lowing wrote:
Bertster7 wrote:
lowing wrote:
Gotta tell ya, I don't see any fear or panic, I see efforts being made to try and make sure this doesn't happen again. I also see the democrats undermining ever inch of that effort in order to regain the white house. Only a fool would stand by and let shit happen to them so they can say they didn't "fear it"
Vigilence and paranoia are two very different things.
In any case, what are the Democrats doing to undermine the efforts to stop things like this happening again?
Any steps taken that undermine existing civil liberties are playing exactly into the terrorists hands.
The general public should, on the whole, ignore terrorism. It's all just totally blown up out of all proportion by the media. That isn't to say you shouldn't notify the authorities if you have a legitimate concern - but it is just as well to be able to prosecute those who make stupid accusations, for whatever reason, that impede innocent people going about their day to day business.
ignore terrorism huh?, Ok, so you maintain if you and your family are at the gate about to get on a plane and you see someone acting wierd, nervous, or just totally against normal interaction and is about to get on the same plane, you will ignore it and get on the plane. You sir are a liar.
Also, for clarification. If you happen to report what you saw to the authorities, and he was kept off the plane, investigated, and found to be a guy who just forgot to take his pills, you feel he has the right to sue you for disrupting his life. Again, you are a liar.
I believe he was implying that the public at large should not be overly concerned with terrorism, since, as a rule, it is far more likely that you will get yourself killed in any number of stupid ways, or be killed by one of your fellow citizens or a rabid animal even, than it is for you to be killed by a terrorist. As such, giving such a large amount of your attention and worry to a problem that is statistically insignificant is illogical, and, I might add, exactly what terrorists are trying to accomplish when they blow things up. As Gunslinger pointed out, correctly, in another thread, when the Allies bombed the crap out of Germany and Japan in World War 2, the amount of damage done to the morale of the people was arguably far more significant than the actual logistical damage that was done. The same applies to terrorism, in general; the amount of damage done by any one attack pales in comparison to the mental impact it has on the general population, because the general population sees the attack on the news and spends the next 6 years wringing their hands in concern.
He was not, though I am merely inferring his meaning from what he wrote and cannot actually speak for him, implying that you shouldn't contact the police if you see a beat up van filled with large drums of chemicals with all sorts of wiring and a shifty eyed turban wearing guy driving it towards the federal building. I suspect that even you are aware of this, but chose to infer the meaning that would make Bert look like a jackass, which, I might add, doesn't help the spirit of debate much.
In addition, to my knowledge, in the few (very few, considering there are thousands of commercial flights in the United States every day, and only a few have had a problem with terrorists since 9/11. I am only including the U.S here, since that is the only area this discussion involves) incidents in which there has actually been a terrorist threat, the passengers involved did report and or detain the people involved, and weren't afraid to do so because they might get sued. Take, for instance, the infamous 'shoe bomber'. As you say, when it comes down to 'the person sitting next to me might have a bomb' and 'I might get sued for doing something about it', everyone sane will do something about it and damn the legal consequences. Again, to my knowledge, there haven't been any incidents in which people have reported someone for suspicious behavior, been wrong, and were then subsequently sued. In fact, and I admit I could be wrong, as I could not find the original article, I seem to recall an incident in which some passengers thought a man was acting suspiciously and detained him themselves, only to later find out that he was having a panic attack or something similar (if anyone has a citation for this, it would be appreciated). I don't believe any of them were sued for their actions.
In short, I don't see that people getting sued and or prosecuted for reporting suspicious activity is a humongous problem. I don't see that it's a problem at all, unless it's merely going unreported, and, as such, there is little need to put into law legislation that would protect people from something that doesn't occur. There is even less reason to get upset and start calling everyone who disagrees with you a de facto terrorist enabler, but, then, that is your prerogative.
Or, to sum that all up, "if it ain't broke, why fix it?"