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A decentralized government, a well-armed citizenry, Letters of Marque and Reprisal, punishment (pension stripping, tar and feathering?) for incompetent bureaucrats who failed so miserably, Congressionally declared wars, halt of Islamic and Third World immigration, low taxes, end urban subsidies...just the basics.

Thank you. What you said is all good, but INSIDE measures. What do you want to do OUTSIDE of the borders? I gather you don't dispute my list of dangers.

To any fair person some of that dangers related first of all to technological developments (communications, transportations, miniaturization, etc.) that provide means to harm us in unprecedented way can't be blamed to any real or imaginable malice from our side. How do you want to deal with these outside dangers?

I wrote my principals of defense in several posts and stood opposite Daniel Pipes. I suggested that the society become more like its Old Self, rather than 'become more like the barbarians'.

It certainly does seem like a fork in the road.

I could post some quotes from GW Farewell Address:

...The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest...The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the Nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the Liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The Great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled, with perfect good faith. Here let us stop."

and stop there, but in regards to the current set of challenges, I suggest that 9/11 be saved from its new place as an abstraction and returned to a case of law enforcement.

To continue, radical Islam was a tool of the CIA during the Cold War. It appears they failed to clean up some loose ends; even worse they used their friends in the movement in the Kosovo campaign. Some are sitting in Gittmo right now.

I think a good place to start is smoke out some whistle blowers in the CIA; they will know who the bagmen and front groups who are in the field for militant Islam, rather than just the underlings and expendable idiot savants who believe in the 21 virgins crap.

One of the fundamental tenets of conservatism is that the state cannot being something abroad without fundamentally changing at home. If you disagree with that premise, that our ideological divide is greater than I first thought and I might consider approaching your question with a different tact.