4 ms·

People will always figure ways out to harm the guys opressing them. The best way to avoid that is not to give them a reason. I admid that millimeter-wave scann

• Tichy 17y ago
  "The best way to avoid that is not to give them a reason." I agree in principle, but realistically, I doubt it is possible to satisfy everybody's wishes. Also, how to deal with the people who are already "fanaticised"? I guess one problem is that terrorism is also a system - the organizations behind it tend to have a system for growing, that will take on a life of it's own. It's not just disgruntled people looking for terror organizations to join, it is also terror organizations making people join.
  • Maktab 17y ago
    Exactly. In the real world you're always going to have disgruntled people, no matter how reasonable and fair you may be towards them. It's probably true that you could prevent some terrorism by changing your actions to stop doing whatever's causing some subset of the population to become upset, but there will always be some person or group whose demands are so crazy and far-out that no country could reasonable accede to them. Against the irrational even appeasement is an imperfect deterrent. I don't think, for example, that it would have been realistically possible to have avoided giving Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh or even Osama Bin Laden a reason to attack their respective targets.
    • randallsquared 17y ago
      Well, for McVeigh, apparently a large sign saying "Day Care Inside" would have worked for that particular target, but not targets in general.
    • philwelch 17y ago
      Nothing can justify what these people have done. But to be fair, neither McVeigh nor bin Laden would have reasons to commit acts of terrorism if the federal government wasn't doing things it wasn't supposed to be doing. McVeigh was motivated by Ruby Ridge and Waco (both of which were debacles the feds completely mishandled, to speak charitably), and bin Laden was motivated primarily by American intervention in the Middle East.
• jerf 17y ago
  That's terribly naive. I challenge you to find one person in the world that there isn't at least one other person who wants to kill them. You can't. No matter who you pick, someone wants to kill them for their race, or because they are mixed race and therefore traitors. In fact, you can find someone for each component race. Someone wants to kill them for their religion, regardless of what it is. Someone wants to kill them for their economic system, regardless of what it is. Someone wants to kill them for their position on abortion, regardless of what it is. And don't forget the crazies, because some of them are actually capable of pulling stuff off, despite their crazy. How much more so for entire countries.
  • eru 17y ago
    I only need to find someone that wants to kill everybody including himself for your thesis to come through. But what do we learn of it? Nobody's going to attack the Swiss.
  • tfh 17y ago
    >That's terribly naive. I don't think you understood what I meant. There are plenty of reason for certain people to get rid of other people. Yes, the crazies exist. The key is to have a balance between making it for them really difficult (stop selling firearms at walmart) without making a 1984esque surveillance society. With giving someone a reason, I meant bombing helpless civilans with ultra-modern bombs or supporting injustice. Why aren't these crazies you're talking about not exploding themselves everywhere in the US? And speaking of challenge, I challenge to find someone willing to stuff a bomb up his rectum to kill someone for his position on abortion..