Regarding airport security

[rationalist]

Powerful argument

Although to be fair it is not part of our collective imagination.

It is the result of a concerted effort by Governments to make us fear terrorism to justify what they want to do.

Guy Fawkes was set up by the Government to justify killing Catholics.

Hitler bunred down the Reichstag to justify attacking communists.

The twin towers and the attacks in London and Madrid are highly suspect too but they have been used to justify attacking oil/gas rich countries, massively increase arms spending and inhibit civil liberties.

But of course our wonderful governments would never behave like that would they? They are noble and wear white hats and always tell us the truth.

Of course I am being absurd again.

 

[BigRob]

Powerful argument

Well, your assertion that "Russia helped in WWII, so therefore the US fabricated the Cold War", along with the lack of any supporting evidence supplied requires no serious rebuttal.

No rebuttal is required when no valid argument is presented to refute.

 

[rationalist]

I didn't say anything of the sort.

Maybe you should re-read what I wrote

 

[BigRob]

I didn't say anything of the sort.

Maybe you should re-read what I wrote

You wrote

The threat of terrorism has been invented by the US Government because the threat of Russia that the US fabricated is no longe believable even to Americans.

Have you ever considered that in the 2nd world war the country that gave the most and made the biggest contribution to beating the nazis was Russia. But within hardly any time after the war the US was friends with Germany and Japan and at 'cold' war with Russia.

The threat of Russia that the US fabricated...followed up with what I would assume is your reasoning... which reads, they helped in WWII basically.

You say the "Twin towers" are "suspect." There is another thread to address that, but I hardly agree.

Further, why did we need 9/11 to go after terrorism? They were attacking us abroad for years, and we were basically already in Iraq. Did we get a lot of oil from Iraq? Not really, the biggest contract under the Iraqi government has gone to a Chinese company.

It is not absurd to think that the government lies, however the fact that the government lies on occasion, does not translate into the existence of a mass conspiracy (involving millions of people who have never spoken of it really) over the course of 60 years.

 

[rationalist]

I said that is very odd that Russia gave massively to help beat the nazis but weirdly the US was at cold war with them straight after but friends with Germany and Japan.

This is weird and I contend that the US wanted a bete noir to justify its appaling behaviour eg invading countries, spending loads on weapons etc)

When the invented cold war was no longer a sustainable concept they invented the war on terror.

You are more at risk from bees than terrorists but look at what is being done by Governments under the banner of combatting terrorism.

The fact that you cannot see this and that you clearly believe the nonesense we are fed about this alleged threat is very depressing but it does explain how they get away with it.

Look at the lies told about the need to invade Iraq.

Why do you think that they don't lie just the same all the time to justify their activities?

 

[PLC1]

I went to the movies the other day, bought a ticket, walked right into a crowded theater without passing through a metal detector, being searched for bombs, or anything else. there were probably more people in the building than on a typical airliner.

What is to keep a terrorist from targeting any crowded place? Wouldn't it be a lot easier than trying to get on a plane?

The point is, all of the security precautions we take don't really make us much safer, do they?

As for airport security, it would be a lot simpler to train bomb sniffing dogs. No one would be able to get any sort of gun or explosive past a dog's nose. As for knives and the like, arm the flight attendants. Anyone willing to bring a knife to a gun fight could be taken down pretty quickly.

 

[rationalist]

The point of it is to make you think there is a massive threat when there isn't.

The reason is justify lots of very bad stuff that the US, the UK and others are doing.

And people who want to exercise their legal right of protest are being arrested using anti terro laws when they are nationals of that country with no connection to terrorism.

This has to be stopped. People have fought and died for these freedoms which are being taken away under the lie of combatting terrorism.

 

[MrSheepish]

I generally agree with you that the threat is overblown and there are better ways to deal with the threat than sacrificing our liberties, having said that...

Deer aren't trying to kill people... they aren't getting together and training in the woods to wander out of the forest and into the path of an oncoming vehicle in hopes of killing the occupant(s).

Does the intention matter? Personally, I don't really care why something might kill me, I just don't want it to happen. So it seems to me we ought to be spending our resources that are intended to make us more secure, and sacrificing our personal freedoms (if necessary) in ways that make me significantly less likely to die. For example, by improving road conditions, finding cures for diseases, etc. Not in preventing things that aren't likely to kill us, such as choking to death on peanut butter, being struck by lightning, being killed by a deer, or being killed by a terrorist (all with roughly comparable probabilities). If you aren't scared of deer, then mathematically speaking you shouldn't be scared of terrorists either.

