh, daily absurdities. In air travel, we’re stuck with security lines of uncertain length and must surrender the 6 ounce toothpaste tube with 1 ounce of toothpaste gone.

Alaska Airlines now charges for a checked bag but the security hassles with scissors, small blades, toothpaste, shampoo and small bottles of personal effects means checking is required for most passengers.

How are we safer because little old Native ladies with mukluks must remove footwear and clothing before boarding a plane? The TSA folks have been getting more politeness training but it comes with a steel edge. It feels like paramilitary rule the moment you see all those police cars on the departure ramp. Maybe al-Qaida is going to bomb the front of the Ted Stevens Airport.

But don’t comment on these absurdities. You may be pulled out of line and miss your flight.

ADN Kenai columnist Alan Boraas reports with wry amusement on anti-terrorist security closing the neighborhood beaches. Barricades and screening protocols protect public buildings. If terrorists did get it together for an explosion in America, wouldn’t they just run a truck into a crowded restaurant or supermarket, as they have done at home?

Fear distorts any realistic sense of the risks we face. Fear called for extreme measures on every front. Waterboarding a person over one hundred times is not intelligence gathering, it is unvarnished cruelty indicating a depraved moral state.

Creating the Department of Homeland Security was the first fear-driven national legislation. Dozens of new top level patronage positions for the likes of President Bush’s pal "Brownie" were created. Agency missions were distorted.

The Washington office of the FBI required that Alaska personnel be transferred to a terrorism unit to the detriment of other functions. Private security, some of it outsourced from governments, has expanded into a giant industry. We spend billions on ersatz security.

Worse, under the cloak of fear, we are persuaded to accept a society in which authoritarian modes are standardized.

If you want to be safer from a realistic threat, stop looking cross-eyed at your Middle Eastern neighbors and walk instead of driving — and look both ways when you cross the street.