Gotta disagree a bit here. I never liked the "melting pot" analogy- a better one is the stew pot. The potatoes are still potatoes, the carrots are still carrots, the turnips are still turnips- but the whole thing works best when all the different flavors swap around.
Personally, I think it's impossible to completely prevent a bunch of determined fanatics from carrying out terror attacks. Best solution is to keep doing what we're doing- enact just laws that let us prosecute all terrorists without regard to race or religion (I want white Christian terrorists dead, too) and enforce them aggressively.
I am willing to give up a large amount of privacy and a tiny amount of civil liberty in order to help prevent terror. That's why I grudgingly support the Patriot Act.
It's not a matter of whether or not you like it. It's what has worked for nearly two full centuries. And as the old axiom goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Let me put it this way: my grandfather emigrated to the U.S. from Sweden. He raised all of his children with this simple philosophy: You are NOT Swedes here. You are Americans. We keep our traditions at home where they belong, but we are in Rome and we are obliged to do as the Romans do.
If more people did took that simple approach, we would not have half the problems we do today with hyphenated-American this and this "my cultural needs met by the government" bullcrap.
As for the latter part of your message, we've already been through a period where we tried to treat terrorism as a criminal issue. It didn't work.
And I'm hard-pressed to think of any "Christian terrorists" who have killed 3,000 people in one day on U.S. soil.
"I am willing to give up a large amount of privacy and a tiny amount of civil liberty in order to help prevent terror. That's why I grudgingly support the Patriot Act."
Why should freedom loving Americans give up any of their liberties? Since Islam and freedom are mutually exclusive and Islam doesn't distinguish between religion and government, let's just outlaw Islam. The dim O crats and republicans alike feel free to butcher our Constitution so this shouldn't be a problem for them. As much as the left refuses to admit it, this is a country created on Christian values, let's keep it that way. Just a thought.