Both countries had functioning elected components to their governments. Both the Tsar and the Japanese emperor ruled under significant restraints of custom. Japan in particular saw a political flowering during the Taisho period 1912-1926 and into the early 30′s.

Neither place would a poster child for liberal orders but compared to the authoritarian orders that replaced them they certainly were. Both Russia and Japan saw decade long liberalization trends aborted by failures to maintain order and the subsequent collapse into brutal authoritarianism.

I think they both fit the pattern that ineffectiveness and not over-effectiveness kills liberal orders.

Also, it’s a foregone conclusion that terrorist organizations will eventually find ways to defeat profiling.

They can try but it presents practical difficulties. The pool of potential suicide terrorist who could defeat a profile that included ethnicity is much smaller than the pool of potential terrorist who do fit the profile. Profiling reduces the freedom of action of terrorist and is therefor an effective tool.

We routinely use profiles that include such taboo components as gender, race, economic class, education etc to catch serial killers and other criminals. Only in the case of terrorism does profiling suddenly become an irrationally bigoted technique.

I think such attitude result largely from ignorance and intentional distortions about how profiling works. People routinely argue that profiling is nothing but singling people out based on race or ethnicity. Its not and has never been.

If we were to shed a great deal of this regulatory state we would likely gain enough supervisory capability so that the state that was left remained sufficiently effective to stave off collapse and authoritarian fascism.

There were a few terrorist groups prior to the 60s.

Pre-60′s and post-60′s terrorist differed in that the pre-60 seldom, if ever, targeted random members of a broad population.

Anarchist attempted to assassinate specific government officials or to attack specific economic infrastructure. They sought to minimize collateral causalities in the general population. The KKK or unionist killing scrabs is probably the closest America has even seen random terror but even those groups tended to target individuals. The KKK didn’t attack african-americans randomly. They usually had some warped rational for targeting a specific person.

Contemporary terrorism is so dangerous and so hard to protect against specifically because they target populations of millions seeking to kill random members of that population. That has never really happened before. It started with PLO attacks on homes, businesses and schools in the mid-60 and with the Shining path in Peru. These style of attacks raised the groups profiles but since the Soviet Union was behind the vast majority of terrorism in 60′s and 70′s they kept such groups on a leash and prevented the rapid escalation to mass-casuality attacks. Mass-casualty (or perhaps maximum casualty) attacks really began with the Iranian revolution. As an nation at odds with both power blocks they had no incentive to keep casualties down. They started killing as many as possible in Lebanon and it just spread from there. When the Soviet Union collapsed no restraint remained and the Islamist terrorist discovered that the more people they killed the greater their income, profile and influence became.

The FALN attempted to assassinate President Truman and shot up the floor of the U.S. Congress in the late 1940′s.

The late 19th century saw the Molly Maguires as well as anarchists. Also related would be Comittees of Vigilance, White Leagues and in the late Colonial era, backcountry ” Regulators”.

Edmund and Jose need a blog carnival or something.

The KKK certainly used terrorist tactics, but their goals were quite different from modern terrorists.

The Nazis were socialists. They were also, in their own opinion, revolutionaries. The Nazis were also on the far Right of the German political spectrum, acknowledged as such by all the other political parties in the Reichstag.

These qualities are not mutually exclusive in a European, and in particular, a German, historical context. State socialism has a Right-wing as well as Left-wing tradition in Europe.

Great post BTW !

I disagree with your characterization of marxism.

David Foster, hate to nitpick, but I don’t like seeing the Nazi’s (who were socialists) referred to as “the right.”

Hayek pointed out in “The Road to Serfdom” that it wasn’t the right vs. the left in Germany, but the left vs. the left. The right had already been vanquished when the leftist factions turned on each other in their competition for power.

First, as you point out, it is continuing disorder and chaos that invites authoritarian reactions, not a calmly determined response which takes clear measures to reduce a threat.

Secondly, and even more importantly in my view, the doomsayers consistently underestimate the stubborness and dogged insistence of Americans in regards to their rights.

As an obvious example, consider the fact that our society was never more regimented at any time in its history than it was at the end of WW2. Millions in uniform, most industry controlled for the war effort, rationing, emergency powers granted to the state, etc., etc.

And yet, within a few years, the military was hugely decreased, many controls lifted, fleets mothballed, and, by the 1960′s, we were launched into the counter-cultural movement which, for good and bad, was based on the idea that everyone should live their life as they see fit.

The state is definitely out of control as regards the massive entitlement programs it has undertaken, and the amount of money and bother it costs the average US private business and worker to conform to numerous regulations for dubious and elusive benefits.

However, these onerous controls are the very ones most of the “the sky is falling” crowd not only don’t oppose, but ask for more of on a regular basis. Whatever their ultimate purpose truly is, the increased safety and freedom of the American public is not high on the agenda.