How many of you are actually SCARED of terrorism??

Question

Scared enough to be comfortable knowing the government can enter your house with-out a warrant? Or tap your phone without a warrant? Even if you have nothing to hide, there is a reason that all law enforcement, for the last 200+ years, needed a warrant to invade your privacy. Are you scared enough to be happy that the government can detain American citizens and deny them habeas corpus, and can detain them without informing the captives family? Even if you have nothing to hide, habeas corpus is the very foundation of our justice system, and is guaranteed in the constitution for a reason. Are you scared enough of the terrorists that the only reply you can have to someone asking these very questions is that you have nothing to hide? Are you scared enough of terrorists to shame the memory of the men and women that died for our country protecting these very rights in the past? Or are you a REAL American, Not scared at all, and willing to die with EVERY right uninfringed on?

And please. No questions about what rights we have lost. Do your own research. I listed most of them in my questions. Thank you.

David P,

Why must you embarrass yourself with that asinine answer?

Answer 1

No law abiding Americans have been affected by the Patriot Act. Never, not even once.

If you have an example, let's hear it.

Answer 2

The government has considered it legal to be able to enter your house without a warrant for decades, on an exigent basis of course. Same with the wire tap. Shall I refer you to Clinton's Justice Department Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick defending these same authorities to Congress?

If you really believe this is a new thing, you're quite wrong, and woefully misinformed.

As for the habeas corpus denials, that's only for very special cases, not for any general use against the population. That is specifically for American citizens who are engaged against this country on the side of the enemy. There are reasons why habeas corpus needs to be suspended in those extremely rare cases.

I'm more afraid of ill-informed people who undermine our ability to find, locate, and stop enemy attacks because of their ill-informed beliefs about rights versus the needs of national security in wartime.

I never use the horrid argument about having things to hide. I use the argument that since this country's founding, you've never had a right to unimpeded contact with an enemy in wartime. You've never had a right to be an enemy agent during wartime.

And when people whine about privacy, why have they remained silent about the invasion of privacy that income tax entails? The government has the details of all my private finances. This is worse than any wiretap or e-mail reading, and you don't even mention it.

Answer 3

joe--americans are being effected by the patriot act. Did you know that now americans in poverty who owe money to doctors and other debts can not get a bank account? Yet an illegal immagrint can? This does not go under question as if you have anything to hide or not. This subject is scrutinized by, now the government doesn't even need to forcefully illegally get information about its people, but you are ungrudgingly giving up your own very rights that your four fathers have fought for.

"I hope you know what my generation and I went through to give you your rights"
Thomas Jefferson

Answer 4

No, I'm not sufficiently frightened of terrorism to be pleased with the abuses the Patriot Act allowed. I'm rational, I realize that there would have to be around 100,000 9/11 attacks before I'd stand a 50/50 chance of become a casualty of terrorism. Of course, the chances of my being targetted by Homeland Security as a possible terrorist are pretty slight, too.

But, in both cases, it's the principle that's important. Americans shouldn't be giving up thier rights, and they shouldn't accept a devestating attack on thier own soil without massive retaliation. Saddly, they've don both.

Answer 5

people don't seem to realize that there's no magical Terrorist-land where all the terrorists live. They fail to understand the very concept of terrorism- someone gets so pissed about something that they take it on violently themselves, whether it's religious, political, or whatever. Point: Timothy McVeigh. Immediately after OK City, people blamed Al Qaeda, only to realize it was an American citizen who was incredibly pissed off by Waco. Or Theodore Kaczynski (AKA the Unabomber) who wanted destruction of technology and civilization.

the point is, terrorism is something you will NEVER escape, and allowing the fascistic policies of the patriot act will never prevent it.

rather than making every citizen a defendant (which, in turn, will only piss more people off to the point of violence, much like the war in Iraq does in aiding philisophical recruitment efforts of Islamic fundamentalist radicals), we need to look at what we're doing that is pissing people off so much, and clean up our own act.

Answer 6

When was the last time you walked through a foreign city airport. When I was in Germany a few years back, the military was patroling the airport with loaded UZI's. Not a real comfortable feeling seeing that.

If the government wants to tap my telephone, let them have at it. I have nothing to hide. Since I don't have anything to hide, I don't think I will be detained or have my rights infringed or my house invaded in the middle of the night for doing something illegal.

Answer 7

Aside from all that (which I agree with) what really freaks me out is that I can think of 100 OTHER WAYS that people could still get us... if they wanted...

So how is this "war on terror" going to protect my food from contamination?
Or how is this "war on terror" going to keep a kid from shooting me in my college class?
Or how is this "war on terror" going to keep me from being drafted into the front lines someday?
(because we all know that if the dems are not successful, then we will be looking at a draft that makes Viet Nam look like a day care center...)

And what do they say about the REAL terrorism from religious fundamentalists that happens EVERY DAY in America?
http://www.itsyourtimes.com/?q=node/2736
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=67047
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7809537/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naveed_Haq
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/27/bomb-found-at-texas-abortion-clinic/
http://www.glaad.org/media/archive_detail.php?id=238
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/15/nazi.march/

Answer 8

Bil Laden is DONE with us. He proved his point and ruined our economy on 9/11.

The only terrorism that scares me is the type inflicted on innocent American citizens by their own government. And the citizens that bend over and take it deserve to be fleeced like the sheep they are. I thank God I'm not one of them.


"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
- V for Vendetta

Answer 9

Joe: Lots of law abiding citizens get caught up in the Patriot Act. 60 Minutes did a story about a bunch of people who have names similar to people on the Do Not Fly list. They go through all kinds of crap in the name of the Patriot Act and there are no checks and balances to let the innocent people through.

Answer 10

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Terror is the hype these days.
But our country lives on by inspiring Terror in others,directly with the Military or funding it,through others(dictators,terrorists,etc ) Double standards?It was a matter of time before the Gov.moved on its own Holly cow,Americans.
They had "too much freedom" it may reason

Answer 11

The terrorists' mission has obviously failed on me, seeing as I never think about it. I'll fly on any plane, go to any country (well...most countries) and I don't worry about when the "next" terrorist attack on America will be. Bush is the real terrorist; he has scared us into thinking he is the only person who can keep our country safe. The average American isn't as scared of terrorism as the Bush administration says we are.