America the Invulnerable

I am finally getting around to reading God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine. I started it a year or so ago, but only managed to read the first few chapters. It’s a great read. Here’s a paragraph from Chapter 7 “Be Not Afraid”

September 11 shattered the American sense of invulnerability. But instead of accepting the vulnerability that most of the rest of the world already lives with, and even learning from it, we seem to want something nobody can give us – to erase our invulnerability. We want it to just go away. If the government says more wars can do that, many people will say fine. If they say suspending civil liberties can do that, many will say fine. If they claim spending more and more of our tax dollars on the military and homeland security will do it – at the expense of everything else – many will say fine. But we simply can't erase our vulnerability, not in this world and not with the human condition being as it is. To be prudent and vigilant in the face of danger is good. But when a government offers to take away our vulnerability, it borders on idolatry.

Amen. We are continuing to allow immoral deeds (torture, locking up prisoners without trial, etc) to be done on our behalf so that we can feel safe. Ironically, if we didn't engage in these tactics, we might feel less safe, but our long term prospects for safety would be better, since we wouldn’t be fomenting hatred against us at quite the rate we are now accomplishing.