Regarding airport security

[GenSeneca]

both of these problems can be safely ignored

This is where we will find ourselves in complete disagreement... at least as far as ignoring terrorism. You reference criminals with guns posing a threat to our safety later in the post, I would like to ask if we should ignore them, or perhaps ignore other, more petty, offenses against our rights. Should we ignore the actions of muggers simply because the odds of our being mugged are so slim? If you truly are applying rational thought, then you would have to conclude that ignoring an act of violence because of its statistical insignificance will only cause, in some ways encourage, the behavior to become more prevalent since there is nothing to retard it.

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?

My first, and perhaps only, statement in the original thread regarding this topic was a firm rejection of allowing government to violate our rights under the pretense of protecting our rights (or filling our needs).

According to our Declaration of Independence, the purpose of creating a government was to protect our rights and our Constitution created the framework so that the newly formed government could perform this duty of protecting our rights while simultaneously barring government from violating our rights.

If the power of the government is derived from the consent of the governed, then I give my consent only so far as the government operates to protect my rights and, if at any time, for any purpose, the government should violate my rights, then my consent is withdrawn.

As to the matter of spending money on wars... Please listen carefully because I do not want to misunderstood in the statements I'm about to make: The only purpose of our government is to protect our rights. While I disagree with the manner in which we have tried to fight against terrorists, our government does have a Constitutional obligation to protect us from those who would violate our rights. We do not accomplish that goal by allowing government to violate our rights any more than we can accomplish that goal by ignoring the threat - both suggestions are an abandonment of logic and reason.

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.

I have heard this many times before and to propose this theory, one must abandon all logic and reason...

Criminals would be law abiding citizens if they followed the law. Since we know criminals are criminals because of their flagrant violations of the law, such laws would only accomplish disarming their victims - the law abiding citizens. There are already laws banning murder, banning guns would not stop criminals from committing murder any more than the law banning murder stops them, it would simply cause them to trade one weapon of choice for another and violate the rights, and safety, of their victims in the process.

 

[rationalist]

Your government, in the name of protecting you goes round the world violating the rights of millions of people and often killing them.

If the wars your country starts happened on US soil Americans would have a very different view to the casual one they have to the suffering of others.

The point is that there is no real threat to any individual from trrorism.

It is a lie that is used to make you support attacking other countries and taking away your own civil liberties.

If you think governments act out of noblity and altruism you are very naive.

Mr Sheepish, governments have been committing false flag activities since governments began.

Guy Fawkes was fitted up by the British Government to justify their intent of burning Catholics. Hitler burned down the Reichstag to whip up anti communist support. Why is it so hard to blieve that the US Government was complicit in 9/11 when it gave them exactly what they wanted which was a mandate to attack the middle east?

If you take away the 'oh the US Government would never do that' argument which has no real value anyway and if you stop deriding people like me as consipracy theorists which again has no real value, why don't you consider the possibility that this is what actually happened. Once you look at it like that there are a lot fewer unanswered questions than there are with the official account.

I know lots of people don't want to believe it but that has no bearing on the truth. 9/11 was another piece in the story the US Government has crafted to make us believe we are at risk from 'terror' and unfortunately they are very skilled at knowing exactly which buttons to press.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

GenSeneca SAID: According to our Declaration of Independence, the purpose of creating a government was to protect our rights and our Constitution created the framework so that the newly formed government could perform this duty of protecting our rights while simultaneously barring government from violating our rights.

If the power of the government is derived from the consent of the governed, then I give my consent only so far as the government operates to protect my rights and, if at any time, for any purpose, the government should violate my rights, then my consent is withdrawn.

As to the matter of spending money on wars... Please listen carefully because I do not want to misunderstood in the statements I'm about to make: The only purpose of our government is to protect our rights. While I disagree with the manner in which we have tried to fight against terrorists, our government does have a Constitutional obligation to protect us from those who would violate our rights. We do not accomplish that goal by allowing government to violate our rights any more than we can accomplish that goal by ignoring the threat - both suggestions are an abandonment of logic and reason.

WHAT? Then by your own words and understanding about our UNITED STATES of AMERICA...the south should have been allowed to secede from the UNION and we should have allowed them to carry on with their form of cotton/tobacco production with slave labor...
I mean if we all 'collective' thought as just individuals and not of the UNITED STATES as a whole entity then the southern states should have been allowed to separate themselves from our consitution and form their own type of government!
But we can't operate as separate and exclusively mine, when you & yours have to be part and particle included into that UNITED STATES as a whole...simplistically said...your personal rights can't make my life exposed to outside threats just because you think you have more SAY then protecting this country from those who mean us harm! IMO

 

[GenSeneca]

the US Government was complicit in 9/11

Mr. Sheepish,

Are you also a 9/11 truther?

