This country of ours has gone absolutely nuts over 9/11, and has been conned into accepting draconian "security" measures that do absolutely nothing to enhance security. We know who the bad guys are and how to accurately profile their accomplices, but we choose instead to harrass our entire citizenry for fear of offending the real enemy. So we nationalize all security, frisk little old ladies, confiscate harmless pen knives and fingernail clippers, and make travel hugely inconvenient to everyone. We do all of this so the public can see the government "do something" to make us "feel" secure. A hallmark of bureaucracy is the inability to discriminate wisely, and we are now drowning in a bureaucratic morass.
This is silliness. I can kill any man with a ballpoint pen to the head, and I can hone the edge of a credit card to a razor edge that will slice your throat open. Shouldn't current logic dictate that we also ban pens and credit cards? Of course, but the public would finally draw the line at that point -- which only proves the inanity of such bans in the first place.
What has prevented a recurrence of 9/11 has been the awareness of passengers and flight crews that today's hijackers are not going to divert their flights to Havana -- but that they are going to turn their planes into guided missile and kill everyone in them. Post 9/11 passengers know the stakes, and possess the overwhelming force to prevent such a takeover from ever happening again. The terrorist know this, and must be laughing themselves silly as we waste billions and harrass American citizens -- while they have moved on to other tactics.
There is no such thing as a temporary government program. In the name of "doing something" visible we are laying the foundation for a police state, and law-abiding citizens are being conditioned to accept any measure in the name of "security." The real goal of terrorism is not to destroy lives and property, but to provoke such an overreaction that the targeted government will become more of a menace to its society than the actual terrorists. If we don't wake up, grow up, and end this lunacy, a handful of terrorists will have gotten their way.
The goal includes destroying lives and property, but the overriding goal of terrorism is most definitely to cause an overreaction from the government. Why? So we loose confidence in our government and then start to look upon it as the real enemy.
This is what it looks like:
. . . will become more of a menace to its society than the actual terrorists. If we don't wake up, grow up, and end this lunacy, a handful of terrorists will have gotten their way.
What can we do? Hold the Congress accountable every time we go to the polls, keep pressing government to remove unwarranted, overreaching action, and never permit the terrorists to turn us against each other.
How this guy in New Hampshire intends to make his protest is a simplistic expression of this lunacy.
Good post, on all counts.