In terms of libertarian views on open borders, Historical cultural assimilation is journey takes centuries not a couple of generations. (This is not just about Trump run but Romney beat Rick Perry on immigration in 2012. Also can you imagine the Middle East with complete open borders?) Open borders is not a political reality in 2015.

If something is ineffective, it should be stopped, not broadened. If something is effective it should be focused and the resources from those ineffective and cancelled programs redirected to the focal point.

There has basically been one significant terrorist attack that resulted in the security theater, none before the security theater, and several attempted attacks that the security theater didn’t stop. And the security will not stop an actual future attack that will circumvent the rudimentary TSA security which will be stopped by citizens. And it would not even stop the type of attack that took place on 9/11, which now would be attacked by citizens.

It is also not a matter of whether or not most terrorists are one group or another, it is a matter of what percentage of an identifiable group is terrorists.

Please refer back to Arnold’s “Do you really believe that?” post. Do you believe the security theater is effective or not? You are being inconsistent in your argument.

Regarding Morris:

1. “Government is the primary source of the reduction of violence in societies” Government usually enjoys a monopoly of legal violence, so it makes sense that government will want to enforce that monopoly by reducing violence in other parts of society.

2. “Wars caused societies to merge, thereby increasing the scope, scale, and efficacy of government.” Obviously not true in many cases, particularly civil wars. War can also split societies – just ask the Baluchi’s or Kurds or any other stateless group. Or, consider governments that collapsed and new states were formed from the political communities of the old empire. This is why political communities are more important than governments when it comes to war.

3. “It would have been great if societies had figured out a way to merge without war, but this, unfortunately, has rarely happened.” That’s probably because most societies have little desire to merge with other societies. Fear and distrust of the “other” is human trait. For example, there’s nothing preventing the peaceful unification of Canada and the USA except the complete lack of desire by people in both countries. So, the peaceful option is always there.

4. “So, like it or not, war has been the driver of government innovation.” This is a product of survivor bias. The governments that survived existential wars were forced to innovate – those that failed lost. The prospect of near-term destruction is a great motivator for change.

5. “Therefore, wars have been the primary cause of our long-term decline of violence.” I wonder what long-term is here – since WW2? If so then the cause is not wars, but a change is the cost-benefit calculus in going to war.

At very least we need to take out Assad’s airforce.

It’s worth pondering what that means going forward. For example, it might be fair to speculate that nation states will for the most part undergo a significant decline, as people only cooperated to form high-functioning states out of necessity, and absent external threats, lots of people find they don’t really like or care for one another and really don’t want to associate anymore. Look at Europe’s various secession movements, for example: Scotland, Catalonia, the proposed partition of Belgium, etc.

If all you mean is that airports should consider religious affiliation (how would they know?) when selecting whom to give heightened screening, no, I don’t think that would help reduce costs much, especially since TSA already can and does consider national origin.