Undressing the Terror Threat

[happy_liberal]

Meanwhile, millions of travelers are being subjected to increasingly pointless and invasive searches and the resultant delays, such as the one that practically shut down Newark Liberty International Airport last week, after a man accidentally walked through the wrong gate, or Tuesday's incident at a California airport, which closed for hours after a "potentially explosive substance" was found in a traveler's luggage. (It turned out to be honey.)

As to the question of what the government should do rather than keep playing Terrorball, the answer is simple: stop treating Americans like idiots and cowards.

It might be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to have a nuanced grasp of statistically based risk analysis, but there is nothing nuanced about two basic facts:

(1) America is a country of 310 million people, in which thousands of horrible things happen every single day; and

(2) The chances that one of those horrible things will be that you're subjected to a terrorist attack can, for all practical purposes, be calculated as zero....


No amount of statistical evidence, however, will make any difference to those who give themselves over to almost completely irrational fears. Such people, and there are apparently a lot of them in America right now, are in fact real victims of terrorism. They also make possible the current ascendancy of the politics of cowardice—the cynical exploitation of fear for political gain....


It's a remarkable fact that a nation founded, fought for, built by, and transformed through the extraordinary courage of figures such as George Washington, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. now often seems reduced to a pitiful whimpering giant by a handful of mostly incompetent criminals, whose main weapons consist of scary-sounding Web sites and shoe- and underwear-concealed bombs that fail to detonate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704130904574644651587677752.html#articleTabs=article

[happy_liberal]

1. It is time to end this stupid ass war of terror

The FDA has probably killed more people with GM foods, Big Pharma and their indigestion pills that cause heart attacks, depression pills that cause suicide...we need to rediscover our inner bravery as a nation and stand up to the cowards in the government and media.

[kenny blankenship]

2. it's all about letting you know who wears the pants in this relationship:

Not you. Not people like you. Not anybody you know.

You have no secrets. You have no boundaries. The state is all. You are a bundle of meat that will melt away tomorrow. The state is everlasting and all knowing.

Single file. This area subject to Xray and infrared photography. Turn over all laptops and removable media. Use of cameras or operation of any other recording devices is prohibited.

[happy_liberal]

3. we have to find a way to let the gov/media complex know we don't buy their BS anymore

the absurdity is out of control. It's time we let them know that We the People are not a nation of cowards.