<p>thedad I agree with you</p>
<p>the US is quickly headed down the path of the East German “Democratic” Republic in that our civil rights are being seized and anyone who opposes such seizures is decried as a traitor and a friend of a terrorist</p>
<p>Bush Memorial? ROFL. GMAFB.</p>
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</p>
<p>Wait a few more years and the Bush clan can get their own Mt. Rushmore somewhere. Three presidential faces carved in granite: George Sr, George W, and Jeb.</p>
<p>Goodness, I wish the Democrats weren’t so politically inept. The only one who appears to have a lick of political sense is Hillary. She’s been quietly going around making sure that she gets regularly chastized in the media for “working with Republicans” in the Senate. Note that she quietly voted for the war in Iraq. Sly, like a fox. </p>
<p>If she can successfully repackage herself as a centrist candidate, that would be one of the great all-time political Houdini acts of all time. Maybe nab a banished pro-choice Republican in the Bill Weld or Mitt Romney mold as a running mate? They have nothing to lose; their own party has no room for them.</p>
<p>The Republicans would be smart to counter with Condy, but that will never happen.</p>
<p>
Your time horizon is too short. I believe that Jeb’s son is getting into politics and appears to be a very attractive candidate. Perhaps the first hispanic president? I can see it now: George, George, George and Jeb.</p>
<p>“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” - Benjamin Franklin
Fundingfather - the citizens of every modern nation which has descended into tyranny used your logic to justify sacrificing their freedom. It’s all worth it to protect us from those “terrorists.” Has it occurred to you that we now have achieved the permanent state of war, justifying a permanent totalitarian government, since “terrorism” can never surrender?</p>
<p>And you would have us do …? Oh, sit back and wait for bigger and worse 9/11s. Thank you very much, but no thanks.</p>
<p>How can you possibly frame measures to counter terrorism as a descent into tyranny when the exact same measures have been in place for years to fight other forms of illegal activity but with no one claiming “tyranny”. Unfortunately, this a red herring thrown out by the left to scare people from doing what needs to be done to fight terrorism. And they accuse Bush of using scare tactics!</p>
<p>
I think you need a course in world politics if you consider the US to be in a state of totalitarian government.</p>
<p>I didn’t say we were in a totalitarian state now, I said that the arguments you are repeating justify embracing totalitarianism, if that’s what it takes to “protect” us from the bad guys. It doesn’t come overnight, with a big sign saying “Totalitarianism starts tomorrow!” Everything is gradual. Step by step. Freedom is easier to surrender than to regain. Just when, under your philosophy, will the time be “right” to restore the freedoms you are willing to give up for a better (if false) sense of “security”? This “war” will never end. Your arguments justify the ultimate step - and you excuse that by saying we’ve only taken the first few steps. You can repeat that with each new loss of freedom. Anything is acceptable if it makes you feel safe.</p>
<p>9/11 was an opportunistic strike by a handful of men willing to die to create exactly the mindset you’ve embraced. Fear conquers all.</p>
<p>Here is what happened in the civil war:</p>
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<p>Note how extreme Lincoln’s solution was relative to the Patriot Act. What you failed to address was why is it OK to use measures advocated in the Patriot Act or by Pat Roberts on a wide variety of crimes EXCEPT for terrorism? If you can rationalize that and also come up with a list of abuses of the Patriot Act that have occurred in the almost 4 years of its existence, then I will listen to your arguments. Until then, I’m afraid that you are the one who is spreading fear.</p>
<p>
In case you haven’t noticed, the terrorists declared war on us back in the 90’s and have been following up on their declaration in ever increasing acts of boldness. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, 9/11 was not big enough for some to recognize that we are at war. Fortunately, the majority sees otherwise. If more people develop your apparent mindset, we will be setting ourselves up for continued escalating and deadly attacks. The threat to our homeland is now bigger than it has ever been in any previous war, yet the encroachment on civil liberties is less than it has ever been in any previous war, but still there are those (like you) who expect us to go back to our pre-9/11 mentality. Once, again … thanks, but no thanks.</p>
