At 10:23 AM -0400 9/26/01, David Boaz <dboaz@cato.org> wrote:

Dear Mr. Gaylor:

You know, I might even agree with you on this one. When you've got 100 employees writing hundreds of articles, it's hard to agree with every clause of every article. And I might even be willing to engage you in dialogue about it if you hadn't encouraged every person with an email account to flood my inbox with messages -- as if the justice of a position was determined by the number of angry emails it generates. That's not my idea of rational debate.

Also, next time you attack us, could you spell our name right?

David Boaz

Matthew Gaylor responds: I would hope it's not a debatable point when your Director of Defense Policy, Ivan Eland thinks victim disarmament is a good idea when he states "The ban against sharp metal objects (i.e., knives) aboard aircraft is a good one." [See <http://www.cato.org/current/terrorism/pubs/eland-010920.html>]. I think libertarian economist Walter Williams has the correct, and libertarian attitude when he wrote: "The new air safety regulations are consistent with today's anti-crime strategies: If people commit crimes with guns, call for gun control; if people commit crimes with knives, call for knife control. Current law prohibits pilots from having guns to protect their crew and passengers. That law should be changed. Instead of meekly going along with the FAA's new, costly, oppressive and stupid safety regulations, Americans should rebel against them. Are we so timid and feminized that we'll accept anything politicians do in the name of safety?" See: <http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20010926.shtml>. So my question to Mr. Eland is why is he willing to accept FAA regulations over freedom? And isn't Ben Franklin still right when he wrote: "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."? Regards, Matt- {Note this message is being sent to Freematt's Alerts, multiple thousands of subscribers worldwide.} ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************