18 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
18 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
Failsafe
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<p>I just sent the following letter to the <cite>Boston Globe</cite><br />
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after reading Elaine Scarry’s excellent piece <a href="http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/265/focus/Failsafe+.shtml">Failsafe!</a>:</p>
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<hr />
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<p>Congratulations on having the bravery to publish Elaine<br />
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Scarry’s “Failsafe”. She is right to point out that distributed<br />
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threats require distributed countermeasures. She is right to point out<br />
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that centralized defense of the U.S. massively failed us. She is<br />
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right to point out that the founders of the U.S. envisioned citizens,<br />
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not standing armies, as the backbone of the nation’s defense.</p>
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<p>After all that argument and build-up, it is only unfortunate<br />
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that she stopped short of the logical conclusion: that to prevent<br />
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future hijackings, the logical course is to arm the passengers. </p>
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<p>The extension to other situations involving crime, terrorism, and<br />
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politics (insofar as the three are distinguishable at all) is left<br />
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as an exercise for the reader.</p>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=82085198">Blogspot comments</a></p>
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