JERUSALEM — So I was walking to a book store at the local mall to buy the weekend papers before sundown. At the entrance, I passed through the metal detector and opened my backpack for the guard. Business as usual.
The man behind me was an Arab with a baby in a stroller. Out of laziness — I could tell by the shrug and the look on the his face — the guard told the man to use the other door that had neither a metal detector nor any other security. The guard obviously did not want to bother checking the stroller personally.
If I were in the United States, I would have thought the act was a nice one towards a father with a baby. In Israel, my reaction was: “That would be an easy way for someone to sneak a bomb into a mall!” Then I shrugged and went to buy my papers.
(For the record, I would have thought the same thing if the father had not been an Arab. I just don’t like people bypassing security as a result of laziness.)
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Not so fast there friend… I think I can match that.
In my post on Islamic fascism, titled “Islam is Like a Disease — It will Kill You”, the first line in the body was -
… and so will our lackadaisical security posture.
I continued,
This past October, I was on vacation to see the Grand Canyon. As our small airport tour bus came into the vicinity of the Hoover Dam, we had to pass through the dam “security” they “installed”. There was a lone police car parked with no one in it. Our tour bus (airport shuttle type) was “inspected” by the Homeland Security dam guard who placed a foot on the first step of the bus as he leaned in to say “Good Morning”. Our driver then handed him one of the boxed continental type breakfasts we received as part of our tour “package” and he waived us through.
You can read the rest here if interested.
http://onislamicfascism.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/islam-is-like-a-disease-it-will-kill-you/ Ben(Quote)
Ben, so you really think that a tour bus full of people (and therefor not full of explosives) is a threat to the hoover dam? You might die in the bus, but the security for that should be when you boarded the bus, not upon arrival at the dam.
I don’t think the threat from suicide bombings in the US is anywhere near high enough to justify Israel style security checkpoints. You have to be quite the paranoid person to think it is worth the cost and government intrusion. Mike(Quote)
Mike,
The bus occupants could have represented a spearhead to a larger operation, so yes indeed, it represents a potential threat to the dam.
And yes, the bus should have been scrutinized well before it reached the dam.
Although I agree to the fact suicide bombings in the U.S. is nowhere near that of what Israel experiences, my Israeli girlfriend who was with me on that trip looked at me and communicated her dissatisfaction about U.S. security measures. In effect, she was saying we don’t “get it”.
You may think I am being paranoid, but the lax attitude about potential is what gave us 9/11. It would be foolish to ignore that potential again.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should wait for the next big one — maybe a nuke det. in Boston harbor for example — before we should get serious about security. Yea — we need more death to justify expense. Ben(Quote)
As bad as 9/11 was, suicide bombings in the US are extremely rare and beyond intelligence gathering, public vigilance, and simple measures like locking cockpit doors, there isn’t much we can do about future attacks. Anything beyond that such as security chekcpoints is going to be excessively costly and intrusive unless our intelligence gathering believes an attack is likely.
I’d expect your Israeli girlfriend to be dissatisfied with our security given what she deals with on a daily basis in Israel, but that doesn’t make that level of security any more necessary here in the US. Mike(Quote)
Mass shootings in public places is a much more frequent event here in the US — you should be much more concerned with the ease of getting high powered guns than you are with Islamic suicide bombings. Mike(Quote)
RE:that level of security any more necessary
While I can agree to the issue of “levels of security” for now, I believe it is only a matter of time before we get suicide bombers.
I also believe that when we get a nuke or chem. detonation in one of our cities, we will then see levels of security which will make us wish we had Israel’s measures in the first place.
America may not understand now, but when we do, the meaning of the term “rude awakening” will be well understood. Ben(Quote)
RE:concerned with the ease of getting high powered guns
That’s a law enforcement issue. It’s working. In fact, we should look to Switzerland’s gun laws for guidance.
Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nf1OgV449g&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Ben(Quote)
Note, Ben: The Swiss don’t have the security state you’re advocating. They have people who are prepared to protect their homes. And, they’re not taking their rifles onto buses.