<p>To return to the original question: this is what I learned from VietNam: people like Funding Father will always find an excuse to justify the government’s actions. Back in the 60’s, it was the “domino theory”. This justified going to war in Viet Nam against the Communist regime in the north. Back then, Communism served the purpose “terrorism” serves today. The other lesson I learned: The world has never been safe, and never will be. Some people will capitalize on that fact to scare the public into just about anything. Oddly enough, we lost in Viet Nam, the dominos didn’t fall, and the world evolved pretty much the way it would have without the loss of tens of thousands of young Americans, and hundreds of thousands of southeast asians.</p>
<p>We’re not “at war”. Our nation’s existence is not threatened by “terrorists.” We are in danger of repeated acts of violence fueled by a hatred of our nation based on our perceived enmity towards Islam. “We are at war” is used to justify a lot of things that people wouldn’t stand for otherwise. Fewer peope died in 9/11 than die in a month on the highways. The Oklahoma City bombing was just as evil as 9/11, and killed on an only slightly smaller scale. Those things have always happened, and always will. Absolute security is unobtainable - even in a totalitarian state. The Patriot Act won’t make the threat of violence go away. We need to be vigilant, but also to balance the actual threats against the response to them. To compare a single terrorist act which killed fewer than 3,000 people to the Civil War and the events which constituted an actual danger to the continued existence of our nation is just sad. </p>
<p>But our now-permanent state of war, like I said, justifies a permanent retreat from the principles which used to separate America from the rest of the world. Sad.</p>
<p>What is sad is that your view on Vietnam is distorted by your myopic American view of the world. Yes, many Asians died in the war, but how many of them would have died regardless of our involvement? Here’s a hint, after our involvement ended, hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese were slaughtered, but that’s OK, since they were not Americans. Also millions of Cambodians were slaughtered, but again, they weren’t Americans so that doesn’t really count. The only thing that really counts is that we got out of there before the real carnage began.</p>
<p>
Yes, Pearl harbor had fewer deaths than 9/11 as well. I guess you would have been right there saying, “hey, it was a one-time event, maybe it will blow over, why risk the lives of Americans to fight in Europe or the South Pacific. And besides, more people die on the highway anyway.” That is what I call sad.</p>
<p>At least you have the courage to say that we are not at war, many with your views mouth the words that we are at war, but then don’t act like it in terms of what they are willing to do to win the war. You are certainly entitled to your view, but I wonder how many Americans have to die before you finally agree that we are at war? </p>
<p>I guess you still don’t have a rationalization for exempting terrorists from provisions that have been applied to other criminal acvtivity without incident for many years? I guess you also have no list of abuses of the Patriot Act. Instead of being “sad” why don’t you deal with the real issues.</p>
<p>i enjoyed reading all of the posts. please don’t think i completely ignored this thread.</p>
<p>I didn’t. And don’t think I ignored FF’s last post. I just felt it was most effective to just leave it out there rotting in the sun like a dead mackeral on a summer day. That post (and post 29) are good examples for you of the type of bogus arguments the hawks of the 60’s and 70’s used. (Students: how many different types of logical fallacies did FF use in those 7 paragraphs? Hmmm. Reductio ad absurdum, petition principii, appeal to consequences, argumentum ad populum, false analogy, post hoc ergo propter hoc - it’s a smorgasbord!) So maybe the answer is: some people didn’t learn any lessons at all…</p>
<p>A lot of dancing, but still no answers to some fairly basic questions.</p>
<p>When I was 20, I learned that you should never trust anyone over 30. Now that I’m closer to 60, I know for sure that I was right. ;)</p>
<p>Well said, TheDad, re: post # 13.</p>
<p>IMO, the most important element of secret searches is approval by another branch of government - i.e. the judicial branch. It’s more than separation of powers - it’s a limitation on power and a review process to prevent the police state.</p>
