The Lesser Evil

Lesser Evils

A liberal democracy facing a terrorist threat encounters several dilemmas. First, the state must protect its citizens from harm, but it must balance that mission with its constitutional guarantees of individual freedoms and rights. In ancient Rome, protection of the citizens was paramount; so in the face of threats, the state suspended laws and freedoms for the duration of the danger on the premise that if Rome fell, none of the laws would survive anyway.

Liberal democracies occupy two political spheres simultaneously. The first is based on majority rule, the second on community powers, which they restrain to protect individual rights. This compromise is crucial to allowing individuals to live in freedom with dignity. Society must balance community safety against the unchecked expansion of individual rights. The two spheres overlap.

A terrorist campaign jeopardizes this delicate balance. To protect the public during a threat, the demands of security frequently supersede individual rights, despite civil libertarians’ belief that individual rights are sacrosanct and cannot be abridged, even during a terrorism emergency. This line of thinking leads ...