At the risk of being unpolitcally correct.Follow

Tell them to quit trying to ruin humanity and you wouldn't have to.

And you're missing a big piece in your Godwin's theory here....the Jews didn't march around Germany trying to blow everyone up who disagreed with them.

Oooh a migratory nation! Kinda like Israel only, you know, ebil.

I live in the inner city, such as it is here in Southern California. No idea who the drug dealers are, but I'm certain they exist within one block of my house - drugs are virtually the national pastime - billions of US dollars, huge number of people involved.

Terrorism, on the other hand, is a tiny pasttime, tiny ammounts of money, tiny numbers of people involved. The most active groups are ecoterrorists, although they are not the most damaging to human life the commit the most acts (according to FBI statistics). We don't really have much luck rooting them out and they are far, far more open about what they do.

Thus I simply don't buy it that the islamic community can snap their fingers and make these people go away any more then, say, the evangalistic community can snap their fingers and make abortion clinic bombers go away.

Can they help? Certainly. I'd go further: with effort the community can be the key (the most important component) in solving the problem.

Should we profile the entire segment because of the actions of the few? Certainly not. For me, this is a hallmark of civilizaton - such as not using force to coerce confessions (torture). I feel both are counterproductive - but apparently I am in the minority on both counts.

Not a single sacrifice should be made to civil liberty to "fight" terrorism that is not sacrificed to, say, fight street gangs. (This is not to say not a single sacrifice should be made - just no more, for example habius corpus, handing criminal suspects over to the CIA or foreign governments for interrogation).

Yet I can only conclude from my fellow citizens actions that the majority are perfectly willing to lay open all kinds of personal info and freedom since they are not objecting and don't vote out the politicians who do it.

Terrorism is a crime used since biblical times and to try to eradicate it entirely at any cost will certainly end in a police state.

I'm sure some people must have died in California as a result of terrorism but none come to my mind and the number is likely very small. Gangs, by contrast, kill every day.

Humans are famously bad at assessing risk (see, for example, SARS) but in this case the consequences are so bad that I cannot imagine continuing this line of policy (which is advocated by so many here and elsewhere) without eternal damage to the national character and reputation.

When this current ferver passes I predict the majority wake up one day and realize how dirty their hands are with crimes unimaginable to their children.

Please don't be one of them.

Seriously,

Yossarian

Any darky. Duh.

Hey, I'm just going by what Mel told me after a few beers.

hate to breakit to you but muslims don't believe in equality.

Well then perhaps we'd be justified in adopting some more of their behaviors, since two wrongs make a right.

And what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

And an eye for an eye.

I'm out of logical farts, care to spare one of yours?


Edited, Aug 14th 2006 at 2:34pm EDT by Barkingturtle

Flea is obviously good at math.

And she can drink you under the table!

And yet, I am all kinds of Catholic.


Tarv, no one objects to your beliefs. You can believe that all you want, and you may even be right, but what you propose isn't only unfeasable due to most countries' basic respect of human rights, but also as effective as pointing to anyone with a headscarf, darker than tan and lighter than coal and saying "Maybe. Let's probe inside his **** cavity".

Poor Eldy.