That being said, I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers, either. But, as I mentioned before, that doesn’t disqualify me from pointing out when things don’t work. I think I’ve said before that I don’t have to be an expert on parenting to tell someone who beats their kids that they are doing something wrong.

Just because there are no easy answers that work, doesn’t mean it’s OK to go with the ones that don’t, especially when they involve significant negative side effects, such as the loss of civil liberties (domestically) or the deaths of tens of thousands of people (abroad). An unprovoked attack that kills thousands of people is just as evil whether you are using commercial or military aircraft.

Of course, it’s also important to address the root of the problem as well as treating the symptoms. IMHO, that starts with trying to understand why people do things like this, rather than completely fabricating such ridiculous explanations as “they hate our freedom”, etc. If such false theories continue to be promoted (and accepted) it will only lead to an escalation of the violence rather than solutions.

There’s also some old-fashioned wisdom that suggests that one should do unto others as they would have others do unto them. I think the same person also had some advice on what to do when someone attacks you unjustly, but if I remember correctly I don’t think the response he suggested involved bombing the crap out of people who had nothing to do with it.

Another great example is the machine gun toting guards that were lining the NYC train/subway system after 9/11. What are they going to do, open fire with automatic weapons in a station packed to the brim full of people? No, they are just there to look intimidating, and give people who are easily manipulated the impression that they are “safer”.

Airplane stuff is the same way. Take the whole air marshal thing; it does absolutely no good (against a 9/11 style attack) to have a guy with a gun on every flight, because all you’re doing is giving the terrorist group easy access to a gun. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with an obvious strategy for 5 or 6 guys who are working together on a suicide hijacking to force the marshal to reveal himself (using a decoy) and then take the gun from him. (Same with armed guards in schools too, but that’s another subject)

Third example (this is maybe going off on a bit of a tangent): all the anti-illegal immigration groups have been including (since 9/11) “anti-terrorism” in their reasons for trying to close the borders, forgetting that most of the 9/11 hijackers entered the country on valid visas.

As for the no-fly list, this story is a more humorous example of one flaw in that system, but another is that you have no guarantee that all potential terrorists will be on it, and secondly if they were, they could just obtain false ID and not use their real names.

The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous to me, but what’s even more ridiculous is the amount of people who seem to buy into the theory that employing as many “big-brother-ish” watchdog measures as we can think of somehow makes for a better society. When I was in school I remember “Brave New World” being required reading, but apparently a lot of people were sleeping through that. Maybe they should add 1984 to the list.