Ok, but you probably won't like my solution.
We get hit by terrorists because of our foreign policy of intervention/expansionism. We show up in some part of the world we don't belong, throw our weight around, and piss off the locals. In return they do what we would do if someone did the same to us: they hit us back (wouldn't we???). Of course, they have learned the hard way we have the mightiest military the world has ever seen and they lose badly every time they fight us toe to toe. So they resort to hiding and hit and run attacks on our soft targets. Terrorism is what we call that tactic.
We are forced to fight a new kind of war in response to their sneaky tactics. Unfortunately, this new kind of war is entirely incompatible with a free society, and the national ID/patriot act/homeland defense debate is merely as symptom of that fact.
Killing every single one of our current enemies is insufficient to end the WoT. New enemies will arise to replace the old so long as our foreign policy angers foreigners to the point of violence. Terrorism is a method, not a person and cannot be killed. These new enemies will continue to utilize this method, and we will never, ever be rid of terrorism if we follow our current course of action.
To end the WoT, we must end the root cause of terrorism to begin with, our aggressive interventionist foreign policy. I liken it to cancer. The best way to beat it is to prevent it. Once you have it, you have an impossible fight on your hand. The 'cure' can be worse than the problem to begin with as your treatment affects your bodies own cells as well as cancer cells. In the same way, the 'treatment' for terrorism, increased government powers, adversely affects our own citizens as well as terrorists.
Strong political influences drive our foreign policy, and they will never allow it to change, even if the result is the compromise of American national security, and the inevitable metamorphosis of the US to a police state. They don't care what happens here, because they are well off enough to move somewhere else if this country becomes intolerable.
But as long as the 2nd amendment is in effect we will have some control.
None of the Bill of Rights is in effect, including the 2nd. We no longer have rights. We have privileges. We know this because as soon as the majority elects a government that decides that a 'right' conflicts with one of its 'compelling interests', it will override that 'right'. Rights are unalienable, and cannot be legitimately infringed upon by anyone for any reason. Ask yourself if anything in the US meets that definition.
I agree with you that if our drivers licenses had bio information that would be all that is needed.
Someone else must have said that. I will never submit biometric information to anyone for any reason.
we are going to be hit again and again, and still allow our borders to be open
This is true, and has other deeply seated causes. Our socialistic entitlement programs like social security are pyramid schemes, which only work if the base of the pyramid is larger than the top. Young people are at the bottom and pay into the system. Old people at the top take from the system. Our aging population will cause the pyramid to become top heavy and crash, and because politicians will bear the brunt of the blame, they will do anything, include compromise our national security to prevent this from happening. Thus the illegal immigrants needed to stabilize the bottom of the pyramid will never be stopped if politicians have anything to say about it.
The only solution is to abandon the socialist entitlement system. But most Americans mostly are hopelessly addicted to socialism and their strong political influence will never allow that to happen.
So, mark my words. Unless foreign policy and entitlement programs both radically change, you will never see any progress on terrorism or illegal immigration. So you might as well get used to a police state filled with third world immigrants. In effect we will become a third world nation.
We could try appeasement as you suggest. Pull out, give them their territory, promise to stop infringing, bringing our world into theirs. Something like this might have been used against the american indian too, except that manifest destiny got in the way. Something like manifest destiny is happening today, I don't know if progress and technology can be stopped. But we have a right to contest this situation where our world meets with the muslim world.
Now to infer that our contesting this situation will lead to a continuous flow of opponents is similar to the liberal arguement that we have to have social welfare programs because if we don't the poor will rise up against us. I don't buy either. We can prosecute the terrorists until the people who believe in "live and let live" push the fundamentalists out of positions where they can continue to prosecute this war.
Will this happen? It has before when radical fundamentalists rose up in past centuries. And we are stronger now.
Our socialistic entitlement programs like social security are pyramid schemes, which only work if the base of the pyramid is larger than the top.
You have hit on another sad truth. That our population, and the populations of all developed countries have stabilized but programs like social security require that a large base of workers are available to support those drawing benefits. That is why France has opened its doors to french speaking muslims from Algiers. And the US has defacto opened its borders to Mexico and China with the flaws in the immigration act of 1965. Both parties support it because neither wants to take on the social security debt without a supporting base to the pyramide.
This has to stop, and I have some hope that 9-11 started the process of stopping it. Our country will have to find another way to reckon with social security and other entitlements in an era of stable population growth. If this does not happen, we will continue to admit terrorists daily. So I agree with part of your solution.
As to Ids, its clear we will have to agree to disagree. In order to deport so many who are here against the law, the government needs a tool. I don't know a tool that will resolve the fact that millions are here already unless we use some form of "your papers please". the only difference between this and Hitler's Germany is that we are doing it for different reasons to people who have no right to be here. The only solution you have is to change future actions when the terrorists are in country already. Your plan is to catch them in the act I suppose, with good police work. But you admit that a free society is in bad shape to find them and prosecute them. In this case I submit that some form of Id is less onerous than losing our country. I also submit that we can get our freedoms back from this crisis, when the threat subsides. I know you don't believe this, but when the government suspends the bill of rights for its true citizens, I will be there beside you.