pointedview

I had to repost this, and thanks to streamweaver for posting it initially.

Terror Fears Don't Trump Court Rules

Hurrah, Atlanta, GA. There's hope for us yet.

Read down to the end of the article; it's worth it.

"We don't yet live in a society in which everyone must always go through metal detectors everywhere we go." -- First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams

I encourage you to read this New York Times Magazine article first. Full credit to my friend Terrance over at The Republic of T for linking it first. It's long, but well worth the read.

In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

The information cited in the article gets worse. Furthermore, please, pay close attention to the number of Republicans that are quoted with negative things to say. It's not just partisan politics as usual here, folks. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, so to speak.

I'm not saying Kerry is a wonderful candidate. I'm not. But, quite simply, he scares me less than the alternative.

I nabbed this meme from altamont: it tracks the popularity of your interests as compared with other LJ users. 13,698 users are interested in a single television show, Alias, as opposed to a mere 428 who cite autonomy as an interest. No wonder the country as a whole is willing to exchange liberty for the illusion of safety.

Twin Peaks is just barely more popular than Firefly at the time of this writing; I'm betting that will change after the release of Serenity. I am among a mere 21 others who list meursault as an interest, which suits me fine. More of the smoky white Burgundy for us, as there's precious little enough of it to begin with.

I was, however, encouraged to see that Neil Gaiman is popular enough at least to be counted as a Common interest. Heck, he's more popular than John Woo on LJ by far. *chuckles*

This whole thing reminds me that it wouldn't hurt to update my Interests list.

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