The man is an obvious blithering idiot. I hope I do not have to go over his "recommendations" to prove my point. At first reading I thought this was a sarcastic piece, pointing out what horrible things we would have to do to our economy and nation to achieve "perfect safety." Then I recognized the name Gar Smith.

Smith is no web looney. He is a big name in the Earth Island Institute, and an influence in the Green Party. If he had political power, he would try and do exactly these things. And he and his ilk are a lot closer to achieving power in this country than the right-wing crackpots are.

The Green Party landed 2,882,955 votes in 2000. The closest candidates that could be considered really "right wing", Buchanan and Phillips, landed 546,915 between them, or about 1/5th of the votes of a single radical left party.

I remembered where I ran across Smith before, in this space article. Thought he was an idiot then, too.