Your analaysis strikes me as succinct and correct in all important respects, whether we like it or not. This storm has been brewing for a long time, and the political process hasn't so far impinged on it in any significant way. Nor is it likely to, in my opinion.

I fear the outcome will be similar to that of nuclear proliferation, global warming, or the end of cheap petroleum. Call it the tragedy of the commons writ large, with consequences which cannot be escaped by moving elsewhere, or by returning to the state of nature, even assuming that such an abstract and implausible thing ever really existed.

Unfortunately, in this war the combatants are undercover saboteurs. We could just let them roam around if you like. Are you willing to go on record as wishing to abandon the phone record search for terrorists? No listening in on overseas calls? What other insulation from discovery would you like to provide these people?

You are either incapable of telling the truth or you are incapable of reading. None of what you posted in the above post is true. You and Doug Feith are one of a kind. Idiots.

Do you think that just because the Germans, for example, had actual uniforms that they didn't have the ability to infiltrate or have spies? You're so stupid, Spooter, that it's impossible to rate your stupidity.

"Live free or die." I am not afraid of terrorists. I live in New York, and am, I bet, a damn lot more likely to be the object of a terrorist attack than most people here. I demand that I live as a free amn in a free country. Let the shitheads take their best shot--wait a minute, they did, on 9/11. Ask New Yorkers if they want to let the President take away their freedoms. You won't like the answer. Because we are not intimidated. We are not shaking in our boots. We don't need to be led around by a jackass faux-cowboy from Connecticut. I'll take the risk of terrorist attack as a cost of living as a free man. Once, it would have been obvious to any American man that there was no doubt about that choice. It was too obvious. Ask my dad, a WWII vet--he'll tell you. He understood that you have to risk your safety if you want to be free. Perhaps that's liberal. I thought it was classically conservative.

Circuit City donate sell Sweet Potato's with potato eyes to spy on you when you pea pickin'.

Now, if one claims spy's are Splenda used in chain restaurants and 4,000 sweet pop-soda beverage products et., then Splenda!

If not watching our belly and need to be slender from drinking Glenda at a FDA's lobby party, drink home-brews. Equal is feuding with Merisant Ceo's and is seeking 25- billion in lost sweet sales!?!

They are from the Law Flem Slim Offices of Crooks Chitin & Wow.

The law fraud shenanigan's law-teams are demanding $25-smacker-roe's (sweet graham skinny Lindsey?) because the worst product fake sugarcoma CEO lied in public advertising gimmicks, a saying..."Made from sugar, so it taste like sugar." huh.

I got kicked off here, and somehow got to read a terrible pop-up DoJ's article about nu-tri-sweet Splenda. Before I get into bitter trouble, let me kindly opine that it's a Splendor to read ya all.

It's a Splendor to greet ya too.

So long, it's been Splendour to be here this morning. I'm in a slender-weight-loss problem condition with a big tummy for hanging out here with you. You often give me a bad mood. A lot, a big lot-- a pile of trouble, too....thanks to you. Well, we/i will keep digging till I 'hit' china, or land in a stateside Sheol pit, or pay for a Salon prescription with a bushel basket of fertile dirt?

Then you can grow your own Sweet Potatoes, pumpkins, watermelons, cherry heirloom pear shaped tomatoes, squash, winter acorns (sore feet?) that are long-term basement keepers, sweet bell peppers, Jerusalem artichokes (no choke the poor chickens) Chinese pin-head cabbage, cantaloupe, cauliflower for vanilla ice cream cones...and chicory endive root. sorry, again, and no sorry. Plant dibble sweet edible gourds. Cucumbers, eggplant, broccoli, and baby Arab greens for the cute (21 st cen. rug-rat) baby's, and No forget the green Sorrel and Sasify.

If your dad is a WWII vet, he knows exactly what needs to be done on the home front -- at least Bush is not rounding up every Arab-American and shipping them off to camps ; )

Are you willing to go on record as wishing to abandon the phone record search for terrorists?

Yes, if you are referring to en-masse trawling for haystack needles. I have no problem with phone records being subpoenaed for particular cases as was usual practice in the past, and as has actually been proven EFFECTIVE.

No listening in on overseas calls?

I'm not calling any terrorists, so there is no reason for any government authority to listen to my calls.

Maybe you ARE calling terrorists, for instance domestic terrorists armed with IEDs:

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/117844294465520.xml&coll=1

so if that is the case, please volunteer to have your OWN communications monitored, for the good of all of us.

But any government official who monitors my communications is wasting tax dollars and overstepping his constitutional bounds.

What other insulation from discovery would you like to provide these people?

Duct tape and plastic sheeting, maybe? How about we just quit pretending that massive data mining doesn't actually decrease security? Quit pretending that it helps anyone but totalitarians?

at least Bush is not rounding up every Arab-American and shipping them off to camps ; )

-- Jake007

Kind of lowballing, ain't you? At least Bush hasn't decidererd to drop nukes on Iraq and Iran. What a guy.

Your second point has a certain appeal to it. I’ve always wondered how much of Washington politics was based on mutually assured destruction. Just before the 2006 election, with the passage of the torture “ban” (which did nothing), the MCA, and the lack of action on warrantless wiretapping, I thought perhaps the Democrats were being blackmailed.

My only concern is that this would be blackmail on such a scale as to be conspiracy theory. Unless, of course, the Rethugs only need to blackmail a few key people. (Yet another argument not to invest too much authority in one person.)