So much for the only really free society in the middle east..

Hardly an excuse. Trading liberty for security or (anything for that matter) is not the hallmark of a free nation. It is a symptom of creeping tyranny, one that we here would likely be screaming about (or at least should be) were it happening here...and don't think for one second it can't happen here. I do pray, I pray the realize how dangerous this is and decide against it...or that the people of Israel wake up in a hurry and realize what they are allowing to happen and revolt against it. Of ALL people, the Israelis should know the danger this presents.

I agree. That is why God told the ancient Israelites that they would rue the day they asked for a 'king' to rule over them instead of HIM.

Yeah. We'd be screaming if it happened here. I know I'd be. Then again, we are not immediately surrounded by people trying to snuff out our entire existence. Israel V everyone else is like Utah V Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California, Oregon, Montana, N and S Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma and some other odds and ends like Wisconsin and Tennessee. "Excuses" are relative to everyone, I imagine.

Maggie these are microchips like what they put in your pets. People are now putting them in their children and I think I read somewhere that the military is doing it too. But I can not attest to that.

Say what?! WHICH "states?" The United States of America?! Not to me they haven't, here in Texas, & they'd better never try!!! Maggiepie "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter most." ~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

Like I said, the pot calling the kettle black. Why are we not questioning our governments sending tax dollars to admitted terrorists entities? We quibble over what Israel may or may not be doing to secure the safety of its citizens and are backing with tax dollars the very terrorists who are trying to kill every Israeli they can find. Our policy of funding terror while also funding 'the war on terror' is one of the reasons Israel has to go to such measures to secure safety for it's citizens!

Still feel comfortable in your Democrat/Liberal skin?

"history may not always repeat itself, but it always rhymes" Samuel Clemens. It's almost as if they forgot what happened just a brief time ago. Of all people, I would think something like this would be most appalling to them.

Some words from one of my nations founders come to mind.... "Those who would trade their essential liberties for the illusion of a little security, are deserving of neither liberty nor security" ~Benjamin Franklin No properly free society should ever consider something like this. Even if such great power is in currently benign hands, it may not always be so. I have even heard the argument (in other similar situations) that "well, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about". The problem with such flawed logic is that in a free society, a person does not have to prove they have nothing to hide...it is the burden of the accuser to prove they do. Things like this data base turn that completely upside down.

xfahctor, I can understand your sentiments and prerogative here but I do not think we are really that free considering what we have and are using today - GPS enabled smartphones. Personally, I believe the thumbprint database doesn't really have any restrictive purpose than a DNA database which the UK had proposed and fortunately voted out. On your last para, I believe that as much as it is the burden of the accuser to prove the defendant will be using loopholes of the law to prevent submission of his/her fingerprints - at the end of the day, it will just be another long process of litigation and wasting hard earned tax payers' monies.

For years here in Fl., we had to put our thumb print on our Driver's License as well as our picture. No one said a word against it. We also had to give our thumbprint to vote. Many banks still require a thumb print to cash a check if you do not have an account at their bank even if you have a check to cash that is written against their bank. I protested once, and they just said they would have the guard escort me out of the bank and they did. It was creepy.

My concern would be, what happens if they are invaded? An occupying force would have a ready made data base to track down everyone they wanted with no way for a resistance movement to hide.

Glad to hear that was voted down 3honor.

xfactor, what if your local grocery store was invaded or your pharmacy, they have so much info on most people that anyone could steal anyones identity in a heartbeat. Look what just happened to WalGreens. No one is safe anymore. Not even me and I refuse to have credit cards or cell phones or any of that stuff.

You would be surprised. Governments can be corrupted so easily, any government, and you know that money speaks. Money says everything in any country. Why are there so many countries rising up in protest in the Middle East? It is because they have no freedom. They are oppressed. They can't get jobs. They can't make ends meet. They can't get what they need for basic survival. People are dying every day because their governments aren't doing what they can to provide for them. Free society? People die for free societies, and people die for oppressed societies. People die just to make any government and society happen. I don't believe in a free society because thousands of people had to make sacrifices to get that so-called free society, and then there is still some kind of oppression from that free society.

I agree that no government of men can be truly free. We all have to give in order to get. And when you have to give up something to get something, there is not complete freedom. The governments that are being pulled down in the mid east needed to be pulled down, but what will they get for their efforts? It could be they get something worse as well as something better. My response was that when we look at the big picture in the mid east, there is ONE government that at least tries to honor human rights. And there is one government in the mid east that responds to its citizen's voice. You are right, no government can give absolute freedom. That is not the fault of the government per se, it is the fault of human nature in general.

You make some good points and while I agree with you philisophically for the most part, there is one government in the mid east who at least attempts to be a free society. All the rest make no attempt to provide protection of human rights to their citizens, hence the uprisings in the Mulim controled states. We can only hope they are not trading one nest of vipers for another.

You are right sourceseeker, what will be will be. My belief is that Jerusalem's history as the City of God began with the Jewish presence there. That's a long long time ago. It was on Mt. Moriah that Abraham took Isaac and God provided a suitable sacrifice. And people today do not know or care to know it's history. Islam and Christianity are new comers to that ancient city. And when Jerusalem was under Jewish control in our recent history, there was respect for all beliefs and pilgrims. The Jews will not divide Jerusalem. That would be like asking the Arabs to give up Mecca or Medina. Here is a bit of the spiritual history of Jerusalem which God describes as a burden to the entire world. Why? Because it is where HE chose to meet with mankind, with Abraham and thereby the Jews, and with the human race on Calvary. And so it is a burden to their hearts and spirits. Genesis 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. 2 Chronicles 3:1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. We are told in scripture that Jerusalem will be a 'burdensome stone' to the people of the world. It is because that is where God chose to meet mankind and at one time His glory abided there in the Temple. He promised that He would again return to set foot on the Mt. of Olives and judge the people of the earth from Jerusalem. For that reason, man's advesary comes against God by seeking to destroy Jerusalem. Zechariah 12:3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. Isaiah 66:10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: A prophecy of the end of the age: Jeremiah 3:17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. Micah 4:2 And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Revelation 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. Revelation 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The war that is coming will be fought over Jerusalem. Isaiah 66:10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:

Do you realize that just about every country in the world is represented in Israel? There are arabs in the Knesset and that they have their own party. There are many different religions living in Israel and they are all free to practice what they want. Anyone can be a citizen and receive all of the benefits of citizenship. They just have to learn Hebrew because that is the language of the country.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/freedom.html This site discusses Israel's position on basic human rights within the context of its founding documents and courts. No pluralistic country is without some problems arising from the implementation of it's ideals. Israel has shown that it is willing and able to confront the discrepencies between its ideals and the actual practice of those ideals. What Arab nation can say the same? In most Arab nations there is no attempt to provide freedom of religion or to provide courts that will mediate on charges of discrimination. You either are Muslim and a citizen or you are not and fined or imprisoned or often times killed. And, can America-after publishing a State Department document calling Israel into question on some of its human rights 'violations' claim innocence in its own treatment of religio? When the government orders the military to treat the Quran with respect and then orders the same military to burn the Bible? Me thinks it is sort of like the pot calling the kettle black.