[tallhappy]

Franklin's aphorism is as good today as it was when first written, and I paraphrase, "Those who are willing to sacrifice a bit of liberty for a bit of security -- are worthy of neither."

Yes.

There are two ways to go. We do little except try and catch specific individuals involved and make the US a police state to stop future acts.

Or we completely re-organize our national defense, security and international relations.

We can bring it out to those who are part of this enemy axis and stop it. That means US military presence and action in the world.

Or we can become a police state ourselves.

I am glad Cohen and his crew are no longer in power. We know what he would choose.

[patriciaruth]

We can bring it out to those who are part of this enemy axis and stop it. That means US military presence and action in the world.

But first you have to say "Thank You" to Senator Frank Church for showing all those unwilling souls how to get to Heaven early. May he rot...

[Terriergal]

I am glad Cohen and his crew are no longer in power. We know what he would choose

I guess it seems obvious to me that he's referring to massive gun control efforts.

"Sure let's just go belly up for these creeps, why don't we?"

/sarcasm

[Beenliedto]

There are two ways to go. We do little except try and catch specific individuals involved and make the US a police state to stop future acts.

Or we completely re-organize our national defense, security and international relations.

A voice of reason in a sea of misplaced hostile rhetoric.

Pat was (is) right, you know. American foreign policy as practiced in the last 100 years has little to do with what the founders intended. Mr. Washington warned us about foreign entanglements.

Hegemony leads to hatred... and we are surely hated by must of the rest of the world.

While I hate with all of my red-blooded patriotic veteran heart what has happened, and I make no excuse for those who did this.....

.....We are fools if we do not as a people demand that our government stop trying to run the entire world...

Or we'll have more.... nukin' 'em won't help... It'll only make it worse....

I just counted... there's a lot more of them than there is of us.

[cgbg]

There is another approach (that dosen't preclude massive retaliation--which I favor, btw).

The country's major entities (federal, state, local government, big corporations, etc.) needs to think carefully about the way our institutions are physically configured. In the age of the Internet do people really need to be working in huge urban centers in skyscrapers?

Do they need to be crowded by the thousands into mass transit systems?

While a "decentralization" of our institutions would not prevent a terrorist attack it would prevent the kind of huge disaster which happened today. I fear the "big city" approach in a world where total eliminiation of terrorist threats is impossible is just asking for future debacles.

While many may laugh at this post it wouldn't surprise me if years from now this is regarded as conventional wisdom.