-=> Quoting Paul Nixon to Steve Gunhouse on 27 Jul 96  06:46 <=-
 Re: Terror 
 SG> Did you see the Deep Space 9 episode where the Changelings were
 PN> I don't seem to be able to catch DS9 on a consistant basis...
 
 SG> attacking  Earth? That was essentially the point of the episode. If you
 SG> do all the  sweeps and stuff - especially out of proportion to the
 SG> actual threat -  then the terrorists have won. That's not what their
 SG> hypothetical Earth of  the future - or our country now - is about.
 PN> Agreed.
For reference, it was mostly a Psy. Op. They somehow managed to work it 
so that the wormhole opened many times - later interpretted as a possible 
fleet of cloaked ships. They caused some small damage, and a certain 
opportunistic Admiral decided to capitalize on the situation as well. He 
decided that Earth wasn't tough enough, so he'd use the danger to get his 
people into positions of authority and to get his "police state" rules 
accepted - a peaceful military coup, if you will. In part two, they found 
out there were only 4 Changelings on all of Earth and that they hadn't 
done some of the more serious damage, and Sisko put the rest together.
Sisko's own father was the primary person (whom we saw anyway) protesting 
the "police state" rules - armed patrols, blood tests, etc. So before he 
discovered the Admiral's plot, he was torn between his duty to protect 
the Earth and his father's opinion that he was helping to destroy it. 
Once the plot was known there was no longer any internal conflict. 
(Strange how those things always work out so well on TV.)
Would have been interesting to see how Sisko resolved the dilemma if 
there had been no such plot ... but that would probably take a whole 
season to resolve, not just two shows!
 PN> We've had how many of these things in the past?  We've had how many
 PN> people killed?  Ten or so years ago there were over thirty thousand
 PN> takeoffs per day.  (Most days the same number of landings )  Now
 PN> that figure has to be much higher today...how many get blown out of
 PN> the sky?  Is this going to degenerate into another "if it saves one
 PN> life" whine?  Or will we see politicritters making more laws...that
 PN> will have zero effect?
 PN> We're allowing ourselves to be whipped into a frenzy by the press.
 PN> I'm gonna suggest that the threat isn't such that we have to hunker
 PN> in the bunker.
Here's the biggest point: so far, we've had almost the least amount of 
terrorism in the free world. Those places with more terrorism have 
imposed tough laws, but they have still had more terrorism than us. Just 
look at Ireland or the West Bank. Obviously the laws aren't addressing 
the root cause, and so are ineffective.
Our laws have so far been better, though sometimes I wonder if it'll last 
long. Of course, the clincher is that people will take it as just more 
government tyranny (whether or not that is the intent). They may catch 
more terrorists, but there will also be more to catch!
Steve
... Have you ever killed anyone?  Yeah, but they were all bad
--- GEcho 1.00
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