http://www.thetalentshow.org/2005/07/07/what-now/ Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:04:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc http://www.thetalentshow.org/2005/07/07/what-now/comment-page-1/#comment-7255 Joe Fri, 08 Jul 2005 07:03:39 +0000 http://www.thetalentshow.org/wp/?p=1869#comment-7255 re: my rambling, incoherent comments, two of the guests on Nightline tonight said what I was trying to say with a great deal more believablity and persuaviness. In the process they totally trashed Richard Clark and all the pathetic hacks who, like him, advocate continung the fantasy-based approach of the War on Terror. Bottom line, tonight was the Best Nightline Ever! re: my rambling, incoherent comments, two of the guests on Nightline tonight said what I was trying to say with a great deal more believablity and persuaviness. In the process they totally trashed Richard Clark and all the pathetic hacks who, like him, advocate continung the fantasy-based approach of the War on Terror.
Bottom line, tonight was the Best Nightline Ever!

]]> http://www.thetalentshow.org/2005/07/07/what-now/comment-page-1/#comment-7254 Joe Fri, 08 Jul 2005 06:13:07 +0000 http://www.thetalentshow.org/wp/?p=1869#comment-7254 Blaming new terrorists acts on our government's wrong-headed policies is perfectly fair, but counter-productive in the extreme. If your reason for being in power is the prevention of future attacks, if you have asked (and not asked) for your constituents to give up freedoms, comforts and rights, so that you may more effectively achieve your ambition of total safety, then it is not only entirely fair but down right compulsary to hold you to your own standards. But it does the left no good to blame Bush and Blair for these attacks, for two reasons. On the one hand, we should not be encouraging the immaturity of the body politic, the collective fantasy of safety through strength. We should, instead, be helping ourselves find the courage, as a nation and a civilization to be the countervaling example to that much-quoted formulation that those who would give up their liberty in order to gain safety deserve neither. The quote is deservedly popular among those opposed to the PATRIOT Act and the War on Terror, but it seems to imply that the British should wake up tommorow and go back to work. Perhaps they should tweak some intelligence procedures, install bomb detectors on the trains, train the public in CPR and triage. But under no circumstances should they give up their freedoms by hiring more undercover cops, infiltrating mosques, or putting more cameras in Tube stations. That would be throwing away freedoms in order to get safety. I think this is the right way to go about dealing with terror attacks -- we must have faith in each other, and in our way of life, and be willing, maybe, to die for our freedoms. Which is why we can't attack the Blair (and Bush, and Berlusconi, et cetra) approach to terror on the grounds that they aren't doing enough. If we attack them, we just feed the irrational belief that perfect safety is achievable, which is the whole basis for their fear-based politics. Blaming new terrorists acts on our government’s wrong-headed policies is perfectly fair, but counter-productive in the extreme.
If your reason for being in power is the prevention of future attacks, if you have asked (and not asked) for your constituents to give up freedoms, comforts and rights, so that you may more effectively achieve your ambition of total safety, then it is not only entirely fair but down right compulsary to hold you to your own standards.
But it does the left no good to blame Bush and Blair for these attacks, for two reasons. On the one hand, we should not be encouraging the immaturity of the body politic, the collective fantasy of safety through strength.
We should, instead, be helping ourselves find the courage, as a nation and a civilization to be the countervaling example to that much-quoted formulation that those who would give up their liberty in order to gain safety deserve neither.
The quote is deservedly popular among those opposed to the PATRIOT Act and the War on Terror, but it seems to imply that the British should wake up tommorow and go back to work. Perhaps they should tweak some intelligence procedures, install bomb detectors on the trains, train the public in CPR and triage. But under no circumstances should they give up their freedoms by hiring more undercover cops, infiltrating mosques, or putting more cameras in Tube stations. That would be throwing away freedoms in order to get safety.
I think this is the right way to go about dealing with terror attacks — we must have faith in each other, and in our way of life, and be willing, maybe, to die for our freedoms. Which is why we can’t attack the Blair (and Bush, and Berlusconi, et cetra) approach to terror on the grounds that they aren’t doing enough. If we attack them, we just feed the irrational belief that perfect safety is achievable, which is the whole basis for their fear-based politics.

]]> http://www.thetalentshow.org/2005/07/07/what-now/comment-page-1/#comment-7253 tomN! Thu, 07 Jul 2005 22:08:10 +0000 http://www.thetalentshow.org/wp/?p=1869#comment-7253 i'm curious if this was just coincidental to the Olympics being awarded to London. Had NYC gotten the olympics, would NYC have been hit? Had France gotten the olympics, would Paris have been hit? There point is to strike fear into people. What better way to scare the world than to attack the city that everyone is looking at as the future home of the olympics? Were their terrorist operatives in all the major cities waiting to attack whichever one recieved the olympic bid? i’m curious if this was just coincidental to the Olympics being awarded to London. Had NYC gotten the olympics, would NYC have been hit? Had France gotten the olympics, would Paris have been hit? There point is to strike fear into people. What better way to scare the world than to attack the city that everyone is looking at as the future home of the olympics? Were their terrorist operatives in all the major cities waiting to attack whichever one recieved the olympic bid?

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