The dimensionality of American political attitudes: tensions between equality and freedom in the wake of September 11

Initiatives which are intended to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack may impact not only civil liberties including privacy, but civil rights or equality as well. In the present paper, we consider conceptual tradeoffs among attitudes towards security, civil liberties and civil rights, and examine the psychometric structure of these attitudes in both congressional ratings and survey data. An examination of ipsative preferences, a circumplex analysis and analyses of latent structure converge in supporting the position that tradeoffs in post-9/11 America are multidimensional, and serve as a reminder that concerns for security are balanced by not one but two distinct motives, one concerned with freedom and civil liberties, the other with equality and civil rights.