Unfortunately while most Londoners were quite adult and still remember “Keep Calm – Carry On”, their politicians have drank fully of the hysteria, either because they really are that short-sighted or because it’s useful for their political gain.

As an aside, a friend of mine recently told a story about how he happened to have been on the last flight out of Boston before the 9/11 flights, as well as being in London during the Underground bombing, and he thought that the UK’s response to acts of violence by extremists (they tend to use that word instead of terrorists) was far more adult compared to that of the U.S. after 9/11. Perhaps they had more experience dealing with these sorts of criminal acts, given their experience with the “Irish Troubles”; but most Londoners were bound and determined not to change the way they lived as a result of acts of “extremists” or “terrorists”.

After all, the moment you do, whether it is by pointless acts of throwing piles of water bottles in front of airport checkpoints after confiscating them from travelers, or descending to the levels practiced by Chinese Communists torturing American Servicemen during the Vietnam War (which we denounced at the time as torture which violated international law), and practicing said techniques on prisoners in Guantanamo and Iraq — or using massively disproportionate acts of violence in the Gaza Strip — the terrorists have won.

Just because Hamas and al-Qaeda have perpetrated massively criminal acts and taken positions which are unreasonable and evil does not constitute valid justification to do arbitrary things to fight them; in fact, doing so usually weakens us and strengthens them.