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More accurately, the government can prevent terrorist attacks, but that will take sophisticated and unpopular foreign policy measures. The Patriot Act, security

More accurately, the government can prevent terrorist attacks, but that will take sophisticated and unpopular foreign policy measures. The Patriot Act, security theater, war, and other such nonsense is easier to sell to voters and lobbies.

JshWright 17y ago
I think the implication above is that you can't prevent _every_ terrorist attack. I think that's a pretty defensible argument to make. Geography alone makes it pretty obvious that you can't stop a determined group from carrying out an attack. So that leaves making nice with those groups so that they don't want to attack us. Given the fact that there are radical groups at either end of just about any political or religious spectrum you can think of, the idea of appeasing all of them is nuts. The very actions necessary to appease one group could incite another to attack. This is, of course, putting aside the idea that the motivation behind some violence isn't motivated by our actions at all, but rather by internal politics within extremist groups. There are a lot of folks out there who are awfully fond of power, and one of the easiest ways to garner power is to rally people against a common enemy (who cares if that "enemy" actually instigated anything... that's easy enough to spin) So, all that to say... We're never going to prevent every terrorist attack, we can only work to minimize the collateral damage. In my opinion, the Patriot Act is just about the biggest example of collateral damage we've seen resulting from terrorist attacks, and I'm saddened to see that Congress chose to do nothing to limit that.
- lucifer 17y ago
  Use of violence to further political agenda is hardly a new phenomena. The straw man argument puts forward the "terrorist" as a new kind of threat to society which, alas, forces the good people hired by the internationals to represent the people to throw out the baby and bath water of "Inalienable" Rights, Due Process, Rule of Law, and civilized norms so that (apparently completely incompetent) security apparatus can prevent cave men with box cutters defeating the security envelope of the United States of America (aka the "empire" LOL). "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Dear framers, your posterity does NOT deserve the "Blessings of Liberty". Now, respectfully, why don't you roll over cause that is the only revolution that USA and your posterity can muster at this point.
mjgoins 17y ago
Actually those measures are popular among regular (meaning non-powerful) people. Both the left and the right are in favor of a non-interventionist foreign policy in the US.
- deleted 17y ago
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eru 17y ago
Some (or even most) potential terrorist attacks can be prevent. But not all.

JshWright 17y ago

I think the implication above is that you can't prevent _every_ terrorist attack. I think that's a pretty defensible argument to make. Geography alone makes it pretty obvious that you can't stop a determined group from carrying out an attack. So that leaves making nice with those groups so that they don't want to attack us. Given the fact that there are radical groups at either end of just about any political or religious spectrum you can think of, the idea of appeasing all of them is nuts. The very actions necessary to appease one group could incite another to attack. This is, of course, putting aside the idea that the motivation behind some violence isn't motivated by our actions at all, but rather by internal politics within extremist groups. There are a lot of folks out there who are awfully fond of power, and one of the easiest ways to garner power is to rally people against a common enemy (who cares if that "enemy" actually instigated anything... that's easy enough to spin) So, all that to say... We're never going to prevent every terrorist attack, we can only work to minimize the collateral damage. In my opinion, the Patriot Act is just about the biggest example of collateral damage we've seen resulting from terrorist attacks, and I'm saddened to see that Congress chose to do nothing to limit that.

lucifer 17y ago
Use of violence to further political agenda is hardly a new phenomena. The straw man argument puts forward the "terrorist" as a new kind of threat to society which, alas, forces the good people hired by the internationals to represent the people to throw out the baby and bath water of "Inalienable" Rights, Due Process, Rule of Law, and civilized norms so that (apparently completely incompetent) security apparatus can prevent cave men with box cutters defeating the security envelope of the United States of America (aka the "empire" LOL). "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Dear framers, your posterity does NOT deserve the "Blessings of Liberty". Now, respectfully, why don't you roll over cause that is the only revolution that USA and your posterity can muster at this point.

mjgoins 17y ago

Actually those measures are popular among regular (meaning non-powerful) people. Both the left and the right are in favor of a non-interventionist foreign policy in the US.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

eru 17y ago

Some (or even most) potential terrorist attacks can be prevent. But not all.