It is sooo much easier to just join a world view than it is to think about the complicated reality we live in.

If Hoover _were_ still in power, Ephron would not be beating her breast in public and getting lauded for it. She'd be hanging upside down in a basement some where getting beaten in private. Left, right or middle, I've begun to feel that most people care less about such simple and unglamorous things as 'what is and is not' and more about dressing for success. I wonder what she really thinks when no one is watching. Or does she? When a smug, self-celebrating and hermetic nit cogitates and no one is there to admire her for it, does it make a thought?

"I'm also decidedly lacking in sympathy for middle-aged adults who still have major issues with authority."

Like Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Madison... those guys?

Also, Ephron might not have that attitude if it weren't for the string of politically-motivated bogus terrorism warnings, all the terrorists that have been caught and promoted as being horrific monsters only to turn out to be harebrained schemers (cut down the brookly bridge with a blowtorch? blow up JFK? attack Fort Dix?) Then there are the terrorists whose prosecutions fell apart, or who the government eventually had to settle for a paltry sentence.

And it doesn't help when we know some of the US Attorneys were selected for their Republican political activism rather than their integrity or competence.

This Brooklyn US Attorney got up and said the JFK losers were going to blow up Queens. In reality, their supposed plot was entirely unfeasible and relied on assumptions about what would happen to a blown-up pipe - that the flame would travel through the pipe and spread all over the place causing a chain of explosions. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Which is what you'd expect of a plot hatched by a homeless guy and a drug addict.

As for the Fort DIx guys, it seems the main factor motivating them towards militancy was the government informant. Remove him, and no terrorism.

Authority did a bang up job on 9/11 ("you covered your ass", now begone).
And Tora Bora was - well, what it was!
This is pretty well documented history at this point.
Wake Up - Fool.

It is interesting that a lack of understanding exists of how vulnerable open societies are to the depredations of dedicated "bad people," whatever their motivations. Whether this is because of a lack of real world experience or complacency or just "political ideology at any price" is unclear to me. It does not take a lot of skill, education, experience, or much beyond very basic training to do lots of damage and harm to lots of people. Fortunately there exists a cadre of very experienced, superbly trained and very motivated "good guys" out there, making sure that the naive and foolish are as well protected as the rest.

"It is interesting that a lack of understanding exists of how vulnerable open societies are to the depredations of dedicated "bad people," whatever their motivations. "

Open societies are not at all vulnerable to the depredations of bad people who are terrorists. Nothing Al Qaeda does will make this open society go away. What *will* make this open society go away is if bad people in government do away with our freedoms in order to 'protect us'.

The most Al Qaeda can do is kill some Americans. Only Americans can shred the Constitution.

Being free means accepting risk. The safest people on earth are convicts in solitary confinement.

Several years back, the "Washington snipers", two guys with an ancient car, an $800 rifle, and $75 worth of ammunition were able to keep the middle atlantic on edge for weeks. Terrorists don't have to be exceptionally sophisticated to do considerable damage.