STOP, STOP, STOP....you are making too much sense.

I agree 100%.

Thanks for your perspective.
Be safe over there.

But Ben, thankfully for now you are comparing apples and grenades. What is your position on 'our' present real world? I understand that in view of your recent experiences you are likely to be more tolerant of the intrusions of security once safely [hopefull]back here, but is itmerely a matter of acclimation, the frog in the water effect, or is it your pricipled belief that we should learn to accept escalating intrusion w/o further complaint?

Are the "terrorists" so dumb that random searches will prevent an attack? Of course not. They're highly motivated, well funded, intelligent people. The bag searchs are CYA by our leaders, not deterrents for theirs. And since they don't make me any more secure, but DO infringe my rights, I'm against them.

Did they started to search people down in Florida too or is it just NY/NJ thing?

Ben, I'd be one of those who not bother you. I'd support, quietly, the mission of the Coalition, but I would also like to see them go home. Becuase there are too many historical precidents for safe places that weren't so safe.

I would rather take the risks and still have the freedom to travel within my homeland as I wish, and say what I wish, gather where I wish, and live as I wish. If people hate me becuase of the freedoms I embrace, I feel sorry for them with thier sad lifes. And if someone wishes to try to kill me because of that, so be it. I'm not likely to go along with the plan quietly.

If my hometown became like the green zone, I would load my gear in my car, and burn the house. I would leave, amd not look back. I have it easy, I know- single, no kids, heck, I don't even have a goldfish to worry about. For others, it isn't as easy a choice, and I aplogise if I sound uncaring. Even if I was married, though, it would be to someone for whom the choice was just as easy. I know what it means to be persecuted- you fight or you flee.

I might sound like I'm joking about reeducation camps for political undesirables filled with engineers, ACLU'ers and gun owner, but I'm not. I'm all three of those, and a "pagan". I know that if I'm not just gunned down in the street (likely, I'm stubborn), I will end up in such a camp. And I know there are people who would love to kill me becuase I am a "pagan", which means that if they bag me, they go straight to heaven. After all, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. I know what it means to be an undesirable, trust me.

America isn't that far away from turning into theo-facist state. But I don't plan on living to see it, nor do I plan on changing my way of life becuase another flavor of theo-facism doesn't like me either. If we change, they win.

The way you fight terrorism is with openness, not paranoia. You build your communities back up, rather than making everyone afraid of thier neighbors. And as a nation, we are too dumb to put it together. Everyone is eager to fear and hate the other people on thier subway car or bus- how many of us see the same faces, 30, 40, 60 minutes a day, and have for years? How many of us know thier names? That is how we could beat these... gangsters.

And are too busy, we can't be bothered, so we will loose. Even if we win militarily, we will loose at home, by becoming something at least as bad as the dreams of those who attack us.

Or you follow the Isreali model. They don't have to run a gaunlet to go to a mall. They have good security, but it is non-intrusive.

Let me share one of my favorite stupid criminal stories. Man gets off a plane in Isreal. He is broke, so he decides to rob a store. Toy pistol vs. customers with real Uzis. He survived, got life for his stupidity. The customers shrugged it off, they were just doing thier part as citizens.

Sounds like a better plan to me.

More to the point, humans are no more random than computers. Computers at least use a mathematical equation to simulate randomness. Humans use thier baser impulses.

Well, we don't have a subway in Orlando. But they've been doing bag searches at Disney for a while.

We do have a public bus system (Lynx). I have no idea what happens on it, though. No idea about security at KSC. I don't go anymore, since my front yard has a decent view and it's 50 miles away. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yeah... after I had time to cool down 'n' let the venom out, I sort of rethought what I'd committed to print, and realized that it might have sounded like I was "Pro" search. While I'm NOT in favor of searching everybody on the street, there neccessarily have to be searches of some people out there (if profiling's the answer, then so be it, I can't think of a different/better way to "hit" more bad guys than innocent folk). My point was, and is, if you get caught, don't start whining because you get busted. For those who are inconvenienced/bothered/held up from their busy schedules, maybe the answer would be to give some VERY LOW KEY guidelines to the people doing the searches... until you find a clear and present danger, REMEMBER, 99 out of 100 are going to be innocent people... so treat them like they're your mother/brother/kids until there's a reason to turn into Judge Dredd. I guess the bottom line would be (in MY perfect world), stomp the bad guys on both sides of the badge. There aren't one in a hundred criminals out on the street, just like there aren't one in a hundred bad cops out there, but when you find one, crush it like a roach, never to be a problem to society again.

This is beginning to turn into another rant, so, so long for now.

Troy

AMEN!!! And don't forget, an armed society is a polite society.

Troy