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To: Joe NYC who wrote (54641)	9/12/2001 11:42:14 AM
From: Milan Shah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

I think a sweep of the US based sympathizers and collaborators would turn up a goldmine of information about their foreign connections. I was thinking along these lines myself, when I realized the folly in it - the problem is that 20 years from now, the right of the government to investigate such things (ie, put a limit on personal freedom of speech), will end up being abused by corrupt government officials. They are going to show up at your door because you just typed in "Death to America" on the Internet, and they are going to confiscate your computers and freeze your bank account, until your guilt or innocense is proven. This becomes the classic guilty until proven innocent. Infact, I think I just sealed my fate as well... Milan

To: Joe NYC who wrote (54641)	9/13/2001 1:21:19 AM
From: jamok99	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 275872

Joe, Re: Your position (post #64641). Much of what you propose in the name of retaliation and security would make America indistinguishable from, I hate to say it, Nazi Germany in some respects - squash free speech (pamphlet publishers deemed as 'subversive' are liable to be prosecuted), declare a whole class (or race) of people as suspect, and dangerous to the state, making them legitimate 'targets' for all kinds of harrassment and curtailment of rights accorded other citizens, etc. If one does these things, you've fundamentally changed many of the ideals and premises America was founded on - and do you still have a country that is still recognizable as "American", except in the sense of our 'worst' American selves? Everything has 2 sides to it - and things are never as "Black or White" as you describe - If we applied your rules, then as Milan Shah pointed out, everyone of dark skin becomes suspect, and he'd probably be jailed by now. By those criteria, by all rights the Indians should have retaliated by obliterating all 'palefaces' when we committed the terrorist atrocity of Wounded Knee is the last century. They didn't have the means, but if they had, it would seem by your logic that every 'paleface' had some complicity in the act, so that genocide of whites would be justified. Yet from the 'American' viewpoint, we felt justified at the time - indeed, we felt threatened by the Indian's presence in 'our' land. Were we 'evil' then? If so, how and when did we become a "good" country? Sometime after the My Lai massacre in Vietnam? Or before that? My point is that it often depends on the 'lens' or perspective one uses as to whether acts are justified. I'm not making a case that what was perpetrated yesterday is in any way defensible - just that an 'indiscriminate solution',(one which stands the principal of innocent until proven guilty on its head), a solution that is justified by the heinousness of the act or the need for security springs from the same kind of blind, 'crazy' rage that perpetrated such an act in the first place. I do think that America will have to grapple with a very thorny dilemma in the days to come of how to balance the need for security by curtailing individual freedoms with the underlying ideals of a free society - at what point does such a society become distinctly un-American in nature? If that a price we must pay, is worth paying? It's ironic that the following thought comes to mind which, at the time, characterized the absurd dilemma posed by Vietnam: "In order to save the village, we had to destroy it" In order to save America, need we destroy its' fundamentals and ideals. Where's the balance? Good Q, imo. It might be good to keep in mind that people are neither inherently completely evil or good - the seeds for both reside in the nature of each and every one of us. If we don't manifest 'evil', it's not because it doesn't reside within us as a potential that may well emerge given the 'wrong' circumstances. To segment people into 'human' and 'subhuman' catagories is to externalize what is an internal problem within each of us. To demonize others, to strip them of their humanity, opens the gateway to treat them in barbaric ways - this is exactly what the Nazis did with the Jews - they were literally considered subhuman, and therefore devoid of any rights and dignity, and legitimate targets for abuse. I'm reminded of what the 'alien' in Carl Sagan's book/movie "Contact" said about humanity - something to the effect of that's what's so curious about this species - "Your dreams are so beautiful, and your nightmares so horrendous." Remember that both natures reside within each of us. And hope, for all our survival, that our "better natures" are able to contain our baser urges. Sorry for the rambling,or what may appear as 'preaching', but it's really what I think, and of course, just my 2 cents. Regards, Jamok