An Insecure Nation

They made me take my pocket knife back to the truck. Said it was for security. I had to laugh at them. It was a couple of young women in military uniforms who were conducting security checks at the entrance to the Master Musician's Festival. I don't blame them, they were just doing what they were instructed to do and there wasn't a lot of harm done. What harm there was is due to the effect of the overwhelming zeal for absolute security among our people. In my opinion, the excessive efforts at creating a secure environment in all circumstances is a pipe dream, a fantasy, that is neither possible nor attainable.

My pocket knife is a small Buck with a 2 ½ inch blade. Sure, it could be a dangerous weapon in the hands of a terrorist but it was much smaller than the knife I used to carry to school while in elementary school. I am sure you guys can remember when we would play “stretch” in the schoolyard. It was a game in which we threw our knives to stick them in the ground and the opposing person had to stretch to place his foot where the knife stuck. It was the greatest satisfaction to force your opponent to do it in small increments which meant you were throwing the knife an inch or two from his toes. We kept our pocket knives and no boy would be caught without one.

I told them my camera was more lethal than my pocket knife but I complied because the only objection I had was one of philosophy and it wasn't worth the hassle. I did however tell them that would be the first line of this column. I don't think they were impressed.

But the point of this is to comment on what I believe to be the extreme over militarization of America. Post 9/11 it seems we are experiencing mass trauma that has resulted in irrational fear. We now expect to be secure from any and all opportunities for experiencing violence. Such occurrences used to be accepted as a natural part of life but now, for some reason, we are afraid to go out in the dark without having some assurance from someone that nothing unpleasant will happen to us. It should be readily apparent that there is nothing we can do to attain complete security. A couple of guys with backpacks blow up stuff at the Boston Marathon, some guy walks into a theater and kills twelve people and wounding seventy more before stopping, a kid loaded with weaponry walks into a school in Connecticut and unloads on a bunch of kids in a classroom. Then the NRA starts talking about arming people in the schools and establishing a police presence in our schools as if this would have any impact at all on gun violence. Obviously the threat of death is not enough to deter these assailants since almost all of them are killed rather than captured.

At our festival we were surrounded by City Police, the Army Reserves or National Guard and whatever private security there was. Maybe it made someone feel safer but I seriously doubt it deterred anyone from violent behavior. Violent behavior is not deterred by the sight of uniforms. If a person is determined to find an outlet for violent tendencies they will be successful at some point. The solution to our violence lies elsewhere with solutions that are not as simple as packing a weapon. What has happened is that our free society is being stolen from us in bits and pieces by people lacking in understanding of what is required of a free people.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

Those who would live in a free society where personal liberties are valued simply cannot place more value on security than they do liberty. However, in our country it seems that those who cry loudest about freedom and liberty are those who will also advocate more policing and greater restrictions personal behavior. We are sometimes a schizophrenic people. I long for the time when a the presence of a police officer walking about in a friendly manner, interacting with the people, was enough to give confidence. Now we have the armed forces, police on golf carts and Segways all over the place but not walking about in the crowd talking to people in a conversational manner. We need these people to be part of the community rather than overlords to prevent us from harming ourselves. The following is a quote lifted from The Wall Street Journal.

Since the 1960s, in response to a range of perceived threats, law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier. Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment—from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers—American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop—armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.

This in a society that used to have an army of “citizen soldiers” who were part of regular life and would return to it after being called up for some task. Now we lionize all soldiers, police, firemen and others as heroes. Most surely they deserve the love and respect of a grateful nation but we should remember that they are citizens, no more or no less that the rest of us. And, in a free society we must shoulder more personal responsibility for our own behavior rather than expecting some agency to protect us from life's surprises. And we mustn't place on government the responsibility for keeping us and our families safe from all harm. It is an impossible task and would require a cost too high to pay.