Charlie and David alone are worth the cost of an NR subscription. The others are welcome lagniappe.
When are you going to have another article there?
For a better perspective on threat of terrorism through the so-called "open" border, read Alex Nowrasteh. The annual chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack committed by a foreign‐born terrorist from 1975–2022 is about 1 in 4.3 million per year.
We classical liberals, with our democratic republicanism, need to prayerfully understand this. There is no security policy or edifice under the sun which will serve as a technological override to Psalm 127:1-2.
NB this is a weakness of ours and the populists are exploiting it. Tucker Carlson famously made an appeal to prayer, even humbly saying "I'm Episcopalian, we don't normally do this." Would the NR staff admit that a wall is useless unless our whole nation turns its eyes to God? I hope so.
Well, of course bean-counting statisticians from CATO would use "odds" when considering these kinds of threats. Heh. :) I am certain the odds were even far less than that on September 10, 2001, which is why I don't think "odds" are the best or even good way of forecasting and planning for black swan events like these. The odds of me being a victim of a mass shooting event are low, too; but it costs me very little to be prepared for the possibility of being around when one takes place. A weak border is clearly a hazard to a nation that has real enemies, and while there is, as you suggest, no panacea, there are measures needed.
And, by the way, the U.S. Border Patrol issued the memo, not me! Mr. Nowrasteh should take it up with them. :) (And, BTW, I agree with him entirely about our immigration system being too restrictive. That is not at odds with also wanting to stop thousands of people crossing every day!)
Here's another paradigm to consider. I'm sure you are familiar with curves of diminishing returns. To use an example from my own world, I am involved in the construction of large mega projects such as gargantuan offshore oil platforms. The project managers of these multi-billion dollar projects have learned that, after committing so many man hours, additional man hours are a complete waste of resources because they add no quality or speed to the project, and in fact can retard it. So, if they are late on schedule, they realize that going from 100 men to a thousand men actually could be a liability.
To take it into the realm of national security, consider the TSA. Multiple tests reveal failure rates to detect hidden mock explosives on the order of 85% and more, consistently.
If someone complains to me, "well, this is just because we're not doing ENOUGH with TSA yet," my only response is, "The creation of TSA itself represented doing a heck of a lot MORE than what we were previously doing."
It would be nice to have that conversation with a principled person such as yourself. If you're amenable, so am I. Let me know.
But if we go down that road I think it would be productive, if one or the other finds a point "very interesting", to actually engage with it. Fair enough?
I think you skipped a step! My question was attempting to ascertain the proposition we’d be discussing. If it is that an open or dysfunctional border is no real threat to a nation with enemies, then my interest wanes considerably.
By the way: it's not just question begging, it's a straw man. In fact, it's direct slander, as my comments actually discussed the dysfunctionality of our terrorist security measures.
But, you ignored the comments. You would do well to recognize folk who wish to be allies.
Funny how we didn't ban visas after 9/11. Why, it's almost as if some bean counter ran the odds and decided that the cost benefit analysis didn't make it worth it... Even though that was a black swan event.
You even did your own bean counting CBA to assert your right to be able to respond to a violent event with your carry gun (I assume that's what you're talking about.) You said it cost you very little. If you lived in the nation without gun rights, and guns were prohibitively expensive on a black market, your calculation would be very different wouldn't it?
Are you really saying that your personal CBA and the CBA of somehow stopping every single person who could conceivably, in some government database, possibly, be a terrorist, are comparable?
(That's a trick question, because the second amendment by very definition is not a right to have no risk. It is a right to respond to hotly manifested risk. The 4th amendment, by comparison, inconveniently infers that there are simply some risks that civilization has to assume, in order to be liberal.)
We have the biggest security state in American history. We passed the Patriot act after 9/11. Folks keep talking about "measures", but seem to stutter when it comes to actually saying what those should be, over and above our existing vast security state.
Muslims were culturally assassins even during the Barbary wars, but it never occurred to Jefferson to set up a vast security state to ensure none of them could sneak onto the continent and take him out.
You'll have to pardon me if I don't feel that our statesmen today are necessarily any wiser than him. I feel they were much, much more of a liberal democracy than we are today, with our security state and our illusion that we can drive risk to zero.
Charlie and David alone are worth the cost of an NR subscription. The others are welcome lagniappe.
When are you going to have another article there?
