Let's Talk About the Wars (moderated) Message Board

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Pastimes : Let's Talk About the Wars (moderated)

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From: carranza2	8/12/2006 10:16:31 AM
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Congratulations on your new board. Here's a message I have today been PMing to folks I consider sensible. I have edited it a bit for your place: Muslim radicalism and the threat it presents are different. Its nature is to operate globally in the shadows. Its ideological justifications permit it to attack civilians without warning on a mass scale causing not only a massive number of deaths but also substantial economic dislocation. We have been fortunate to never had to deal with a threat of this kind. I am a champion of civil liberties as is everyone who is a thoughtful human being. How exactly, however, do we fight this new threat while at the same time ensuring that the full panoply of rights is afforded to all citizens? Do we have the right to limit religious freedom when hate, violence, and terror is advocated at a mosque? Some nations you may consider more sophisticated in their sensibilities than ours indeed limit this kind of religious activity. I am certain that the ACLU would strenuously object should we attempt such an approach. I can give you countless other examples, but won't in the interests of brevity. However, the root of the problem will IMO be the tension between the wide scope we afford religious expression and the violent form such expression takes place when exercised by Muslim fascists, a term I like because it is perfectly descriptive and which I will not allow to be bowdlerized. We are in a new and challenging environment in which the old rules do not serve us very well. It's time to re-think our response and the means by which we protect ourselves from this threat without limiting civil liberties to any appreciable extent. The first thing we need to do is recognize that we face a very different kind of risk than those the Founding Fathers could have possibly imagined in the 1770s when they were worried about buidling a structure for a new nation, federalism and preventing religious oppression. Do we engage in internment of Muslims? No. Do we allow law enforcement to engage in profiling? Of course we do. It's rational given the circumstances. Do we prohibit the spreading of incitements to hate and violence made in the guise of religious teachings? Something to think about. Perhaps, though I definitely recognize the risk in doing so. Do we liberalize wiretapping and the interception of electronic communications? Yes, and it has been done. Do we require that manufacturers of encryption software make decoding technology available if necessary? Perhaps so. Do we allow law enforcement to engage in limited preventive detention as is routinely allowed in many "sophisticated" European countries? I should think such a program might be very valuable. We need to think about our protection in a completely different way because we face a threat our system simply does not deal with effectively. I trust ourselves to make the right choices and, most important, trust the courts to set parameters which not only accommodate our new needs but also protect individual freedom.

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