I can always tell when something is troubling
Diogenes. He goes into Socratic mode, trying to solve the problem
dialectically.
Today started with, “Is the phrase ‘An enemy of
the state’ inherently sinister?”
I allowed that it was, considering that in recent
conversations about tyrants we have concluded that the phrase is usually
applied by tyrants who conflate their own identity with that of the state, and
seek to get rid of their own enemies in the name of the state.
“And how about ‘Interests of national security’?
Is that similarly sinister?”
“I think it depends on the context. If people who
disagree with the government are being dragged off the street in the name of
security, then yes. But if you’re referring to a routine response an official
might make to someone who was seeking information unavailable to the public for
legitimate security reasons, then—probably—no.”
“Does the government have a right to put its own
citizens in peril for the sake of ‘national security’?”
“What kind of peril? Are you talking about detonating
A-bombs 65 miles north of Las Vegas, or processing black powder in Allegheny,
Pennsylvania? Or something worse?”
“Never mind the details. Has the government the
right to imperil its own citizens without informing them of the nature of the
peril?”
“Well, it does it all the time. I suppose
the Social Contract implies that the state can put some of its citizens at risk
in return for the protection it offers them . . .”
“Damn the Social Contract! Has it the right to do
so and keep them completely in the dark? Has the state, under any ethical or
moral system you’re aware of, have a right to hold an invisible deadly threat over
the heads of its citizenry and not inform them of its nature?”
“If those citizens have no sense of the nature of
the threat, I assume they have no strategy in place for dealing with it?”
“Correct.”
“And the government has no provision for disaster
relief?”
“No.”
“Is this a secret project?”
“Not entirely. The threat is housed in a
well-known and familiar facility where many locals actually work.”
What?
“Forgive me, but this is just too cryptic. What
the hell got this line of questioning started?”
“Kim Jong-nam.”
“The Korean dictator’s half-brother who was killed
with the nerve agent VX a few months ago?”
“Yes. Was he an enemy of the state, that is, of
Kim Jong-un? Did he pose a security threat? Or was he just a convenient target
for trying out the poison?”
“Why should that trouble you?”
“Because I think, despite their protests, that
this nation still has a chemical weapons stockpile, and I don’t like the way
they’re handled it in the past.”
--Richard Brown