I totally don't get the "NIMBY" thing with terrorists

[Enrique]

Supposed the most dangerous terrorist in the world escaped from prison and the prison was right across the street from my house.

I don't think I'd feel especially threatened (especially since in this scenario I already live across the street from a prison).

Why are terrorists dangerous? Because they participate in plots to blow up targets. They don't go around attacking the nearest person in sight. They're not pit bulls. (just kidding, pit bull fans).


Who's scarier than the 9/11 hijackers? They lived in various places in the U.S., Florida, San Diego, Minnesota, as I recall. Were they any threat to those places? Were their landlords, neighbors, employers, etc. in any danger because of the terrorists in their midst?

[ejpoeta]

1. i don't understand it either. i keep thinking that if some of these folks could see americans

as something other than what they have been told we are by bin laden and others,that they would then question other things. show them who we can be when we want to and i am confident that instead of hating us they may question why they would be led to believe such awful things. i try to think of how we as americans would feel if someone came and invaded our country and took over.... destroyed everything and kept killing civilians. how would we feel. if these people are terrorists, and do we know they ARE?? most of them may not even have ever been... but now that we treated them so awfully, can you blame them if they did hate us?? i don't. you can't just keep holding someone without charging them and trying them. that has been our system. to change it just makes things worse, if you ask me.

[backscatter712]

2. I called my Congresscritters...

told them they needed to close Gitmo now - it's our American Hanoi Hilton.

I also told them that if they were wondering where to put the prisoners, put them in the supermax in Florence, CO.

And I'm a Coloradoan. I told them we could take them.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Unfortunately it boils down to 2010 congressional elections.

The media is still listening to and promoting the republican talking points. They aren't based in fact but rather fear which works pretty well. There are democratic representatives who fear if they don't even make a superficial attempt to "protect" their constiuents from these "terrorists" by refusing to accept them into their districts, they will be on the losing side of an election issue in 2010 and Congress will have a republican majority.

[spanone]

3. nothing to get...it's propagandist terror bullshit

[Enrique]

7. but it seems driven by people's actual fears

why do politicians play the NIMBY game? Because it resonates with their constituents.

[Karenina]

20. And their constituents are easily manipulated by SCARY MUSIC!

O Fortuna Induced Insanity!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30856596

Complete clip of Republican Senate video and parodies here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30632213

[annabanana]

21. The question to ask is "Why does it resonate with the constituents?"

If, everytime you walked past your TV, it was teasing a story about very fast poisonous spiders, doing a special about super-fast poisonous spiders, bringing you the latest breaking news about speeding spiders, recapping the day's top story about dangerous zipping arachnids..

How long do you think it would take Congress to fast track initiatives to get professional extermintors onto every block in every neighborhood?

. . . because it resonated wtih their constituents.

[spanone]

23. it plays on people's fears...

[av8rdave]

4. We already have terrorists in prisons on US soil, and have had for years

The unibomber comes to mind. No public outcry when they locked him up in Colorado. I think the whole stir is an attempt to politicize the Guantanamo issue.

[babylonsister]

5. It's a gop manufactured 'outrage'. They've been planning this for

awhile.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5711824

Guantánamo Closing Hands Republicans a Wedge Issue

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: May 23, 2009


WASHINGTON — If there was one thing both presidential candidates agreed on last fall, it was the need to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But almost as soon as President Obama took office and ordered the camp shuttered within a year, Congressional Republicans — including his former opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona — saw a singular political opportunity.

“Where are we going to send them?” Mr. McCain said in an interview on Fox News, just days after the inauguration. “That decision I would have made before I’d announced the closure.” Referring to the not-in-my-back-yard uproar over the proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, he added: “You think Yucca Mountain is a Nimby problem? Wait until you see this one.”

Now the consensus from the campaign trail has dissolved, leaving Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike at odds with the White House. The conflagration has been fanned by the determined focus of Republican leaders, fed by the alarms of talk-show populists and aided by the miscalculation of a new president who set a date for a closing without announcing a detailed plan for the inmates. The debate now threatens to make it much harder for Mr. Obama to keep his campaign promise.

Armed with polling data that show a narrow majority of support for keeping the prison open and deep fear about the detainees, Republicans in Congress started laying plans even before the inauguration to make the debate over Guantánamo Bay a question of local community safety instead of one about national character and principles.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/us/politics/24gitmo.h...

[Enrique]

10. but why does it work?

the article says "armed with polling data". That's what I don't relate to at all.

[babylonsister]

14. They're promoting fear, that's why. nt

[elleng]

6. Its an excuse,

a 'reason' to object to closing Guantanamo as proposed by Prez O. THAT'S ALL! Another repug 'frame.'

[Echo In Light]

15. Worse than merely an excuse since it's a complete fabrication vis a vis phony war

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Then Ask The Congressional Democrats

It wouldn't be an issue if they weren't obstructionist on this.

Everyone knows the GOP will obstruct, lie and spin at every turn. Why are the Democrats enabling this?

[rurallib]

11. cowardly repugs have turned this country into a pants-pissing

nation of cowards. They have done it to win elections and sell baldness cures.
Fear fear fear! and when you are scared enough vote for daddy to save you (even though he'll take your money and freedom and ruin your future.)

[NJmaverick]

12. You know who are dangerous? Huge strong men and women that kill with out hesitation

people with extensive martial arts training. These people are only dangerous when you give them weapons and bombs. As people one on one, they would get their asses kicked more often than not.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. I don't get it either. Why are these people so unmanageable?

Why are they any more dangerous than other prisoners convicted of terrible crimes?

[annabanana]

22. Imagine how their reputation grows among their supporters. . .

Surely to have America's Congress quaking in their boots, they must be very powerful men.

[DailyGrind51]

16. The current "residents" of Cook County Jail are far more dangerous than ANY terrorist!

[abluelady]

17. I Just Commented on Another Thread

There is something in Republicans brains that cause them to be truly frightened people. (Why do you think Repugs are bullies? Bullies are generally cowards.) The Republican leadership is aware of the fears and work at perpetuating it. These people are afraid of many things, not only terrorists. It is a miswiring in the brain.

[suchadeal]

18. ever heard of what are called "black operations"?

False flag terror? INSIDE job? State-sponsored terror? Patsies? Entrapment? Framing and setting up innocent people?

[Ready4Change]

19. I live in Maryland. Bring them here.

We have prisons. Bringing them here would likely bring additional funding and jobs to those prisons. So that's a positive, in my mind. (I work near and drive past one nearly every day.)

I also think getting them into legitimate prison situations, rather than some sort of torture house/gulag is a positive for the war v-terror. The situation, as it stands now, is creating more terrorists motivated against American interests every day. It makes us look like monsters. So getting them into legitimate prisons, and trying them legitimately, will defuse some arguements against our nation.

[alarimer]

24. It's because the Democrats are wimps, plain and simple.

They are afraid the big, bad Republicans will call them nasty name and they will lose reelection. It makes no sense otherwise.

I wish Democrats had spines and were willing to stand on principle. There are a few: Kucinich, Feingold (most of the time at least). That's it.