This is a continuing dialogue on the Greenwald vs Hayden Munk Debates debate. This comment (modified in one sentence or two) was added on 05.06.2014.
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What I wrote was intended, in part, to generate precisely this healthy dialogue. Had I been writing a paper, I would have elaborated much more on the idea…
Although an observation of the political state of affairs of many nations suggests that an inverse relationship that you reference (and which I appear to imply in my post) generally exists specifically in nations where liberties are seriously curtailed or close to non-existent, the appearance of this relationship is truly a facade. The ‘security’ achieved, and often cited as a justification for gross abuses in these nation-states, is in fact a perverted form since the ‘security’ practices seldom seek to, nor ever accomplish, political security for the individual. Instead, the perverted ‘security’ practices are used to secure the political and economic positions and agendas of the non-representative regimes or governments in non-democratic states. And to secure ‘secret’ agendas in governments, agencies, as well as other entities in democratic states who stand to benefit from suppressing the civil liberties.
The resultant societal product is something quite contorted. In both cases (democracies and non-representative states), loss of liberties due to practices that masquerade as serving the overall security do not lead to gains in security. In both cases, the people live in environments of fear and feelings of being under chronic a threat, from their own governments.
Civil liberties fall in the political security, an element in the framework, the stability of the social order (Buzzan et al), an erosion of liberties under the camouflage of security becomes itself, a threat - an internal threat - the very threat that, paradoxically, balanced security is intended to keep at bay, and it is the obligation of the citizenry, democracy or dictatorship, to address and correct.
Civil liberties cannot thrive in an environment that is devoid of security and security needs civil liberties to effectively function. One cannot exist without the other, hence my allusion to the mean.
Best to you.
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