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Good to hear from our neighbor to the North!
Okay, Bud, you're on the spot. You wrote, "There was no way of 'preventing' 911 unless you look at the root causes." Since you brought it up: What are thoe "root causes?"
I believe in treating others as I would be treated. But I challenge you: Put that into practice towards someone you catch in your house, God forbid, threatening to kill your loved ones. It' the Michael Dukakis syndrome - when asked if he would favor the death penalty for someone who brutally murdered his wife, he lost a huge number of votes by humming and hawing about it as if he would do for the bastard what he would have had the murderer do for him. The Golden Rule, pacificism and so forth are indeed golden, but a pacifist who is attacked by those who do not respond in kind to "do for others what you would have them do for you" will be a dead pacifist in short order.
I like that "simple and elegan t solution." To me, it is eliminate the terrorists. Doesn't get simpler than that, does it, eh?
The attempted parallel between the tsunami and terrorism is no good. Tsunamis don't conspire and plot repeated attacks.
As for being afraid, you confuse fear with vigilance. Only a damn fool suffers an attack like September 11th and does nothing to keep it from happening again. We had eight years of that, thanks to Bubba.
(I got a taste of the "real" price of gas in Edmonton this summer, thank you!)
That quote is from Ben Franklin. Confusing him with Osama reflects, like much of the rest of your little rant, a complete lack of knowkedge of America and Americans. But since you brought it up, remember that he lived in far different times. A madman couldn't poison a city in a few seconds, as could happen now thanks to the wonders of dirty bombs. The tension between liberty and secuirty is still very real, but the threat to security is far different. I might adapt his words to the present time as follows:
"Those who do not utilize their freedom in the cause of security deserve neither."
What I see you, kooka, FW and others doing is sacrificing security for freedom, thereby endangering their freedom and that of others.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
posted by
WriterofLight
on December 21, 2005 at 7:50 PM
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kooka, good to have you checking in, even if you are mistaken.
Please explain how returning our intelligence gathering and sharing capabilities to the pre-September 11 conditions that left the door open for that attack is any way, shape or form heroic or American. If anyone here is coming across as being afraid, it's you and your idealogical brothers and sisters.
You raise an interesting point about the odds of being a victim of a terrorist attack. Your location is going to have a direct bearing on those odds; living in New York City or another major metropolis or close to any other likely target for an attack will increase those odds. Beyond that, I will respond on two fronts. First, how about letting us know what the odds were of being the victim of a terror attack in New York City before the Patriot Act as opposed to after it was passed?
Second, you fail to take into account the indirect victims of terror attacks. All of us were affected by the short-term and long-term economic consequences of the September 11th attacks, from the spike in gas prices to the hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and the other results of the destruction of the World Trade Center. This is not to mention the costs and hassles of added security at airports and government faciltiies.
The victims of terror aren't just those killed or maimed in the attack itself. They are found throughout our country and the free world. Taking action to prevent terrorism does not only protect life and limb, but also the country as a whole. Imagine the economic costs to the country, indeed to the world, should a dirty bomb or a briefcase nuke be detonated in Manhattan, and you will get the idea.
You are right in that not fearing terrorism is a victory over it. But eliminating the threat so that we need not fear it in the first place is an even more assured victory. Thanks for an excellent comment.
posted by
WriterofLight
on December 21, 2005 at 7:33 PM
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fwmystic calls me a fascist . . o-o-o-o. . .trash talk in the blogosphere
Wrong again about President Bush, my friend. He will do whatever is necessary within the limits of his constituional powers. Far different from absolute power and authority.
posted by
WriterofLight
on December 21, 2005 at 7:32 PM
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Thanks for your comment and you are right....
Yes, King George w1, could fit right into my model of the future. I really don't believe in my model, just put it out there for target practice. The reason for my musings is precisely because of people like you or me slugging out the insane details of all these prepostorous lies. There was no way of "preventing" 911 unless you look at the root causes. People like you are always reacting to present nonsense as if it means anything. It doesn't, neither the Right or the Left are innocencent of devious behaviour.
Bushi is not America's saviour! The measures you take to revoke the hard won liberties and guarantees of freedom do not make you safer. They are only further victories for the perps of 911.
Long before you went into the sinkhole of Iraq I laughed at pretzel choking George and his fondness for watching football. I'd like a leader that played chess, poker, or other games of strategy, well.
During his first term, I shook my head at the idiocy of allowing photo ops with the leader of the mightiest nation on the planet CARRYING HIS DOG! That, more than anything, said to those who hate you (and there are many of those) I'M A WUSS,,,, I'M A FRIGGING DOG'S SERVANT !!!!!
You guys live in a dream world if you think that anything he's done will reverse the hatred of you. In the end there is no security system that can't be circumvented. The corollery to that is, the more potential terrorists that you creat the less secure any system will be. That is a fact.
You're only safe course, before 911, would have been, as it is now, TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM TREAT YOU. This is the simple wisdom of the book that your nation was supposedly founded on.
In Engineering as in all other areas, THE SIMPLE AND ELEGANT SOLUTION IS THE BEST SOLUTION..... !
WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID, IF YOU CLAIM THAT YOUR COUNTRY IS THE HOME OF THE BRAVE?
225,000 people perished in the Tsunami alone and we don't hear the survivors babbling about the next wave. You are a nation of big time cowards with aggresive tendencies and to many WMD's.
I'm not afraid of anything. Neither is most of the rest of the world. Not even of your WMD's
Americans are afraid of paying the real price of gas, afraid of your hard won freedoms, afraid of your shadows. Get over it, life is dangerous and short and there are no guarantees of safety!
My only safety from others is my behaviour towards others, as is everyone's. I could be weighed down with weapons of all kinds but if I walked down the street and pushed people around and stole from them I would not and should not last long.
Those that promise you safety are catering to the fear that they have created and making it less likely that you will be safe.
Who was it (Osama?) that said, "Those that would trade a little freedom for security, deserve neither?"
posted by
Bud-Oracle
on December 19, 2005 at 8:41 PM
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Those senators should be looked at as heroes
Not allowing this insult to the freedom of America is about the most heroic and truly American thing the Senate has done in some time. Finally freedom and liberty are starting to be the focus of things. Finally we are saying we will not let the terrorist win by making us so afraid that we will give up our rights and freedoms for a false sense of security.
I know I feel much safer now that I know we will have our freedoms back and not have to fear a government gone mad, believing it has the right to take away the people's freedom as it pleases. My freedom and the freedom of other Americans, including my own family is much more important to me than my life after all. And since there is about a one in a billion chance that I or any other America on America soil will ever be the victim of a terrorists attack, I truly do not understand why anyone would want something like the patriot act around.
There is much more a chance that your neighbor will go crazy (No matter how old, what race or religion they might be) and shot you than you ever having to deal with a terrorist attack. So I refuse to live in fear of something that is most likely never going to directly affect my life, and be doing so I am making sure the terrorist do not win.
posted by
kooka_lives
on December 19, 2005 at 8:05 PM
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Why do you fascists need the Patriot Act for?
The King has already stated he has the authority to do anything he deems necessary to combat the war on terror. Why go through the pretensions that Congress matters or that they aprrove the Patriot Act or not. He already claims absolute power and authority.
posted by
fwmystic
on December 19, 2005 at 7:33 PM
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