I’m with you, Mike: Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for security deserve neither (B. Franklin). Jeff(Quote)
Sorry Jeff, I got onto a tangent. You see, the discussion sequed over to law enforcement and gun control which reminded me of Switzerland and, well, you see how my mind works now and for that, I’m truly sorry. Ben(Quote)
RE:Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for security deserve neither
Yes, I’m familiar with this one. Many of my friends frequently throw that out.
I’m not for a police state either, but I am more concerned about how ruthless we are going to be to ourselves after a nuke/chem det. when it could be avoided by turning up the security just a tad.
I’d rather have that tad now as opposed to the ruthlessness later. Ben(Quote)
“I also believe that when we get a nuke or chem. detonation in one of our cities, we will then see levels of security which will make us wish we had Israel’s measures in the first place.”
The flawed assumption is that Israel’s security is necessary or would even be able to prevent that, and that the possibly over the line electronic spying that we currently tolerate is inadequate. Mike(Quote)
“That’s a law enforcement issue. It’s working. In fact, we should look to Switzerland’s gun laws for guidance.”
This was an easy topic for me to pick on, because based on your prior comments, I knew you would defend gun laws.
Aren’t most of the mass shootings carried out with legally obtained guns? Dekalb, VA Tech, Fort Hood, Clifton Church, Columbine — all carried out with legal guns AFAIK. The NRA would fight all the laws that would have prevented these attacks, citing 2nd amendment rights. We have to accept these attacks as unavoidable, to live with this right. I am not here to attack gun rights, just to use it as an example of something you will accept regardless of cost.
Back to the security issue, I think many of us are also willing to risk some remote chance of attack in exchange for preserving our rights to privacy, much in the same way you are willing to risk being involved in a mass shooting to preserve gun ownership. After all, we have laws against terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder…it is just an enforcement issue. Mike(Quote)
Mike, I disagree with you on the gun rights front. While I’m certainly not in the NRA’s camp of “every gun is a good gun, and there ought not be any restricts” (nevermind their misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment, I do feel you could ban guns completely and there would still be gun violence. The only difference would be that the guns would have been illegally obtained, and as this country’s experience with alcohol and drug “enforcement” has shown, driving a market underground by making the product illegal has profound effects, one of which is to make the illegal object easier to obtain. (For instance, heroin and marijuana, which are reportedly easier for a teenager to obtain than a six-pack of beer.) Jeff(Quote)
(apologies for the typos) Jeff(Quote)
As long as we have government, we need to be armed. It serves to allow us to take our country away from them if we need to do it. They serve at our pleasure; not the other way around. As you can tell by the direction our country has taken lately, it’s looking more and more like the best idea in the Constitution. Ben(Quote)
Ben, the idea in the Constitution, unless you accept Justice Scalia and the NRA’s self-serving interpretation, was that STATES would be able to maintain standing militias because they were seen as the best defenses against a tyrannical national government. It goes hand in hand with the fear of a national standing army. The Civil War, to some extent, probably showed that fear to be a real one.
At any rate, personal gun rights were not contemplated by the US Constitution prior to DC v. Heller, when a slim majority of the (unelected) US Supreme Court read them into it. Jeff(Quote)
I’m just very pleased that a community of commenters are now discussing among themselves. Color me happy! Sam Scott(Quote)
Sam — you have 500K hits, and 3 unique visitors. Congrats!
Mike(Quote)
Mike, someone knows about Internet marketing! Sam Scott(Quote)
Jeff — I agree with you that if you make all guns illegal that there would still be gun violence, but my point is not so much about gun laws but more about what level of freedom are we willing to sacrifice in order to reduce the chance of being the victim of random event X. Conservative America promotes gun ownership, even if some legal guns are used in mass killings in recent years…but takes a much different stance on the issue of what privacy they are willing to give up for security against “terrorists”. Mike(Quote)
Fair enough, Mike. Jeff(Quote)
No final thoughts?
Sam Scott(Quote)