For a better perspective on threat of terrorism through the so-called "open" border, read Alex Nowrasteh. The annual chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack committed by a foreign‐born terrorist from 1975–2022 is about 1 in 4.3 million per year.
https://www.cato.org/testimony/terrorist-entry-through-southwest-border
For philosophical cud to chew about how to secure the US border, read this piece about the spectactular failure of Israel's high-tech border defenses.
https://unherd.com/2023/10/israels-illusion-of-security/
We classical liberals, with our democratic republicanism, need to prayerfully understand this. There is no security policy or edifice under the sun which will serve as a technological override to Psalm 127:1-2.
NB this is a weakness of ours and the populists are exploiting it. Tucker Carlson famously made an appeal to prayer, even humbly saying "I'm Episcopalian, we don't normally do this." Would the NR staff admit that a wall is useless unless our whole nation turns its eyes to God? I hope so.
Well, of course bean-counting statisticians from CATO would use "odds" when considering these kinds of threats. Heh. :) I am certain the odds were even far less than that on September 10, 2001, which is why I don't think "odds" are the best or even good way of forecasting and planning for black swan events like these. The odds of me being a victim of a mass shooting event are low, too; but it costs me very little to be prepared for the possibility of being around when one takes place. A weak border is clearly a hazard to a nation that has real enemies, and while there is, as you suggest, no panacea, there are measures needed.
And, by the way, the U.S. Border Patrol issued the memo, not me! Mr. Nowrasteh should take it up with them. :) (And, BTW, I agree with him entirely about our immigration system being too restrictive. That is not at odds with also wanting to stop thousands of people crossing every day!)
Here's another paradigm to consider. I'm sure you are familiar with curves of diminishing returns. To use an example from my own world, I am involved in the construction of large mega projects such as gargantuan offshore oil platforms. The project managers of these multi-billion dollar projects have learned that, after committing so many man hours, additional man hours are a complete waste of resources because they add no quality or speed to the project, and in fact can retard it. So, if they are late on schedule, they realize that going from 100 men to a thousand men actually could be a liability.
To take it into the realm of national security, consider the TSA. Multiple tests reveal failure rates to detect hidden mock explosives on the order of 85% and more, consistently.
If someone complains to me, "well, this is just because we're not doing ENOUGH with TSA yet," my only response is, "The creation of TSA itself represented doing a heck of a lot MORE than what we were previously doing."
That’s all very interesting. But I’m left wondering if you really think--REALLY think--our southern border is just fine? No worries at all?
It would be nice to have that conversation with a principled person such as yourself. If you're amenable, so am I. Let me know.
But if we go down that road I think it would be productive, if one or the other finds a point "very interesting", to actually engage with it. Fair enough?
I think you skipped a step! My question was attempting to ascertain the proposition we’d be discussing. If it is that an open or dysfunctional border is no real threat to a nation with enemies, then my interest wanes considerably.
By the way: it's not just question begging, it's a straw man. In fact, it's direct slander, as my comments actually discussed the dysfunctionality of our terrorist security measures.
But, you ignored the comments. You would do well to recognize folk who wish to be allies.
Is begging the question your normal MO?
If you're a principled man, engage with my comments.
Otherwise, by all means, feign that your interest level is the gauge of truth.
Funny how we didn't ban visas after 9/11. Why, it's almost as if some bean counter ran the odds and decided that the cost benefit analysis didn't make it worth it... Even though that was a black swan event.
You even did your own bean counting CBA to assert your right to be able to respond to a violent event with your carry gun (I assume that's what you're talking about.) You said it cost you very little. If you lived in the nation without gun rights, and guns were prohibitively expensive on a black market, your calculation would be very different wouldn't it?
Are you really saying that your personal CBA and the CBA of somehow stopping every single person who could conceivably, in some government database, possibly, be a terrorist, are comparable?
(That's a trick question, because the second amendment by very definition is not a right to have no risk. It is a right to respond to hotly manifested risk. The 4th amendment, by comparison, inconveniently infers that there are simply some risks that civilization has to assume, in order to be liberal.)
We have the biggest security state in American history. We passed the Patriot act after 9/11. Folks keep talking about "measures", but seem to stutter when it comes to actually saying what those should be, over and above our existing vast security state.
Muslims were culturally assassins even during the Barbary wars, but it never occurred to Jefferson to set up a vast security state to ensure none of them could sneak onto the continent and take him out.
You'll have to pardon me if I don't feel that our statesmen today are necessarily any wiser than him. I feel they were much, much more of a liberal democracy than we are today, with our security state and our illusion that we can drive risk to zero.
Couldn't agree more, especially about NR — but the rest too!