In This Case, It Really Is A False Choice
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One theme that others have picked up on is that the Inaugural had a very serious tone, but also evaded to some extent the inevitability of having to make trade-offs. Up to a point, I agree with this. One of the flaws of Obama’s speeches throughout the campaign was a refusal to prioritize and make choices about what mattered most. Optimism deludes people into believing that they can have and do it all, and Obama is nothing if not an optimist. Just as the speech’s emphasis on pragmatism and the desire for a government that simply “works” obscure real disagreements and competing political visions, Obama’s speech as a whole did not set priorities, but held out the possibility that his administration could attend to all of the problems equally.
That being said, the one place in the speech where Obama specifically attacked false choices by name was in connection with the conventional assumption that there has to be a trade-off between security and liberty and that this exchange is sometimes worth making. This is a false choice. It is false not because one can have both complete security and liberty, and so we need not choose between them, but because the sort of security that supporters of so many excessive anti-terrorist measures promise is itself illusory. It is the same false choice that defenders of the torture regime offer, because they promise something (i.e., reliable intelligence that provides greater security from attack) that the methods they defend do not and cannot deliver.
It was mildly encouraging to hear Obama say that some principles are non-negotiable and cannot be compromised for the sake of what seems expedient, and it represents a welcome departure from the emergency power-grabbing rhetoric that we have had to endure for over seven years. I don’t necessarily invest much importance in this statement when it comes to future policy changes, but this was actually one of the best parts of the speech and was an atypical example of Obama offering an argument that was strongly at odds with the Washington consensus on the subject in question. Contrary to the praise he heaped on pragmatism in other parts of the speech, in this section Obama was clearly making a statement of political principle and made clear that there are some political divisions (i.e., between those who want to compromise civil liberties and those who want to preserve them) that are worth maintaining. It is not actually just a matter of what “works,” because people with different principles disagree about what to do and they disagree about what being pragmatic means. Instead, the important question is one of what the government should and should not be permitted to do. In other words, Obama ended up endorsing the views of some of the very “cynics” whose “stale political arguments” he said were obsolete.
Filed under: politics
5 Responses to “In This Case, It Really Is A False Choice”
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I would go much further than this: I object to the “defenders of torture” primarily because they demand my freedom in exchange for safety. If the government can engage in the most extreme acts of violence against anyone, guilty or innocent, then the powers of government have in practice no limits, and the subjects of an unlimited government cannot call themselves free men and women. While true, the argument that torturers cannot deliver the security they promise distracts us from the more important point: that those who trade freedom for security have made a bad (in every sense) bargain.
‘That being said, the one place in the speech where Obama specifically attacked false choices by name was in connection with the conventional assumption that there has to be a trade-off between security and liberty and that this exchange is sometimes worth making. This is a false choice. It is false not because one can have both complete security and liberty, ‘
‘Complete security’? Who said that? Take the word complete off there and we can have both. No such thing as complete security and you hurt your argument by adding words to make your point.
rawshark: I think you misunderstood his explanation.
Mostly encouraging and sensible words for our new Prez, except maybe for the last sentence, which eludes my understanding.
Agree that it’s important to distinguish between what’s pragmatic {what “works”) and what is principle, but if Obama has taken a principled stand against torture, then who are these “cynics” whose “stale political arguments” he has endorsed? More, please.
I, too, would not invest too much importance right now in Obama’s comments about liberty and security. I think his optimism wants him to believe we are a nation that will not torture people we capture and spy on our own citizens without warrants. However, Obama clearly thinks one of those things is still okay, based on his vote on the FISA bill. So I wouldn’t automatically think he will do away with torture or the possibility of it. In fact, I wonder if after hearing many respected people, those in the military especially, say torture doesn’t work in getting reliable information, Obama has been more vocal about that topic simply because it’s something that doesn’t “work.” After all, if he thought torture was illegal and morally wrong then he wouldn’t want people tried based on statements made after being tortured. Instead, he has said he is seeking some kind of “process” to try people still held at Guantanamo Bay.