It's funny how America's Left and Right are shaking out over the whole NSA-FBI-Google-Verizon spying thing, and how some politicians and talking heads are completely changing their tune now that a black Democrat is overseeing the spying on us.
Yet many folks on the right like David Brooks or Lindsey Graham who distrust Big Government still trust our military and spy agencies to spy responsibly, because such people feel a "spirit of solidarity with the state," as Woodhouse puts it. Granted, they feel solidarity with only parts of the state.
I would have lot more faith in the good intentions of those who feel solidarity with America's state security apparatus if they were able to demonstrate a more realistic perspective about the threats to American citizens.
I mean, we have 11,000 gun deaths a year in America and yet our government, from the local to the national level, is OK with that. Certainly conservatives are OK with that. It's "the price of liberty," they say.
But when it comes to Islamic terrorism, all bets are off, no price in tax dollars or privacy is too high to prevent every single attack. It's nuts. Even if we flung open America's doors to terrorists, 99% of us would never be touched.
I'll say it again: we need to suck it up and stop being so scared. Yeah, sure, some attacks will get through. So what? That's the price of us flexing our military muscles all over the world. That's the "price of liberty," or something.
Personally, I'd rather take that 1 in 20,000,000 chance of being killed by a terrorist than accept a 100% chance that my own government is spying on me constantly for no good reason!
By Leighton Woodhouse
June 12, 2013 | Huffington Post
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