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You’re playing word games. You know, I know it, anyone reading this knows it.

Oh, I don't think so. That's because I've been around Free Republic long enough to have seen these very things that I describe. It's a valid anaysis.

The response is broken down into two precise areas, and I've seen both of these areas talked about on Free Republic. The first area is what do people do on an "individual level". The second area is what do people do on a "governmental level" (as a corporate body of citizens of the United States).

Now, in Israel, I use that as an example of a group of people who have lived with the terrorism exactly as you describe it as "possible" here. However, over there it isn't just "possible" -- it's an everyday reality. So, when one asks how do they respond "individually", you get a very good example of how they respond as individual people -- which is quite dramatically different than the Muslims respond as individual people.

So, the question here is simply -- "Would the Americans respond in the same outrageous manner as those crazy Muslims -- or -- would the Americans respond in the more civilized manner as the Israelis?" Now, that is the big question, because from what I read, I see that some Freepers want to "outdo the Palestinians" and show them who can be even more debased than they are. They want to show them that if the Palestinians think they've got a corner on idiotic brutality, that the Americans can teach them a thing or two about how brutal we can get.

Well, I do know that's not the Israeli response on an individual citizen level, but it does seem to be the response of some Freepers on an individual citizen level. So, that's a very valid questions as to whether we would be more like Palestinians, or whether we would be more like Israelis, if the bombs started showing up on busses and in malls and in restaurants. And I'm sure that there are some Freepers that are prepared to tell me right now how they would respond...

Then the other level of response is very precise and accurate. It's just like I was telling another poster here. The solutions I hear and read about here on Free Republic are more like something that comes out of a comic book -- and not something that comes out of a legislature and the U.S. court system and the President and the officials of our government. I hear so-called solutions that one would read about in "Batman" or some other things like that. It doesn't sound like something that every went through a legislative session and got passed into law and also was upheld by the U.S. court system.

So, sometimes I do wonder what world some of these posters are living in. I think they must be posting from Iraq or Afghanistan, where people do shoot up other people. Obviously they're not posting from inside the United States.

Some of these posters give solutions that would never make it out of committee in any state legislature in the country or ever make it out of committe in the Congress -- much less even get sponsored as a piece of legislation in the first place.

So, far from this being word games. I'm describing two levels of interactions -- one on the individual personal level and comparing that to either being like a civilized Israeli or perhaps being like a terroristic Palestinian. I guess I'll give the people here the choice of the matter on that one.

And then, the other level of interaction is the governmental level where we have the three branches of government (leglislative, executive and judicial branches) and how they all have to come together to get anything through. And then, this all has to fly with the public at large, and has to be able to sustain a popular majority in whatever is proposed. And the fact of the matter is that nothing substantial has been able to get through in our political system, enough to do anything at all, about these problems.

So, there we are, on both levels that I just mentioned. No word games but a very good analysis of what is going on...

Regards,
Star Traveler