Terrorism in London

I'd like to extend my sincere condolences to any residents of that fair city, or to anyone affected by this in any way.And to the rest of our Brit friends here - if you enjoy civil liberty you'd better take advantage of it now, because its days are numbered in your country, just as it was in ours.

Well... I'm not sure I agree. As a result of those terror attacks, it's now pretty much the case that, if you're a resident of a major UK city, you probably spend about 60-70% of your waking life in view of a government or corporate-run security camera.I don't know anything about firearm ownership in the UK, either - might that have been a civil freedom swept away in the crackdown on terror? When did you stop being able to own guns?

I've found the whole response to this somewhat racist. Like, 4 bombs? 40 dead? That's an average day in Iraq.But it happens to some white people, and all of a sudden, "we're all British today."No offense Londoners, what has just happened to you is terrible, an abominable crime, but a lot of people are losing all perspective on this.And predictably, Fox News is the worst, most racist culprit. "London bombs killed Arabs and normal people!" They're positively salivating over the destruction now.

You don't think owning things is a civil freedom?

But all those people turned out to be wrong.What's the point of a list of quotes from people that were wrong?

I'm sorry? If there's WMD to be found, why did the Bush administration call off the search for them? Well, no, it's only a rebuttal to one justification for the war - "Saddam has WMD's and he's going to use them on us." Now, granted, that was pretty much the only justification given for the war at the time. Yet, none of those represent WMD.I mean, of course he wanted them, of course he was trying to get them; he didn't have them and having them is pretty much the only way to keep the US from invading you.I don't see how wanting WMD's constitutes justification for invasion. I'm not at all certain what you think you've just proved.

Granted, but that was not the position. The position to which I was replying was the curious concept that owning something like a firearm, which they had in England far longer than we've ever had them in America (where do you think the colonists got them), isn't a civil freedom at all. I don't think that's accurate. We can debate the necessity of firearm restrictions as a tool for social order, or preventing crimes, or whatever, but to assert that civil freedom never includes firearm ownership, or that it doesn't restrict your freedoms to prevent you from owning something, seems flat-out silly to me.If you can't have guns, you're less free. Similarly, if you can't speak out against your government, or you can't worship freely, or you can't have an orderly assembly, you're less free. (I don't choose these examples because they're in our Bill of Rights, but because they seem like pretty basic freedoms, which is probably why they're in our Bill fo Rights.) But it is ok for someone in the states to own a jet fighter. They're expensive, and the only affordable ones are decommissioned trainer models from the Vietnam-era, but you can have one if you want.

It's not so much that everything they would do is bad; it's more that everything that they have done is bad.Bush's policies have, by any objective measure, made us less safe and undermined the mission to eliminate Islamist militant fundamentalism. If anything they've actually strengthened it.The only "emotional conviction" here is yours; a partisan obsession that doesn't allow you to see Bush's actions in anything but a positive light. I say this as someone who voted for Bush. Let that sink in. If I hate the guy so much, why did I vote for him?

So you say, but so long as you support the war in Iraq, you support that spending. (Where did you think that money was coming from? The oil? Hell, we lost 9 billion dollars of that money. Can't figure out where it went.) How can he be right when his policies are objectively a manifest failure?Look, you can't argue with the facts. If you want to go after Islamicism, then you need to go after its leaders. Not the leader of a totally secular government who had been opposing them.When Japan bombs your Pearl Harbor, you don't invade Mexico just because it's cheaper. You invade Tokyo, and you point guns at Hirohito. We know where bin Laden is; we've known for years. For Bush that's not a priority, which is ridiculous. It's insulting to the families of all those people bin Laden killed. Does taking out bin Laden take out the problem? No. But it sends a message, rallies our allies, gets people on our side, assures moderate Muslims that this isn't about eliminating all Islam everywhere.What we've done sends a message that we're reckless and will use anything as an excuse to sieze the resources we need; it's alienated our allies and set almost everyone against us; its convinced Muslims across the world that we can't tell the difference between murdering madmen and good people of faith.How can you possibly believe those are good things? How can you possibly believe that those aren't the last things we should have done if we want to combat radical, fundamentalist Islam?

Did we find out, when we invaded? I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. Those explosives were observed to be present during the first days of the invasion by the first US forces on the scene. What we need are leaders - and citizens - who can keep their facts straight. You seem to have a problem with that.

Ok, but that's suddenly a new argument. As I said, its one thing to weigh the right to own a firearm against the safety of a disarmed society and come to many different conclusions; but all that is very different indeed from saying that there's no right to own a gun at all.Civil freedoms are absolutes to me, even though in practice a stable society means they are to some degree limited. I mean, just because a hypothetical religious society (for instance) denies its women the right to refuse sexual activity to their husbands doesn't mean that that's not a basic human right that they still possess. Just because your government doesn't give you a certain right doesn't mean that it doesn't exist for you. Just because your rights are infringed doesn't mean that you don't have them. They're denied to you, not nonexistent.One of those rights, to me, is owning anything that you want. I recognize the point of laws that curtail this freedom, but that doesn't change the fact that, to me, the right to own whatever you want is a fundamental civil liberty. I think we're pretty much done. I've come to understand a little bit how you frame rights in your mind; I hope I've helped you see how I do it. I don't expect you to agree with me but I did want to know a little bit more about how you thought about it. If you can find someone to sell them to you, and the avionics package you need to aquire a target and launch, I'm pretty sure you can buy a jet with the missle rails to launch them.

Are you kidding? You're kidding, right? Surely you haven't forgotten that, prior to 9/11, the worst terrorist act on domestic US soil was perpetrated by two members of a militant Christian milita?Do Christians do the suicide bombing thing? No, with suicide being a sin I guess they wouldn't. But there's never been any shortage of Christian terror activity.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 07-09-2005 11:16 PM

Well, that all depends on what degree you're going to be ameinable to reason, now doesn't it? Yeah. The German forces in North Africa. What's your point?Bin Laden had not invaded Iraq, and it was not his forces that we engaged. It still isn't. Over 90% of the insurgency continues to be comprised of native Iraqis. No. Don't insult my intelligence. There were no reasons other than that Bush wanted to do it since he had been elected. Hadn't been in office six months and he was drawing up the battle plans.There are no reasons for the 2nd stage of the war on terror to be there, and plenty of reasons against - not the least of which was that we hadn't finished the first stage. Yeah I hear Iraq has their own orchestra now. Hey, that's worth at least a few thousand lives, right?

Wrong again. Crack open yer Bible:

quote:

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Exodus 22:18-20

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"You shall not permit a sorceress to live. "Whoever lies with a beast shall be put to death. "Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to the LORD only, shall be utterly destroyed.

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Hey, there's three people you're ordered to kill on sight, right there in Exodus. And, as you and your ilk so often point out, the only part of the Old Testament that Jesus absolved you of the duty of following were the dietary restrictions and circumcision. (Or else why would it be wrong to be gay?)

Huh, interesting. I'm sure you'll be able to give me the Bible verses that support your view. Although I wonder why you didn't do that first.