Wish the BEST for the Flying Pig this Weekend.

[ProkNo5]

Bad things happen. Do you really want us to be protected from everything? Should the police be on every street corner frisking everybody to see if they've got bombs because random acts of terror are a constant threat? Living in a completely secure environment is impossible. Surrounding us in armored cars and SWAT teams gives us a false sense of security and actually puts us in more danger than if we were given more freedom to be aware and in control of our surroundings.

And quite frankly, while we're busy focusing all of our security efforts on airplanes, schools, movie theaters, and marathons, actual terrorists are focusing their attention elsewhere. It's completely perverse. There will be other bad things that will happen. Why not be allowed to enjoy life in between?

[natininja]

IMO, reacting to the last terrorist attack is a poor strategy for defending against the next one. All the technology and man hours spent defending against attacks that already happened are very expensive. Meanwhile, the bad guys have probably retired that trick from their arsenal, since they know people will have it on their minds and be looking for signs (like abandoned backpacks). The crowd has more eyes than the police.

When you consider only 3 (I think) people were killed in Boston, including the MIT campus cop, it's pretty insane to try to even fathom how much money is spent per casualty as a result. We'd save far more lives and money by thinning down our bloated highway network.

[kjbrill]

ProkNo5....

You and I are obviously on different sides of this discussion. I don't happen to think armed security around a public event in the light of the Boston occurrence is a bad thing. I do abhor when private citizens are saying we all have to be armed to protect our freedoms and safety. When it gets to that point I would just as soon cash it in. When we can no longer claim this is the land of the free and the brave, OK time to quit. But free and brave people have organized statutes and public servants we depend on to keep us safe, that is what keeps us brave and free. It is not just an every-man-for-himself free-for-all.

We all need to be able to look forward to our daily lives without fear, that is an American Right. But we also must be willing to recognize when circumstances have temporarily interrupted that. I started life during WWII. After that we went through the Korean and the Vietnam wars. Then came the Gulf war, the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war, along with whatever other wars we were drawn into. One of the biggest problems is several of these wars were waged around theological differences. Fighting someone else's view of GOD is a loser from the beginning. You might win the physical war, but you have never won the ideological war.

I look forward to the New York Marathon with trepidation. It is ideal for some other jerks to come out of the woodwork, whether an organized effort or not. Anything to embarrass and belittle our way of life. When you are the biggest target in the world, that is unfortunately what happens.

Let's not be divisive among ourselves, but resolute in how we will defeat those who oppose us. When I see statements among Americans as to how to approach this, it makes me sad. We are Americans, let us unite and find the things we agree on as to how to defeat the common enemy.