Politics & Power Quote by Michael Connelly

Security is sold as a promise, but it’s bought with a blank check. Connelly’s quote captures the post-9/11 bargain at the moment it stops feeling like a bargain and starts looking like a transfer of ownership: not just of authority, but of agency. The “we” is doing a lot of work here, smoothing over dissent and panic into a single national subject, as if haste itself were democratic consensus. It’s a writerly move: collective voice as alibi.

The syntax mirrors the era’s emotional arc. First comes the primal ask - “protect us” - then the reflexive policy sprint - “quickly moved to give law enforcement more power.” That speed isn’t incidental; it’s the point. Emergencies compress deliberation, and compressed deliberation creates permission structures that would otherwise fail in daylight. “Begs the question” isn’t just a rhetorical pivot; it’s an admission that the real debate was postponed, not resolved.

Connelly, best known for crime fiction, is especially attuned to institutions that grow by exception. The subtext is noir without the trench coat: power expands in the name of order, and the costs show up later, quietly, in what becomes normal. “Did we give too much power away?” frames liberty as something transferable, almost mislaid, rather than something actively surrendered - a subtle indictment of how easily fear turns citizens into customers of the security state.

The final line - “I don’t have the answer” - isn’t a cop-out; it’s the most honest part. It reflects a culture still living inside policies passed in shock, where certainty is performative but doubt is the only responsible register.