> No offense to you personally but statements like this scare me.

No offense to you personally, but you're an idiot.

Now I'll apologize for the name-calling, because this is just the sort of thing that we, as a country, do not need amongst our citizens who should be pulling together to steer us through a crisis. On the other hand, you're still an idiot. And I'm in a rotten mood and not feeling much like exercising tact to censor what I'm thinking.

With all due respect for your pacifist beliefs, I CANNOT figure out how you can come down on the troubled musings of a perfectly fine young man with all kinds of irrelevant rhetoric designed to confuse. Exactly what the hell did Eric say that "scared" you? That he is horrified by the lost of thousands of lives? That he is scared by the realization that private citizens in this country aren't as safe as they thought they were? That he is apprehensive about the course of the future? That he is appalled by the evil acts executed by the terrorists?

You've got some gall to post a contrary reply to honest, open, and sincere soul-searching with crap about some damned Iraqi mother. What the hell does apprehension about the future and loss of security in the United States have to do with Iraqi mothers? As near as I can tell (and it is difficult, because this is one of the most ludicrously inscrutable posts ever), you're using that as an example of how a particular line of thought can be abused. So freaking WHAT? ANY line of thought can be abused if you carry it too far, not far enough, apply it to the wrong situations, ignore overriding circumstances, isolate it from other relevant elements of the big picture, or do any number of other things to it. But life is too short to accompany every expressed opinion with an exhaustive list of every possible caveat ever.

It's one thing to have certain opinions about how we should go about reacting to this attack on the U.S. I don't agree with you at ALL, because I don't agree that your conclusions follow from your premises, that your effects follow from your causes, that your analogies are sound, that your ideas about what saves the most lives doesn't ultimately save the least, that diplomacy can work with madmen, that the whims of terrorists should be catered to, or that you even have any idea what those who oppose your viewpoints are even getting at. However, until now you've conducted your debating with courtesy and sincerity, and I have no problem hosting the discussion.

But give me a break. Eric said he was fearful about the future, not that we should sink all of Asia into the ocean. He didn't say, "...therefore we need to go on a MURDEROUS KILLING RAMPAGE, BECAUSE IT'S DEATH TIME FOR INNOCENT CIVILIANS!!!!!!!!!!!" He said he was scared for the future and disgusted that someone would want to kill thousands of innocent people so much that he would die to do so.

Don't freaking argue with that.

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Eric, you're a good man. Thank you for your honesty and openness.