“We may also suspect that they suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies.” — Justice Robert Jackson on the Founding Fathers’ interpretation of states of emergencies
9/11 changed American politics forever. The founding compromise of the United States was the demand for more freedom at the expense of less security, which was then provided by King George’s armed forces stationed and occupying the thirteen colonies. Patrick Henry’s infamous quote dramatized this compromise: “Give me liberty or give me death!” After America’s vulnerability was exposed on September 11, 2001, in an act of catastrophic terrorism, there was a call for a new compromise which demanded more security for less freedom. This compromise led to the declaration of a state of national emergency, codified by President George W. Bush on September 14 in Proclamation 7463, based on the “continuing and immediate threat of further attacks,” which both put the nation on a wartime footing and required the government to acquire extraordinary powers to provide the appropriate tools to obstruct terrorism, to revamp the national security apparatus for an intensified domestic purpose, and to—of course—take the fight to the terrorists and those who harbored them abroad. Every president since has extended this national emergency. However, while this story of Bush’s expansion of executive power, the PATRIOT ACT etc etc, is well-known, as is the purported abuses by the state of the rights and freedoms of Americans, the passage of twenty five years should force us to ask ourselves deeper questions pertaining to what America’s post-9/11 state of emergency has done to our collective political soul and to our collective understanding about our politics.
