It is rare indeed that I read an article that so closely follows the mould of my own thoughts on a matter. One stand-out paragraph (among several!): >And then

It is rare indeed that I read an article that so closely follows the mould of my own thoughts on a matter. One stand-out paragraph (among several!): >And then there is the rapid casting aside of ancient, wise rules. Our irreplaceable liberty and justice, which took a thousand years to create, are in shreds thanks to hasty and emotive measures that did no good. And now we have the shame of lawless confinement of untried men in Guantanamo, of torture that Englishmen, far fiercer and crueller than we think we are, abandoned as barbaric hundreds of years ago. And we have the horrors of ‘extraordinary rendition’ by secret flights to secret prisons, in which dark things took place. How can we claim to stand for liberty and justice if we do such things? Yes indeed, how can we claim to stand for liberty and justice if we do such things? Another: > these things would still be hard to prevent if we turned ourselves into a totalitarian state of surveillance, identity cards, perpetual searches of the innocent – like going through an airport, only all the time. Yes. This is important. There is a certain level of destruction and terrorism that we, as a society, must learn to accept as inevitable, unstoppable. We should still try to stop all terrorism, of course, but we should maintain no illusions about what is even theoretically possible. There is no amount of money or effort or freedom we can spend to prevent all terrorist attacks. Therefore, it's important for us to take these blows, much as we take the blows of natural disasters, and simply move on. Our society is mighty, and we can do it.