Some Thoughts on the Latest Man-Caused Disaster Attempt
@140. G.L. Alston: – You keep missing the point and focus instead on meaningless minutae.
Really? This from a guy who thinks human beings are no different from computer software? Color me unimpressed.
- I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that he’s a great deal brighter than you are.
Based on what? Your cherry-picked quote doesn’t make Pournelle sound all that bright. But as we’ll see, it turns out that your quote is taken completely out-of-context and doesn’t provide Pournelle’s entire thought on this topic. Being somewhat familiar with Pournelle’s writing on the subject of failed federal bureaucracy, I expected as much as soon as I read your comment.
Pournelle’s comments weren’t limited to the snippet you cherry-picked. The simple fact is that NOT responding (at least) to past known attempts – as the content of your cherry-picked comment implies – will guarantee a repeat of same as long as there are jihadis intent on attacking the U.S. That goes without saying and of course Pournelle is not so stupid as you make him out to be. You clearly chose not to cite his quote with a link so that others would miss the rest of his commentary on this topic.
Pournelle goes on in addition to the quote you cherry-picked, to unabashedly support exactly what I wrote up above. He writes:
What we can do is be more discriminating on who gets to fly on US aircraft to US airports, particularly on international flights. Of course that would mean paying more attention to foreign nationals. It would also mean making profiles of potential terrorists, and searching all those that fit the top profile as well as random samples of those fitting smaller probability profiles. We can do risk analysis and cost/benefit models — but only if we allow profiling.
This one was particularly easy to spot given his association with Yemen in general and Yemen extremists in particular. Once again US authorities had enough information; and once again political correctness prevented any action. Unlike the Fort Hood murders, this politically correct failure didn’t cost any lives. Next time we’re unlikely to be so blessed.
Disingenuously leveraging Pournelle’s brain power simply because you lack your own didn’t get you very far, I’m afraid. In fact, you’ve effectively shot yourself in the foot and destroyed your own argument by doing so.
