One of the reasons Democrats are less inclined to trade their essential liberties for a little temporary security is because we are less afraid. Except, that is not true. In fact, New Yorkers and those living in urban areas are more apprehensive about terrorist attacks than people living in the suburbs or rural areas. So, if Democrats (urban dwellers) are more afraid of terrorist attacks than Republicans (non-urban dwellers), then what explains their reluctance to support totalitarian police-state type tactics to keep them safe?
The first point is that urban dwellers are just much more accustomed to dealing with the threat of random violence. We can’t walk out our door without facing the possibility of being mugged, hit by a car, hit by a stray bullet, or dismembered and stuffed in a garbage bag. Shit like this happens in the city at a much higher rate than in the burbs. D.C. residents tolerate the highest murder rate in the country, nearly four times as high as the rate of the most murderous state, Louisiana.
The second point is that urban dwellers live with people from all kinds of different backgrounds, races, nationalities, and religions. As an example, in one borough of New York City, Queens, approximately 138 different languages are spoken and 54% of the people speak a language other than English at home.
Or to give you another example from my personal life…my local convenience store is run by a Korean family, my laudromat is run by a Chinese family, my local bar is owned by a Jewish Jersey boy, my local grocer is Mexican, and my neighborhood is about 50-60% black. The closest restaurants are Turkish, Thai, Chinese, and African-American.
I regularly shop and eat at restaurants/grocieries owned by Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians. There are numerous black Muslims that are my neighbors.
Because of these contacts in my daily life I have a better sense of how different groups of people think and what motivates them. I think that is true for most urban dwellers. Proximity and interaction breeds understanding and tolerance. It also makes fear rational.
New Yorkers know that they are the most likely target of terrorist violence. They also know that the Bush administration’s policies are alienating people all over the world and potentially radicalizing segments of their home population.
They don’t see it as productive to do random stop and searches, or to do warrantless domestic surveillance on ordinary citizens, as the Republicans do.
This helps explain some seeming anomalies in the polling, such as this:
Nearly a third of those who lived in big cities said they were “personally very concerned” about an attack where they live; only 13 percent of the people in small towns or rural areas felt that way. More than half of the suburbanites said they felt safe from terrorism, compared to fewer than half of those who lived in cities…
The findings point to a political paradox: Mr. Bush, who has made the campaign against terrorism the centerpiece of his presidency, has some of his lowest approval ratings in areas that are most concerned with another attack. New York City, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, gave Mr. Bush a 25 percent approval rating in a Quinnipiac University Poll.
Personally, I don’t feel safe from terrorist attack, but I actually feel more threatened by random violence from hooligans in my neighborhood. And what bothers me more than anything else is the total lack of faith I have in the privacy of my electronic communications. I am not inclined to cede ANY additional powers to a government that has shown no inclination to follow the rule of law or to display any competence whatsoever in any area.
I don’t think urban dwellers are inherently better or smarter or more tolerant. I just think, on average, they have a better feel for what will keep us safe and what will not. And we are used to both living with violence and living with people that are a lot different from us. That’s how we can be more apprehensive and less panicked.
