On page 17 of the latest Economist print edition there is an interesting article (the first of a series, entitled The Price of Freedom) which writes worryingly of the encroaching danger posed to liberty in western democracies in this day and age. Essentially, as the war on terror sees the development of more and more authoritarian powers of the state, the freedoms of the individual are ultimately becoming compromised. What shook me to attention however, was the cost vs benefit relationship this is happening, and I have been stewing on it since. It can be said with relative confidence that many of the extreme judicial measures, renditions and relaxed torture laws within the US and other similarly-effected states, have ultimately saved many lives in the process. Compromising the rights of one to save the many and all that. What this article argued, however, is that perhaps simply saving lives isn’t enough an incentive to pay for the hefty cost of infringing one’s hard-won liberties and civil rights. Perhaps the many innocent civilians who would certainly have perished if todays enemies of democracy were allowed to be treated like normal human beings is preferable to the current alternative we see occurring every day?

To be sure, even international humanitarian law, as the Economist’s article pointed out, makes allowance for the suspension of various rights and liberties in times of great and immediate threat to the state and its people, but is this context true today? In a world of asymmetrical warfare and intangible lines of battle, where the enemy has no reserve corps, no command centers that can be assaulted, can we honestly admit to ourselves that perhaps the growing list of strong arm tactics employed by democratic states of the world is not worth the many lives doubtless saved?

To be honest I’m unsure of how I would answer that. I do believe that entities such as Guantanamo and the Patriot Act have legitimate security functions in the murky legal waters today’s soldiers and intelligence agencies must operate, but at what cost? I also doubt that there will be a clear line which a government should not cross. A piece of legislation or policy that would make their people stand up and say ‘enough!’ Instead, there is just gradual encroachment on civil liberties to relatively mild resistance, and the next thing you know, your children are goose-stepping down Times Square in catching black leather garb…

I find myself in an odd situation. As a libertarian, and supposedly espousing aligned views on this blog, the notion of an authoritarian ‘big brother’ state (to borrow the terminology from the left) in the name of ‘saving lives’ is theoretically unacceptable. Indeed, because life isn’t that clear-cut, the notion of being able to provide empirical proof of lives saved per piece of legislation is, to my mind, impossible. So I find this notion of the erosion of liberty quite disturbing.

But on the other hand the alternative is just as unpalatable to me. Gaining peripheral freedoms back from the state in exchange for the blood of innocent civilians does not sit well with me. As a realist, I should likely point out that no American, for example, would praise their government for their ‘freedom’ while another Sep 11 explodes before their eyes. Of course they’d demand tighter security measures, investigations. After Sep 11 the Americans didn’t want to laud over their freedom while lament the cost it had, they wanted to take names and prevent such a thing from happening ever again. And this is precisely what has occurred, to a degree. When that theoretical cost in lives that the Economist mentions occurs, I can say with great confidence that there will be very few who will consider the price worth it. Because that’s the nut of the problem. Ensuring full liberty in the face of terrorism today means paying the cost in blood, and thus committing political suicide. Reducing that liberty, however, means saving those lives and removing the collective outrage they would cause.

For those arguing vehemently for withdrawal from Iraq, the closing of Guantanamo, the ending of torture techniques, the abolishment of the Patriot Act and the restoration of the Pegasus as official cute and cuddly fantasy creature of freedom, little thought is given to the consequences of what doing just that will have. People will die. Pure and simple. And when those people die, the bitter irony will be that those same advocates for full civil and legal rights under a democracy will blame their government for not doing enough.

And that, ultimately, is the only uneasy conclusion I can find for myself. As much as I dislike the encroachment of the state on the autonomy of the people in the name of national security, the alternative is even more distasteful. It’s easy to sit back and write lofty articles (the irony is not lost!) about sacrificing lives for these freedoms, but when push comes to shove, and when those planes crash into another skyscraper, a little less freedom is preferable to the deep wounds such an attack has on a people. It may lead to authoritarianism in the future, but that’s ultimately something democracies and their people must resist themselves. The alternative, removing the proverbial shield and forbidding extra-judicial measures, would produce far more grievous injuries to a democracy.