4 ms·

FYI: The "Department of Homeland Security" was a proposal (without much support) that pre-existed 9/11.

by pyre 12y ago

api 12y ago
So was most of the Patriot Act and "Total Information Awareness." The biggest thing that disgusts me is how our government responded to 9/11 by essentially telling us to be more afraid-- in other words helping deliver precisely the emotional message that the terrorists intended. I started to picture the planes hitting the towers with a voice-over of President Bush saying "my name is George Bush and I endorse this message." It viscerally disgusts me, and yes it also disgusts me when Obama more or less does the same thing. If a president today said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," I'd fall out of my chair. Our politicians care more about their pet projects and hobby horses than they do about the country. We seem to be entering the late stages of imperial decadence in a lot of ways.
- kiba 12y ago
  Obama did actually say that terrorists are not existential threats to the United States. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/02/01/obama_we_should_stop_overinflating_importance_of_terror_groups_as_if_they_are_an_existential_threat_to_us.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/02/01/obama_we_s...
  - api 12y ago
    That's somewhat better, but wake me up when one of our current political leadership tells us not to fear them at all.
    - jrmurad 12y ago
      Why would any sane person tell "us" to not fear them at all? I live and work in Manhattan. I'm aware of the non-zero chance that I'll be a victim. I don't "fear" this enough to move away but I'd be a fool to believe it could never happen.
      - api 12y ago
        Whether or not it's possible has nothing to do with fearing it. It's not that brave people don't feel fear. They do. They just aren't ruled by it. Brave people move forward in spite of whatever fear they might feel. I would like to see America's leadership tell us to be a strong nation, not to constantly harp on how vulnerable and weak we supposedly are so they can pass pet legislation. After 9/11 I feel like the only thing my government did was encourage us to cower in terror before bin Laden (and Iraq, etc.) so they could avoid debating otherwise dubious policies like the Iraq invasion.
- yuhong 12y ago
  Yea, it might not matter whether the conspiracy theories are true.
  - api 12y ago
    We need a Godwin's law analog for the phrase "conspiracy theory." Kooky conspiracy theories are things like the queen of England is a shape shifting reptile or commercial airliners are spraying us with "chemtrails." But more commonly the phrase is used as a guilt-by-association tactic to tar anyone who does not take every single official pronouncement or mainstream media story at absolute face value. Any attempt to dig deeper into realms like ideology, long-term political agendas, intelligence activities (ours or others), corruption, or financial "old boy networks" is instantly dismissed: "ooh you're a conspiracy theorist!" I'd say that the first one to use this phrase in a debate to refer to anything that is not obviously nutty/illucid or totally implausible loses the debate. It is in no way kooky to suggest that some public officials may be corrupt, that shady deals happen behind closed doors, or that governments lie. All of those things are established historical fact not to mention obvious manifestations of human nature. Conspiracies are a completely normal part of life. Hell this site is full of tech startup people... every single early stage startup with any kind of secret technology, strategy, or long-term agenda is a conspiracy, as is every private equity transaction. What do you do when you close a round folks? You meet in secret with deep pocketed people and discuss secret plans and then sign confidential documents. You expect me to believe that such meetings never take place at the scale of international relations, finance, military/intelligence activities, etc.?
ad_hominem 12y ago
Yep, there were some proto-laws and practices pre-9/11 that were simply enacted/expanded after it was politically expedient. For example, the "Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995"[1] by Joe Biden and how Bill Clinton[2] was actually the first president to authorize extraordinary rendition to countries known to torture suspects. [1]: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:s.00390 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:s.00390: [2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arrest-bill-clinton/2011/12/12/gIQACQ7wpO_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arrest-bill-clinton/2...

FYI: The "Department of Homeland Security" was a proposal (without much support) that pre-existed 9/11.

by pyre 12y ago

FYI: The "Department of Homeland Security" was a proposal (without much support) that pre-existed 9/11.

api 12y ago

So was most of the Patriot Act and "Total Information Awareness." The biggest thing that disgusts me is how our government responded to 9/11 by essentially telling us to be more afraid-- in other words helping deliver precisely the emotional message that the terrorists intended. I started to picture the planes hitting the towers with a voice-over of President Bush saying "my name is George Bush and I endorse this message." It viscerally disgusts me, and yes it also disgusts me when Obama more or less does the same thing. If a president today said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," I'd fall out of my chair. Our politicians care more about their pet projects and hobby horses than they do about the country. We seem to be entering the late stages of imperial decadence in a lot of ways.

kiba 12y ago
Obama did actually say that terrorists are not existential threats to the United States. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/02/01/obama_we_should_stop_overinflating_importance_of_terror_groups_as_if_they_are_an_existential_threat_to_us.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/02/01/obama_we_s...
- api 12y ago
  That's somewhat better, but wake me up when one of our current political leadership tells us not to fear them at all.
  - jrmurad 12y ago
    Why would any sane person tell "us" to not fear them at all? I live and work in Manhattan. I'm aware of the non-zero chance that I'll be a victim. I don't "fear" this enough to move away but I'd be a fool to believe it could never happen.
    - api 12y ago
      Whether or not it's possible has nothing to do with fearing it. It's not that brave people don't feel fear. They do. They just aren't ruled by it. Brave people move forward in spite of whatever fear they might feel. I would like to see America's leadership tell us to be a strong nation, not to constantly harp on how vulnerable and weak we supposedly are so they can pass pet legislation. After 9/11 I feel like the only thing my government did was encourage us to cower in terror before bin Laden (and Iraq, etc.) so they could avoid debating otherwise dubious policies like the Iraq invasion.
yuhong 12y ago
Yea, it might not matter whether the conspiracy theories are true.
- api 12y ago
  We need a Godwin's law analog for the phrase "conspiracy theory." Kooky conspiracy theories are things like the queen of England is a shape shifting reptile or commercial airliners are spraying us with "chemtrails." But more commonly the phrase is used as a guilt-by-association tactic to tar anyone who does not take every single official pronouncement or mainstream media story at absolute face value. Any attempt to dig deeper into realms like ideology, long-term political agendas, intelligence activities (ours or others), corruption, or financial "old boy networks" is instantly dismissed: "ooh you're a conspiracy theorist!" I'd say that the first one to use this phrase in a debate to refer to anything that is not obviously nutty/illucid or totally implausible loses the debate. It is in no way kooky to suggest that some public officials may be corrupt, that shady deals happen behind closed doors, or that governments lie. All of those things are established historical fact not to mention obvious manifestations of human nature. Conspiracies are a completely normal part of life. Hell this site is full of tech startup people... every single early stage startup with any kind of secret technology, strategy, or long-term agenda is a conspiracy, as is every private equity transaction. What do you do when you close a round folks? You meet in secret with deep pocketed people and discuss secret plans and then sign confidential documents. You expect me to believe that such meetings never take place at the scale of international relations, finance, military/intelligence activities, etc.?

ad_hominem 12y ago

Yep, there were some proto-laws and practices pre-9/11 that were simply enacted/expanded after it was politically expedient. For example, the "Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995"[1] by Joe Biden and how Bill Clinton[2] was actually the first president to authorize extraordinary rendition to countries known to torture suspects. [1]: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:s.00390 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:s.00390: [2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arrest-bill-clinton/2011/12/12/gIQACQ7wpO_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arrest-bill-clinton/2...