Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NightOwl who wrote (126050)	3/12/2004 9:02:40 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi NightOwl; Re: "Perhaps my perception is wrong and OBL is a monster of one. But Israel's history ...no, mankind's history, suggests that OBL's arrest conviction and punishment, or the instantaneous elimination of all AQ, will not solve the problem." Where have I ever said that owlyers would solve the problem? Any student of information theory will assure you that there are very few solvable problems. Most problems are intractable. For that matter, capturing OBL is at least partly a military problem, given the conditions in the places he hangs out. What's not a military problem is *preventing terrorism, which is a somewhat different thing from capturing OBL. -- Carl P.S. We've been sidetracked into talking about owlyers, the more important part of the "war on terrorism" is the police (and FBI, CIA, etc.) The primary purpose of the police is not to protect the citizenry from criminals or terrorists, their purpose is to punish those who disobey the laws*. If you have trouble understanding this as it applies to the "war on terrorism", you should consider the fact that planning a terrorist act is, by itself, a violation of the law. So the actions of the police can end up protecting the citizenry. But that is not the primary purpose of the police. It is only in a police state where the primary purpose of the police is "protection", or where the citizens look primarily to the police to make them safe. In a free country like (most of) the US, it is the individual's own responsibility to protect himself, which is why we are a nation of gun owners and gun users. If "protection" were the primary purpose of the police we'd simply put all Moslems in jail.