Carrol Cox wrote:
> ". . . what do you pacifists and fatalists and revolutionary defeatists
> suggest be done? Just let them be? Act nice? Invite them over for
> coffee?"
>
> This simply baffles me. All I can do is give a series of anecdotes,
> fictional and actual.
>
> The nice thing about problems/questions in many math texts is that you
> find the answer in the back of the book. The condition for that is the
> premise that all the problems _have_ answers. This is coddling the
> children. The book should have a problem like, "If 5+3 = 7, what is the
> average number of cows per infant in Figi?" After all, everyone knows
> that if a question can be asked, there must be a good answer.
>
<...snip...>
Carrol - I think you are overlooking the demand here. We are dealing with a government doing the wrong thing against terrorist who have killed a lot of people in the U.S. and successfully terrorized them. We are opposed to the evil things this government is doing in response. We need to be able to answer the question: "what would you do if you were in charge?". People simply will not consider anyone a serious critic who refuses to answer this question.
You need not have a total solution - simply something that would be as effective and do less harm -- assuming you rather than they were in charge.