 

[MrSheepish]

This is where we will find ourselves in complete disagreement... at least as far as ignoring terrorism. You reference criminals with guns posing a threat to our safety later in the post, I would like to ask if we should ignore them, or perhaps ignore other, more petty, offenses against our rights.

I said that stronger than I intended. I did not mean that I think the threat should be completely ignored, but rather that our response to the threat should be somewhat proportional to the size of the threat. If there is an extremely low chance that something might hurt us then that is a low threat. Taking steps to minimize the threat is sensible. But making our response to the threat the defining characteristic of our nation for the better part of a decade (as we have with terrorism) seems completely senseless to me.

Should we ignore the actions of muggers simply because the odds of our being mugged are so slim? If you truly are applying rational thought, then you would have to conclude that ignoring an act of violence because of its statistical insignificance will only cause, in some ways encourage, the behavior to become more prevalent since there is nothing to retard it.

Ok. Let's say we do too little to stop the spread of terrorism. Let's say that as a result the terrorists become more widespread and powerful (a big if) to the point where they are no longer only as dangerous as deer. Maybe they pull off another 9/11 attack every year. Terrorists are now about as dangerous to us as accidental drowning deaths. This is still not something that should overly concern us, but maybe then they would start to warrant a more serious response.

As to the matter of spending money on wars... Please listen carefully because I do not want to misunderstood in the statements I'm about to make: The only purpose of our government is to protect our rights. While I disagree with the manner in which we have tried to fight against terrorists, our government does have a Constitutional obligation to protect us from those who would violate our rights. We do not accomplish that goal by allowing government to violate our rights any more than we can accomplish that goal by ignoring the threat - both suggestions are an abandonment of logic and reason.

While I disagree with your attitude about the purpose of government, I respect that you think it should make protecting our rights a priority.

As for the gun control example, it was just that: an example to illustrate that there are ways the government could effectively save lives if it was willing to violate our rights. Maybe you disagree that this example would actually be effective, but that is beside the point. The point is that violating our rights to protect us from terrorists is not a good example of this because the terrorists are not a danger to the average person.

 

[MrSheepish]

Mr. Sheepish,

Are you also a 9/11 truther?

Like I said, I disagree with rationalist about many things. I saw the video of the planes flying into the towers and of the towers falling. The explanation of the rocket fuel burning hot enough to weaken the steel so that the towers collapse makes perfect sense, whereas you have to be kind of nuts to think that the government did this as a controlled demolition, and faked the videos, hijackings, phone calls, and everything else that would be necessary without getting caught.

No, I would say that I am a 9/11 truther in the sense that I believe that 9/11 was caused by a handful of pissed-off Muslims, which is the truth.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Anyone else hear this >>>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35021789#35021789

Did you wonder 'WTH'...all this time I assumed that our good ole buddies {ENGLAND} were on board with the same type/style of lists, checklists, no fly lists...check those check lists again lists...etc., etc., etc. Now to find out that they haven't had a 'NO FLY LIST' NONE/ZIP/NADA

 

[rationalist]

The towers fell at free fall speed and fuel does not burn hot enough to melt the towers' steel.
There was nanothermite discovered in the dust. The airliners were not shot down as they should have been. The one at the pentagon disappeared without polluting the water table. The steel was hastily shipped off to China for scrap before it could be analysed. The government obstructed the enquiry. Tower 7 fell down without being hit by an aircraft. No steel framed building anywhere else in the world has collapsed due to fire. The excuse for why there were no fighter planes scrambled in time is that they were on a training session simulating an attack on the twin towers. 3 months before the attack control of these fighters was taken over by Cheyney. The same air traffic controller who talked in the NY planes also talked in the Egyptian 'attempt (dry run)'.
Pilots will tell you that nobody could fly those plane with that accuracy after a few hours on a simulator and as for the alleged words of the hijackers saying they were not interested in learning take off or landing??? If they were smart enough to pull this off they wouldn't have said anything as dumb as that. The towers were turned to powder but very little nothing was done to the Pentagon. The Saturday before the attack companies occupying the twoers were asked to go in on the saturday to make sure their back-ups were ok as power to the all of the buildings was being switched off. I have met one of the DBAs called in to do this. In fact he survived because he got the Tuesday off in lieu. He has asked the port of NY about this alleged power down and they know nothing about it.

I could go on and on and on.

The fact is that the Bush administration wanted to attack the middle east before 9/11. What a miracle that they got this huge mandate to do it right on cue.

It stinks and people ar only fooled because they can't bring themselves to accept that the US Government would do this.

Well the machine had Kennedy killed and then picked up a conveninet stooge who could not possibly have done it.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

U.S.: Avoid ‘cookie cutter’ airport security

In Europe, Napolitano urges mix of tactics to deter terrorists



The U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano speaks during a news conference at an informal meeting of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs in Toledo, Spain, on Thursday. Airport security was discussed during the meeting after a failed plot to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas day.


