Madness

"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
...
in article , Video Guy at gkasten at
brick
dot net wrote on 1/12/04 11:51 AM:
[snip]

Okay, my reaction was more emotional than rational, I'll admit. Still, the
whole notion of snooping and spying by Americans on other Americans
distresses me. Particularly since we've been through it before.

You are not alone here. We are still in the "hysteria phase" of learning to
cope with 9/11. Nearly everyone reacts emotionally to some part of the
attacks and the aftermath. It's still confusing to a lot of us who don't
understand the reasons why these things happened. I put those who are
charged with preventing another incident in this category too. We're ALL
confused. The ONLY thing we as Americans can do is understand that WE are
not the enemy, and we must not let ourselves BECOME the enemy. So with that
I'm in complete agreement with you about being distressed by the snooping.

Possibly, a letter of
concern to Staples corporate office, and maybe a similar letter to the
editor of the local newspaper might be more effective. If we are to
protect
GA (and all of our other liberties), we must be vigilant but reasonable
in
our responses to these incursions away from sanity. Otherwise, we'll
never
be able to get enough mainstream support to realize the balance we need
between security and freedom.


Well, sure. On the other hand, if that incident had happened to ME, and I
didn't have you around to cool me off, I'd have gone to that store and
beaten the **** out of that clerk.

Are you sure that the clerk is the "bad guy" in any of this? Admittedly, he
instigated the situation, But it traveled through a group of people, who
ALL should have exercised much better judgment. Seems like they ALL failed.
Probably the clerk and the cop who was ultimately the one sent to the house
are the two least culpable.

Of course, that's just the way I see it. YMMV

VideoGuy

in article , Video Guy at gkasten at brick
dot net wrote on 1/12/04 8:28 PM:

Are you sure that the clerk is the "bad guy" in any of this? Admittedly, he
instigated the situation, But it traveled through a group of people, who
ALL should have exercised much better judgment. Seems like they ALL failed.
Probably the clerk and the cop who was ultimately the one sent to the house
are the two least culpable.

Of course, that's just the way I see it. YMMV

VideoGuy

I don't disagree with you, Video Guy, but I guess I just expect more of
people, even a young (not sure how old he/she was) store clerk. I guess when
you get right down to it, we're all covering our asses. That's one of the
things I hate about the current climate in this country. When everything
starts boiling down to "CYA", nobody wins.

Pertinent to this group, one of the most disturbing quotes in one of the
articles of this incident is that the clerk apparently was "alarmed by [us]
asking how to fly airplanes and said that was against the law". Bad trend if
the non-pilot public has the impression that learning to fly is illegal.

Eric