IP: some thoughts on yesterday and liberty

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:49:01 -0700
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
Organization: http://www.templetons.com/brad

> On Tue, Sep 11, 2001 at 04:32:18PM -0400, David Farber wrote:
> > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784
>
>
> Quite.  Now the battle begins to do exactly what the terrorists wanted.
> They didn't have anything personal against the thousands in those buildings
> and on those planes, they didn't even know them.  They may hate the USA
> for what it has done and what they feel it has done to them and their
> kindred, but they gave their own lives (both the suicide pilots and those
> who the agencies will find and kill after the fact) for a reason.
>
> They wanted to make us hurt, which they've done, but they mostly
> wanted to make us fear.  They wanted us to be their instruments of
> destruction, by making us live in fear and take away our own freedoms,
> bring ourselves a step closer to living in an armed camp.  They live
> in an armed camp, why shouldn't we?
>
> The anger is immense and the temptations are great.  But we must ask
> why they did it, and not give them their goal, even if it is harder,
> and riskier not to give it to them.
>
> We should punish the attackers, not our own people.  And our task there
> is also hard, for we don't want to become like Israel, in an endless spiral
> of retaliation and escalation.  If we punish them we must punish all of
> them, and they must be certainly guilty so that the punishment doesn't
> bring rise to more people willing to suicide to make us fear.
>
> This is no easy challenge.  Indeed it is a terrible one.  But the
> alternative is to give them what they wanted so much they would die
> for it.



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