Infinite MonkeysThere ARE ways to be more secure than we are now, while preserving more freedom than we currently enjoy. For example:
We claim to be "at war", but instead of taking a posture of actually protecting our borders and homeland in a real sense, we instead send our troops abroad and rely on inept law enforcement operations to try to police our homeland. Instead, why don't we:
1. Temporarily close the borders. We are "at war", after all. Six months of zero immigration and highly restricted international travel should be enough time to get the next couple of steps enacted.
2. Bring the troops home (all of them, not just the ones in Iraq) and redeploy them along our borders. Give them authority to shoot on sight any unauthorized border traffic.
3. We'll have a problem with the former supply of "undocumented" labor. Once the six months has expired, dramatically loosen restrictions on immigration, but force all immigrants to enter through authorized checkpoints and undergo background checks. Let anyone who passes a background check through, but only Mexican and Canadian nationals.
4. Start taking the steps necessary to reduce federal services available to non-citizens, so that the burden of the influx is not too severe.
5. Stop sending money to Israel, Egypt, and other middle-eastern countries. Stop sending troops, stop meddling in their affairs. We're "at war." We don't have the time or resources to deal with other people's problems right now.
6. Allow drilling in ANWR and other "restricted" oil sites for a period of 20 years. We're "at war", so we need to have a short-term moratorium on sensitive environmental concerns in order to become more "energy sovereign." Negotiate with the Canadians to begin work on extracting frozen oil deposits from the tundra.
7. Once the borders are secure, we can focus virtually all of our airport security measures on international flights, increasing security there while reducing the hassle for domestic flyers.
Before you tell me how "impractical" these measures are (did I mention we are "at war"?), you might think about how much LESS practical the idea of crawling through every cave and spider hole on the globe in search of "evil men" is, not to mention suspending the very liberties you claim to be protecting for 70+ years (nice one, Newt).
By the way, these measures will also grind the influx of foreign illegal drugs to a halt. We're "at war" with the drug trade too, right? Two birds with one stone.
Free countries fight defensive wars. Empires crush their potential enemies in order to keep the world under their thumb.
Posted by RobbL at August 20, 2004 01:00 AM | TrackBack