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It's the war on terrorism. Every time you hear officials talk about terrorism, replace terrorism with "the devil". "an act of terrorism" == "an act of the devi

• jmduke 13y ago
  Except there is no canonical proof of the devil, and there are people who detonate explosives at the Boston Marathon. I'm not saying what happened in the article is okay, nor am I saying things like PRISM and the PATRIOT Act are necessary sacrifices for the war on terror, but there are people in the world who do very very bad things to innocent people.
  • begurken 13y ago
    I have no idea of what you're trying to say... ... it appears that your only statement is that there are bad people. I would agree; it seems that quite a number of them have found their way into various US government departments.
  • effbott 13y ago
    True, but the risk of dying at the hands of these people is extremely slim. According to tabular data found here[1], which chronicles US terrorist incidents and assassinations dating back to 1865, only 5031 people have been killed by terrorists in the last 148 years. That comes out to approximately 34 deaths per year! That number is trivial compared to other causes of death. Here's a sampling of some death statistics from the year 2006 [2]: Fireworks discharge: 8 Fall on and from stairs and steps: 1,818 Bitten or struck by dog: 32 Contact with venomous snakes and lizards: 8 Accidental drowning and submersion: 3,579 Exposure to electric transmission lines: 93 Transport accidents: 48,412 Contact with hot tap-water: 32 Terrorism: 0 You're more likely to be killed by hot tap-water than you are by a terrorist. [1](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255a.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255a.html) [2](http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistics/Documents/Odds%20of%20Dying.pdf http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistic...)
    • wycats 13y ago
      The problem with this sort of analysis is that there are EXTENSIVE efforts to reduce the amount of terrorism. You might not like it, but the efforts are not trivial. You're looking at the number of terrorism incidents AFTER efforts to mitigate them, and then concluding it's not a real issue. That's like saying that vaccinations aren't important because we haven't had a large number of Measles incidents lately. We absolutely need better information, as citizens, to help weigh the relative success of these programs, but pretending to be sure that they aren't affecting the numbers is silly.
      • VladRussian2 13y ago
        >The problem with this sort of analysis is that there are EXTENSIVE efforts to reduce the amount of terrorism. the question here whether there are EFFECTIVE efforts. As Boston Marathon shows - no. Like in other times and other countries, anybody who wants is still able to commit such atrocious terrorist acts, despite the EXTENSIVE efforts. Governments just like EXTENSIVE efforts.
        • wycats 13y ago
          That's like saying that if there are any reports of measles, the entire vaccination regime is a failure. I agree that we need to know more about the efforts to understand if they're working. I disagree that the small number of terrorist attacks is evidence that the efforts we're using to combat the attacks aren't necessary.
          • jacquesm 13y ago
            I have this banana in my ear to keep the crocodiles away.
      • csallen 13y ago
        Good point. Still, I can't help but hypothesize that the primary reason terrorism is such a rare occurrence in America is because intelligent people living comfortable lives without mental illness (read: the vast majority of the US) very rarely want to kill en masse. Or kill at all, really. If the opposite were true, I highly doubt our current counter-terrorism efforts would be good enough to prevent disaster after disaster. For example, we were completely unable to predict and prevent events such as the Colorado theater shootings, the Newtown school shootings, the marathon bombings, etc. And the list of foiled Islamic plots since 9/11 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terrorist_plots_in_the_post-9/11_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terroris...) can almost be counted on two hands. Our justice system promises pretty severe retribution on those who would commit acts of terrorism against US citizens. The threats of ostracism, humiliation, prison time, and execution act as deterrents, because we've proven again and again that they're basically inescapable. Consequently, most reasonable people don't even consider terrorism. It seems to me that punishing the guilty is far more effective than spying on the innocent.
  • ppod 13y ago
    > but there are people in the world who do very very bad things to innocent people. And we have some very good laws to deal with that. Laws against murder for example. I think the analogy between 'terror' and 'devil' is a good one, because it captures the almost mystical 'special' evil that 'terrorist' implies. It's a childish, primitive term, with the same kind of semantic effect as the word 'baddie' in reference to an action movie.
  • pizza234 13y ago
    First of all, the Boston marathon bombing has nothing to do with terrorism, based on the current information. There is people indeed who does very very bad things to innocent people, and many of them are in the USA government. Posts like yours show how effective the governments' brainwashing is. Lots of innocent people dies in war bombings, and they're not necessary. Do you have any idea of how many people died at the hands