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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (15464)	11/7/2003 6:06:27 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793623

I do agree as you know, that a very sincere effort needs to be taken to keep illegals out. BUT we will also have to stop the groups sponsoring these folks from entering this country illegally, and also stop the lawyers from immediately screaming that these people are refugees from 'whatever tin pot country' they are fleeing from. I agree with you. I am talking about public fear. Public fear is irrational. I am not personally afraid of terrorists at all. I say that as someone who is more vulnerable than all but a tiny percentage of the population. A plane came down here; anthrax was here; the sniper was here; and the next attack is likely to be here. I'm not running for cover. I am a calm, rational person with some schooling in risk assessment. The public has no concept of relative risk and the media is no buffer. They scream bloody murder about poison in Tylenol bottles, which killed, what, one or two people. Yet they get into their cars every Labor Day where WMD levels of carnage are done every year. The public is utterly ignorant and irrational about relative risk. So when I say the public will turn on Bush, that's where I'm coming from. The WH played on this fear when to went after public support for its programs. And IMO it will bear its wrath if we get hit again in a preventable scenario. I'm not saying that's right or fair or logical, only predicting that it will happen. How much security is enough Karen? There could never be enough security to guarantee no further attacks. I think people, even the irrational and fearful public, understand that. But there have been a lot of reasonable ideas floated that haven't gone anywhere. I think to protect itself from a backlash, as well as to protect us from terrorists, the administration should either do them or go through an open process and actively decide not to do them, with rationale, not just leave them floating on the breeze to be reclaimed by the injured and the scared and the media at such time as we're hit again. [This is no different than my assertion that the administration should tell us why it's putting hundreds of billions and almost all its eggs in the Iraq basket when there are other alternatives.] Some ideas that I think should get a full discussion and a public up or down decision include, yes, putting a marshal on every plane, national ids, with or without retina scan, cargo inspections, tracking down and removal of illegals and preventing reentry. I'm not saying that we should do all those things, only that they are reasonable suggestions that have been aired and that the WH is vulnerable if any of them could have prevented the next attack but was given short shrift. In my own mind, we shouldn't bother much with threats with the potential to kill people in twosies and threesies. That happens every day from ordinary house fires. We can absorb that kind of loss, even though it's unfortunate. The things that kill hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands the country will not tolerate, IMO.