The dog.
As long as we do not recognize a state of war, we will require our police and our foreign intelligence to respect the privacy of the correspondence of our enemies, their "civil freedoms" and other rights, guaranteed by the constitution. That is akin to forbidding the military officers to use binoculars, lest, God forbid, they see some intimate details of life in the enemy trenches. Martial law requires sacrifice of some freedoms and people will be understanding if the martial law is openly declared.
No sale.
A war such as this requires absolute commitment of the populace to the principles and causes of the state. You do not get that by destroying civil liberites and civic respect for unalienable rights, but by the empowerment of self-government on a local basis. The key here in our defense is the organization of the Militia under the rule of law, more local republican architectures of "neighborhood government," and to replicate that device eslewhere.
transitions from chatty conversationalism to erudite academese with remarkable agility.
You'll enjoy mine.
The dog is the question, not the answer. You don't imagine a wolf running up to a Neanderthal, wagging a tail and saying, "Let me give you a hand with these sheep here..."?
You do not get [commitment of the populace to the principles of our state] by destroying civil liberites and civic respect for unalienable rights, but by the empowerment of self-government on a local basis
That is true, and of course I agree on the militias and the local government. Yet an examination of those principles is in order. A non-citizen foreign to his local community and without visible reason to be there and visible means of support could be confronted with suspicion and even hostility without violating anyone's civil rights, -- including his rights. When complicity in a terrorist activity is established, the case should transition from the open court system and trial by jury of the terrorist's peers (ha) to a three judge panel, regardless of avenues of defense that still would be available to the suspect otherwise.