At 08:43 AM 2/28/02 -0800, John Young wrote: >You know, he said, I'm very troubled by what my company >is doing, but I think in times of danger we all have to do >what we can to protect the nation, and I think you should >get in touch with the authorities to be sure information >you get is okay to publish. No, I said, that's not for me,
All purpose response to recruitment or general national defense arguments: I think that it's important to defend myself, my family, and my community. In fact, I think it's so important that I'm not comfortable delegating it to a collective monopoly. None of us can be sure exactly what will be needed to defend us from our enemies. Public and private authorities thought for years that the crew and passengers of highjacked planes should submit meekly to their highjackers. This turned out to be a bad mistake. Maybe the Feds know best, maybe someone else knows best, maybe I know best. Neither the Feds, nor someone else, nor I can be sure what's the best way to defend our community in a complex strategic and tactical environment. It is possible, for example, that the best way to defend our community is for all of us to carry weapons at all times and kill any terrorists we happen to encounter. Or maybe not. Small-group personal attack, was the method used by the passengers of UA93 to stop its use as a weapon of war. In any case, many different approaches are possible. I think that it's important that we try all sorts of different tactics to defend our community. Time will tell which are best. So the government will deploy its strategy and tactics and the rest of us will deploy ours. I call it Open Source Community Defense (OSCD). DCF ---- Back in April of '75, my 5th great-grandfather Captain William Frizzell defended his community against an Evil Empire by grabbing his rifle and marching from Woodstock, Massachusetts (now Connecticut) to Cambridge to protect its magazine from British gun and powder grabbers.