<p>FF, I know I should just let your rhetoric speak for itself, but there’s a shining example of your thought process which may exemplify the rest:</p>
<p>“Yes, Pearl harbor had fewer deaths than 9/11 as well. I guess you would have been right there saying, “hey, it was a one-time event, maybe it will blow over, why risk the lives of Americans to fight in Europe or the South Pacific. And besides, more people die on the highway anyway.” That is what I call sad.” (Side quiz: how many logical fallacies appear in this paragraph?)</p>
<p>Here’s Pearl Harbor: Thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen in six Japanese aircraft carriers, 441 airplanes, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, and “a large number” of submarines attack an American Naval base, with a roughly contemporaneous delivery of a declaration of war to the United States Government. The damage to the American forces was 2,403 killed; 5 battleships sunk, 3 damaged; 3 cruisers sunk; 3 destroyers sunk; 188 planes destroyed, 155 planes damaged. The Japanese plan following this attack was to continue on to seize the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Malaya, Hong Kong, the Bismarck Archipelago, Java, and Sumatra, controlling the South Pacific and isolating Australia and New Zealand. Japan had already invaded China, of course.</p>
<p>Of course, we didn’t know the exact nature of Japan’s plans, all we knew was that a sovereign nation had declared war on us and sent a massive military force to attack our defenses and was still coming.</p>
<p>On 9/11 19 guys with one way plane tickets and box cutters and a willingness to commit suicide hijacked 4 planes with the intent to fly them into buildings. They succeeded with 3 of them, and about 2900 people died, 2 buildings were destroyed and a third damaged. The terrorists’ goal was to hurt us and make us pay attention to how much they hate us. They have no coherent follow up plan, except to try to come up with even cooler ways to let us know how much they hate us.</p>
<p>Take next the Oklahoma City bombing. A couple of white separatists pack a rented truck full of homemade explosives and blow it up across the street from a government building. There’s a death toll of 168 (including 19 children). The bomb injured over 800 people and destroyed or seriously damaged more than 300 buildings, leaving several hundred people homeless. As best I can tell the bombers motive was to hurt us and make us pay attention to how mad they were at the American government. They had no coherent plan for what to do next except a goofy idea that others would rise to join them, reportedly following the plot of a book which has white separatists flying a plane into the Pentagon.</p>
<p>I can tell the difference between Pearl Harbor and 9/11. I suspect that, on a good day, you can too. Where we disagree is that you believe that the 9/11 whack jobs are categorically different from the Oklahoma City whack jobs. I don’t. I just think that the 9/11 guys were more successful - and your reaction to 9/11 is the measure of their success.</p>
<p>Unbelievable! Let’s count the differences between 9/11 and OK City:
- number of antaganists: OK-C: two; 9/11: thousands
- number of attacks against US interests by antaganists: OK-C: 1; 9/11: multiple including ship, embassy(2), civilian buildings (2), military bombings
- Number of attacks against other countries: OK-C: zero; 9/11: multiple, including at least Spain, Indonesia
- Number of thwarted/failed attempts: OK-C: zero ; 9/11: multiple, including failed aircraft bombings (multiple), missile attacks and airport bombings
- Public declaration of war: OK-C: zero; 9/11: one
- At large combatants: OK-C: zero; 9/11: thousands
- available funding: OK-C: hundreds of dollars; 9/11: many millions of dollars
- Attempt to secure nuclear material: OK-C - No; 9/11: Yes
- geographic dispersion of enemy: OK-C - Podunk USA; 9/11: global
- willingness to commit suicide missions: OK-C - No; 9/11: yes
- number of outstanding threats against US: OK-C: zero; 9/11 - multiple
- sophistication of attack: OK-C - between beers at the redneck bar and grill; 9/11: multiple years of planning and training</p>
<p>And the list could go on and on. But, other than that, I see your point - they are very similar … sheesh!</p>
<p>How you doing on those questions?</p>
<p>…another dead fish from Fundingfather…</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the strong-arm recruiting efforts continue.</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/227497_paynter08.html[/url]”>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/227497_paynter08.html</a></p>