Death in the backyard: Part 1

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