Another poll, this time it's the Asbury Park Press

[brucin 923]

Again you miss my point. You can expect a few howlers out of 1.5 million people. Even on a list of 10,000. But you don't agree because you believe in absolute perfection. 100% accuracy, no false positives, and 100% sensitivity to evil.

 

If individuals successfully removed themselves from the list you'd be howling about how they had to go through all that B.S. to get off the list. Again, perfection, because the list shouldn't contain a single good guy.

 

If some agency showed up at their door and confirmed they were "safe" and they never got on the list you'd be moaning about how these unimpeachable individuals, every one an Eagle scout, had to give up 30 minutes of their time to show they were who they really were. In your perfect world nobody ever gets suspected or investigated without "due process." Because in your perfect world due process is a walk through the park, a painless cost-free procedure that takes up nobody's time. (Ask someone who has faced a frivolous lawsuit). As the great Mark Steyn has written, "the process is the punishment." Whether it's of the "due" or doo-doo kind, if some government agency decides to "process" you, win or lose, you lose.

 

On the other hand, if god forbid your neighbor's child met some horrible misfortune at the hands of someone who did not get on the list but should have, you'd be rending your garments and pissing magma. Because in your perfect world everyone knows the identity of each and every bad apple, to the person, and never confuses them with a good person even if they share the same name and looks like them. 

 

No, the real problem, in our imperfect world, is that someone or some group believes that there are 1.5 million horribly dangerous people walking around, and acts on that "reality." 

 

Is it true? Who knows. There may be just 10,000 or 1,000 or there may be 10 million.

 

And for that problem, the suspicion (to some degree correct, but mostly manufactured), there is no solution: a bureaucrat/totalitarian wet dream. We've already let people in who shouldn't be here. We have no idea who they are or where they are. We are reluctant to cut the snake's head off, so we create lists and lists and more lists and import more and more snakes lest the snakes already among us get ornery.

I can't tell if you're delusional or willfully ignorant.

 

I never said I expected perfection. What I expect is that people who are wrongly put on the list have a clearly spelled out process to dispute their being on the list in a court of law in a reasonable amount of time. I said nothing more. Anything else is a figment of your imagination.

 

I also expect the FBI or whoever to attempt to the best of their ability to keep someone on the list who clearly belongs on it. They obviously failed with the dirt bag who shot up Pulse. Perhaps if a judge had to review the files that judge may have kept him on the list. We'll never know because as it stands currently there is no accountability either way. That is the problem.

[Newtonian 453]

I can't tell if you're delusional or willfully ignorant.

 

I never said I expected perfection. What I expect is that people who are wrongly put on the list have a clearly spelled out process to dispute their being on the list in a court of law in a reasonable amount of time. I said nothing more. Anything else is a figment of your imagination.

 

I also expect the FBI or whoever to attempt to the best of their ability to keep someone on the list who clearly belongs on it. They obviously failed with the dirt bag who shot up Pulse. Perhaps if a judge had to review the files that judge may have kept him on the list. We'll never know because as it stands currently there is no accountability either way. That is the problem.

There's no way to get off these lists? I thought there was. I thought it took time and $$ but it could be done. I thought that's what posters were complaining about. That there was due process but it was, after all, a process. Is that what you mean by due process? Or did you mean no process? Or a process of your own design? Like successfully coloring a picture of a clown, which would barely take half an hour. 

 

But as you pointed out several times I'm a fucking deluded idiot, not worthy of engaging someone as insightful and knowledgeable and adept at name calling as yourself. Your grandmother's cat got on a list and it's SO UNFAIR! WAAAA! And they didn't even give poor puss a proper hearing.

 

Instead of figuring out why we suspect so many people let's set up special 12-person juries, a judge, a backup judge, dedicate 4-5 court officers, a stenographer, a few clerks, each to spend a couple of weeks providing due process to 1.5 million people in the U.S. plus the 3-4 million who they're considering. Let's exert every possible effort to determine if Mohammad should get a gun, purchase a robotic clitoris-removal system, or cart around 1000 lbs of fertilizer. After creating these monsters let's investigate each and every one carefully and deliberately so as not to violate their nonexistent rights.