Maybe you think intentions do matter. Maybe we need to spend vastly more effort protecting against deaths that carry high levels of emotional baggage like terrorism, as you say. Then I would refer to rationalist's comment (though I disagree with him on many other things) that we are vastly more likely to be killed by a desperate man with a handgun who wants our wallet than we are to be killed by a jihadist. If preventing deaths by conscious beings is what is important to you at the level that you think it's ok to sacrifice civil liberties, then you must think that gun control is a great idea.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

I went to the movies the other day, bought a ticket, walked right into a crowded theater without passing through a metal detector, being searched for bombs, or anything else. there were probably more people in the building than on a typical airliner.

What is to keep a terrorist from targeting any crowded place? Wouldn't it be a lot easier than trying to get on a plane?

The point is, all of the security precautions we take don't really make us much safer, do they?

As for airport security, it would be a lot simpler to train bomb sniffing dogs. No one would be able to get any sort of gun or explosive past a dog's nose. As for knives and the like, arm the flight attendants. Anyone willing to bring a knife to a gun fight could be taken down pretty quickly.

Armed flight attendants? I am sorry but thats just asking for problems. You may as well just hand out weapons to anyone who gets on that may want them. Unless you plan a airline full of special forces Flight attendants...you just gave a terrorist the way to get the arms....take them from the flight attendant.

 

[always]

Armed flight attendants? I am sorry but thats just asking for problems. You may as well just hand out weapons to anyone who gets on that may want them. Unless you plan a airline full of special forces Flight attendants...you just gave a terrorist the way to get the arms....take them from the flight attendant.

TYPICAL LEFTIST response---- Be careful do not protect yourself from the terrorist, do not fight back , just allow them to have their way!! WOW!!, now do you see why the leftist are so DANGEROUS!! Is there anything , anytime, that a LEFTIST will put his own life on the line? If he will not defend himself , then what does he fight for? SURRENDER WINS ZERO BATTLES!!-- NEXT CASE!

 

[rationalist]

Bizarre

This view exemplifies exactly how easy it is for Government's to manipulate people.

There is no statistical threat to any Americans from terrorism that is worth considering and yet look at what this person wrote.

 

[GenSeneca]

Does the intention matter?

You missed the entire point of my comment, that or you intentionally misrepresented its context in order to argue against the strawman that you flogged with your response.

Statistically, you can refer to deaths caused by deer and compare the statistics to deaths caused by terrorism. Fair enough. Once you go beyond citing statistical significance and try to equate deaths caused by deer to deaths caused by terrorism, your argument becomes fallacious. The steps we can take to limit deaths cause by deer are in no way analogous to the steps we can take to limit deaths caused by terrorism.

 

[MrSheepish]

Bizarre

This view exemplifies exactly how easy it is for Government's to manipulate people.

There is no statistical threat to any Americans from terrorism that is worth considering and yet look at what this person wrote.

I really am baffled as well. "always" is an extreme case, but the scale of the reaction of the USA to the terrorist attacks really is something that I don't understand. Note that I do not think the attacks were faked - a theory you apparently might subscribe to - nor am I implying that I don't think it was a tragedy. I just think that when studies show that more Americans die every three-four days from smoking-related illnesses than died in the 9/11 attacks, it means that some perspective is missing.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

TYPICAL LEFTIST response---- Be careful do not protect yourself from the terrorist, do not fight back , just allow them to have their way!! WOW!!, now do you see why the leftist are so DANGEROUS!! Is there anything , anytime, that a LEFTIST will put his own life on the line? If he will not defend himself , then what does he fight for? SURRENDER WINS ZERO BATTLES!!-- NEXT CASE!

again I don't read your posts, stop trying

 

[MrSheepish]

You missed the entire point of my comment, that or you intentionally misrepresented its context in order to argue against the strawman that you flogged with your response.

Statistically, you can refer to deaths caused by deer and compare the statistics to deaths caused by terrorism. Fair enough. Once you go beyond citing statistical significance and try to equate deaths caused by deer to deaths caused by terrorism, your argument becomes fallacious. The steps we can take to limit deaths cause by deer are in no way analogous to the steps we can take to limit deaths caused by terrorism.

Fair enough, and thank you for being the first person to argue rationally against this statement. I completely agree that the ways you reduce the danger from these problems are very different. But this should give you a sense of perspective at least: both of these problems can be safely ignored without increasing your personal risk in any noticeable way. So why is there any reason to violate our civil liberties (or for that matter spend >1 trillion $ fighting wars) to protect us from one of them?

And there is an example that both rationalist and I have used that is more analogous. Unlike terrorists, criminals with handguns *do* pose a small, but non-negligible threat to the average American's safety. If we're going to start violating constitutional/civil rights to protect people, eliminating handguns would probably be a much more effective way to save lives.