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My thinking also.</p>
<p>Dadguy has been reading too many left wing press.
He believes we live under an evil and corrupt government.
You haven’t seen evil gov’t yet until you live under Saddam or the Taliban.
I bet he will crawl his way back to US…</p>
<p>Could it be just luck?</p>
<p>What if, left to their own devices, terrorist could launch a major attack once every two years? Using a Poisson RV (random variable), the probability of no major attacks in a 6-year periosd is 5% due to chance alone, but if the terrorists could only launch an attach every 3 years, the probability increases to 14%. If you extended out the no-attack period far enough, you could start eliminating luck as a factor, but six years is probably too short a period to do that.</p>
<p>yourworld,</p>
<p>I would have to swim part of the way. 8)</p>
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<p>No - its too many other people that have been brainwashed into thinking that giving up civil liberties for a false sense of security is a good thing. People who aren’t up in arms about the fact that congress passed the PATRIOT act (possibly the worst attack on personal liberty in our history) without even reading the bloody thing. People who think that warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, increased powers of law enforcement and other agencies to circumvent constitutional rights, etc etc etc makes them safer somehow. </p>
<p>It isn’t that the government is necessarily evil or corrupt, but rather that it has too much power for its own good. And once government has power, it is very difficult to get it back.</p>
<p>Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety</p>
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<p>Do you say otherwise? </p>
<p>Do you really believe that the war in Iraq has been a big success? With thousands of of US soldiers dead and the US forces stretched to the nearly to the breaking point, tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and more bodies piling up every day, trillions of American taxpayer’s dollars wasted, thousands of young muslim men alienated and radicalized against the West, Iraq transformed into a haven for Al Qaeda, a huge intractable sectarian war triggered with GIs caught in the cross-fire, and exactly zero weapons of mass destruction found? Do you consider all that a success? </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden is a free man.</p>
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<p>It seems weird that though everyone is calling the patriot act unconstitutional not one federal court (those who decide the constitutionality of laws) has overturned it. You think that since it’s so obviously unconstitutional (according to you) someone would be able to file a valid complaint and it would be overturned huh? I challenge YOU to read it and point out those unconstitutional parts…please, cite them here for me. </p>
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<p>Ummmm there hasn’t been a major attack against US targets so yes I think it’s working in that respect. I love people like you who claim we have created all these muslim terrorists across the world as if there was some short supply before. I say if there’s a million terrorists before the war and now there’s 2 million what’s the difference? It’s not like they were scraping the ground trying to find young muslim men to blow themselves up. ALQ has lost its credibility in Iraq, hell the people of Iraq are becoming increasingly more against it as days go by (you left this out though). </p>
<p>You’re right, bin laden is a free man. I’m sure you think that once we kill/capture OBL the war on terror will be done huh? Like one man is responsible for terrorism throughout the world. Herd mentality ;)</p>
<p>The Patriot Act was the best thing done by a bipartisan congress in a long time. It took a cataclysmic event for that to happen but it did. It showed the law makers can get together and realized we are facing a far greater enemy than we have met before and had to act extraordinarily to counter it.</p>
<p>By the way, majority of folks are ok with Patriot Act. We rather be safer with a little bit of intrusion than unprotected. Only bleeding heart liberals who can’t see the lights or won’t see the lights are complaining about it.</p>
<p>I work in Times Square and ride the Staten Island Ferry and I’m convinced that a major (in my view anyway) attack could occur at any time. I really don’t know why one hasn’t. Although it could be a matter of perspective. The thought of someone blowing up the Lincoln Tunnel or the Brooklyn Bridge (which seemed to have been a serious plot) makes my blood run cold. But what if the plan is much bigger? What if it really is the oft-discussed “dirty bomb in Times Square?” Something on a scale to destroy an entire city and cripple the entire country’s economy, rather than just a few thousand dead? Something like that would take more time, money, planning and patience. My personal theory is that they’re just not yet ready for what they want to do.</p>
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<p>And it is for this reason that I think it is VITAL we continue to pursue terrorists everywhere. If we just back off, fight the war in afghanistan, and leave it at that they will be able to regroup and get their resources running again. 9/11 was bad but that could pale in comparison to what could happen if we don’t aggresively pursue terrorists and nations that support them in every way possible.</p>
<p>edvest1: For the record, despite your pointless Pavlov’s-dogs like partisanship, the most vocal and mainstream critic of the Patriot Act is currently a Republican.</p>
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<p>And this is relevant why? One of the leading voices for the war in Iraq ran for VP on the dem ticket in 2000…</p>
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<p>Yeah you’d think, wouldn’t you? Yet, it took 30 years for a federal court to figure out that the DC handgun ban is unconstitutional :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>lol you mean you would rather “feel” safer… Its funny that you think that “seeing the light” involves giving up the liberties that the foudning fathers of this country worked so hard to ensure. Government’s job is to protect the people insofar as they can without infringing on the rights of its citizens. I think a lot more people would be against this if they were to suddenly find themselves subject to the suspension of rights that the patriot act allows. Now, I know you’re going to say “well, it hasn’t happened, so that means that the system is working”. My point is that it is possible, and that it shouldn’t even be within the realm of possibility to have civil rights to casually thrown aside.</p>
<p>I, for one, am sure as hell glad there hasn’t been another!</p>
<p>I think it takes a long time to plan something like 9/11; we did not realize at the time of the first WTC bombing that it was a precursor to something geometrically bigger. Perhaps some of the publicized interventions have prevented some attacks, though not, I suspect, on the 9/11 level; perhaps the attacks that have occurred in the intervening years, like the Madrid and London tain bombings, will someday be recognized as the precursors to something else. </p>
<p>I do not feel we have avoided another 9/11 in the long term, only that the next awful thing has not happened yet on US soil. As a child growing up during the Cold War I suppose I had some sense that the world was a scary place, but as an adult with grown children, I feel a much stronger sense that things are spinning out of control and that there is so much evil and hatred in every corner of the world that people of good will who do not believe in random killing, whatever their politics, are almost without recourse and defense.</p>
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It shows that bleeding heart liberals can’t stand the sting of truth.</p>
<p>Icarus: when you stand over the heap of ruins that was (name a US city), are you going to feel good that the privacy rights of terrorists in US were protected ? Get real ! Of course, I hope that day never come and we are winning the war on terror.</p>
<p>Oh yes, I know what your response is: “I rather live in a country when my freedom and liberties are protected…blah,blah,blah” — I know how a liberal mind works. </p>
<p>But remember, the Patriot Act spies on suspected terrorists, not your average folks. Gov’t should keep eye on people out to do harm to US anyway, with or without PAtriot Act. Lastly, if you have nothing to hide, why should you be offended.</p>
<p>I just don’t think that our government, agree or disagree with the details, is the enemy here.</p>
<p>Right. You’ve picked the wrong enemy. </p>
<p>Let’s remember our enemies are fanatic muslim extremists who are out to destroy western civilization, and the nations that overtly or silently support them.</p>
<p>LaxAttack and edvest: I was merely pointing out that despite your ridiculously quick jump to assume anyone who opposes the Patriot Act is a liberal, it’s significantly more complicated than that - those who oppose it are have libertarian leanings, generally, which may or may not predispose them to be Democrats. Historically, they would have been Republican, and I was pointing out that some still are now.</p>
<p>I just hate it when people get slotted into a certain political belief based on what they think of one single issue.</p>