Security. Being secure. Feeling secure. They are all different. I think security are the actual forces or contraptions that are protecting us and alerting us to potential danger or threats. Being secure is the act. Password locking all your information, turning on the house alarm when you leave the house, and locking your car after you park it are all acts of being secure. It's in your hands. Feeling secure is the sense you get knowing that no one is going to hack into your computer, break into your house and kill you in your sleep, or steal your stuff from your car. Feeling secure, however, is not a guarantee that you are indeed secure. I feel secure sitting in my dorm room typing this blog post even though my door is unlocked and anyone can come in without my permission. It's not necessarily a secure area, but I trust my floor mates to respect the open-door policy on the floor and not violate it.
At the same time, one can feel apathy to an external act of security, like the troops in Afghanistan. Theoretically, they are there to protect America and make sure nothing happens to the U.S., providing security to the people. However, the fact that there are currently troops in Afghanistan ready to put their life on the line in the name of the United States doesn't really affect my sense of security because it doesn't really have a direct affect on me. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful to the troops for their service to our country, but the physical state of having troops there doesn't really affect me as much as having troops in Iraq post 9/11 affected me and then too it was a patriotic feeling and a desire to stop further terrorist activities. But say that Obama decides to move all troops out of the middle east tomorrow, I think I'd feel happiness for the troops and their families, but not a lessened sense of security.
I agree with the distinctions you make between types of security. Relating to what we talked about in class Friday, we might feel economically secure, like a family's income might seem to be steady and that they have the funds to balance their family budget, but that doesn't mean that they actually are really secure, as a still sluggish economy or misuse of family funds could prove that they aren't as secure as they seem to think. Feeling secure and absolute security are two totally different animals. Which one do you think is more important though? If it's likely that feeling secure influences decisions that we make, how much attention do we pay to aspects of security that we may not think about and might have an effect on our security?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the troops in Afghanistan don't effect you though. Living in DC, which is a prime terror hotspot, does the idea of troops out fighting to protect you and even setting a visible presence of power, showing what America does when attacked, make you feel safer? Do you feel perfectly safe even with security breaches that we've seen? Does the work the troops do have no effect on security at home? How do troops in Iraq make you feel safer than Afghanistan, when going after the Taliban was a move to stop a government promoting terrorism and Iraq was officially to go after WMD that we had no recent intelligence about them having?