Paul White / AP

updated 8:58 a.m. CT, Fri., Jan. 22, 2010

TOLEDO, Spain - The United States does not want countries to use identical airport security systems which could make it easier for potential attackers to elude them, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.
"What we want to avoid is a 'cookie cutter' approach, because then the terrorists know about the approach and they plan around it," Napolitano said during a visit to Europe to discuss tightening airport security.
"There is a whole mix of technology and practices that can be done at airports independently of scanners and this is what we are focused on as an international consensus," the Security Secretary said.
<story source>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34978560/ns/us_news-airliner_security/
**********************************
While this all would seem extremely full of COMMON SENSE...we yet have to keep promoting the idea of 'TRY TO BE SMARTER THEN THE TERRORIST'

 

[rationalist]

The UK has just lifted its security threat level.

By the Government's own admission nothing has changed it has just done it to 'make people more vigilant'.

Or in other words - perpetuate the myth of the threat from terrorists to ensure that they can continue to take away cibil liberties and control people.

And anyone who falls fo this is complicit.

 

[GenSeneca]

our response to the threat should be somewhat proportional to the size of the threat.

I can agree with that to an extent but it's proper that we should aggresively prevent terrorist organizations from aquiring NBC weapons.

But making our response to the threat the defining characteristic of our nation for the better part of a decade (as we have with terrorism) seems completely senseless to me.

I have no interest in nation building or exporting democracy, only killing jihadists wherever we find them.

Maybe they pull off another 9/11 attack every year. Terrorists are now about as dangerous to us as accidental drowning deaths.

I again reference NBC. It's simply too dangerous to underestimate the threat.

an example to illustrate that there are ways the government could effectively save lives if it was willing to violate our rights.

So are you saying that's its never a good idea to violate our rights to save lives? Careful how you answer that... The proposals for universal health care would violate our rights under the pretense of saving lives.

 

[rationalist]

Your last statemnt accurately sums up the way this myth is sold to people.

All tyrranical governments do their dirty deeds under noble banners.

Saving lives??? What a joke. Ask the realtives of the tens/hundreds of thousands of Iraqis the US has killed.

 

[MrSheepish]

The towers fell at free fall speed and fuel does not burn hot enough to melt the towers' steel.

The towers fell at *almost* free fall speed because once you have enough momentum going downwards, the lower floors themselves pose almost no resistance to the >forty floors of mass that are falling on them. Simple physics: it's the same reason a nail will enter the board at almost the speed of motion of the hammer that strikes it.

Second, no one said the fuel burns hot enough to melt steel, only hot enough to weaken it enough that it was no longer strong enough to support the tower.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4

I could go on and on and on.

Why don't you try getting the first couple correct before you go on to the others.

 

[MrSheepish]

I can agree with that to an extent but it's proper that we should aggresively prevent terrorist organizations from aquiring NBC weapons.

Absolutely reasonable. Unlike any terrorism we have faced so far, nuclear and biological weapons (much more so than chemical) do have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people, and so efforts should be put into preventing terrorists from acquiring or using these weapons. *But*, tightening airport security does nothing to help with either of these.

I have no interest in nation building or exporting democracy, only killing jihadists wherever we find them.

When it comes to terrorist organizations that have a significant chance of acquiring nuclear or advanced biological weapons, then I agree that significant effort should be made to stop them. But the threat from terrorists hijacking airplanes or setting off shoe bombs is much smaller.

So are you saying that's its never a good idea to violate our rights to save lives? Careful how you answer that... The proposals for universal health care would violate our rights under the pretense of saving lives.

No, I said that our sacrifices should be proportional to the benefits we gain from them. We should not make major sacrifices (especially not on the scale of fighting wars) if what we are worried about is airplane attacks and conventional explosives being used by crazies. The danger just isn't significant. The only argument that makes any sense to me is the threat that some terrorists might get their hands on something vastly more destructive.

On the other hand, making sacrifices for universal health care (which for some reason you think violates our rights?) would save the lives of a substantial number of people if it were done effectively, so that sounds more reasonable to me.

 

[GenSeneca]

tightening airport security does nothing to help with either of these.

Of course not.

the threat from terrorists hijacking airplanes or setting off shoe bombs is much smaller.

Statistically, yes. Psychologically, no. The psychological impact of terror attacks is very powerful, powerful enough to cause mass hysteria and result in irrational decision making.

No, I said that our sacrifices should be proportional to the benefits we gain from them.

Again, we will have to disagree. Sacrificing our rights is never practical, its always immoral, and the "benefits" will never outweigh the consequences. If you would like to discuss the topic of universal health care further, we should do so in another thread.