will there be? there wasn't any price paid for security/counterterrorism theatre under Bush. and most of that stuff never really went away, we just got used to it. we're not going to flick a switch off and "just go back to normal" after this. every time cold (both temperature and illness) season comes around, some stores will make masks mandatory, kids will be sent home from school for remote learning now that they all have laptops, etc. etc.
> there wasn't any price paid for security/counterterrorism theatre under Bush
Every time anyone wants to get on an airplane,they're forced to take a nude selfie. And if there's a blip, a government employee will...well, let's just say any private business would get sued six ways to Sunday for sexual harassment.
Osama bin Laden's been dead for years, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over.
Everybody just accepts it.
A high price to pay, in both (1) the TSA's budget, and (2) the fact that Americans just don't care about this infringement on freedom and privacy. When was the last time you saw disbanding the TSA suggested in any political debate from a candidate of either party?
So all the stuff about mask mandates, vaccine passports, and so on -- that stuff, once implemented, will never go away.
The September 11 response has taught me that the government will take your freedom in a crisis, but they'll never give it back.
It's when the compulsion to have government to fix the crisis seems most reasonable that we should be most unreasonably insistent on keeping our freedom.
At least in the US, the debate around the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races was largely about school closures for COVID-19. And the Republicans did well on the premise of reopening in-person school. The price is already being paid.
That said, most polls show a majority of Americans support mask mandates. [1]
I don't think the future is necessarily an analogy of post-9/11 security theater.
