Re: [metatuning] Digest Number 70

A few comments:

I'm not happy about increased security and surveillance either, but I'd
like to hear some reasonable and effective alternatives, not some
idealistic, utopian scheme. I intend to travel by air in the next year;
I want to be reasonably certain that I'm not going to be a human
sacrifice to somebody else's barbaric religion or ideology and I'm
willing to put up with more security including ethnic profiling if it
means I'll be safe. My freedom from fear outweighs other peoples'
freedom to kill me for their religious or political view.

Freedoms carry responsibilities and are never abolute. Fore example, one
can't use excessive force to defend your self, your family, and your
property. Nobody is free from taxation.

Let's see what the government intends to do before getting too upset.
Not all suggested remedies will pass the courts.
If you're angry, blame the guilty ones, the Islamic terrorists and
domestic hijackers like Eldredge Cleaver, etc.

We nearly have a national identity card already, though the level of
security is low --it's your Social Security Number and it's for many,
many purposes not envisioned or IIRC specifically excluded under the
original legislation.
Virtually all financial transactions are already microfilmed and
available to the FBI.

As for Islam, when the US moslem leaders issue fatwas agains Bin Laden,
Hamas, the Taliban, etc. I'll believe their telling the truth when they
proclaim that Islam is a peaceful religion and that Terrorism is against
its principles. When Islam gives up the Jihad, we can give up the Crusade.

--John