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Originally Posted by me283
Prevention is better than cure.
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Living in an oxygen tent in a sterile house will prevent you from catching diseases.
Trouble is, you won't have much of a life...
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And it's a pity we had to experience September 11th, before we worked to prevent "another" September 11th.
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But the Security Services (remember them? Those wonderful people...) allegedly had *plenty* of warnings that an attack like September 11th was going to happen, yet they were unable to stop those attacks.
How many potential attacks do you want us to guard against? Dirty Bombs? Chemical attacks on the Underground? Ricin in the water supply? Suicidal train drivers? Conventional bombs? Others I haven't mentioned...?
How many rights must we surrender to protect against all of these and more? How many liberties will we sacrifice before you will say we are "safe"?
And even if we give up those rights and liberties and *still* an attack happens, could you *really* say losing them all was *worth* it?
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Originally Posted by Chris T
And, as I've already asked in a not dissimilar thread this afternoon, can we please stop dissecting each other's posting/debating/language styles and stick to the topic.
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Thanks, Chris.
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Originally Posted by ScaredWebWarrior
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Originally Posted by Graham
"Maybe they didn't involve planes" is exactly the point!
These were "conventional" bomb attacks, yet everyone was throwing masses of money at preventing another September 11th.
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Doesn't mean they don't want to have another go with planes. I'd say from the effect it had they'd be very keen to do it again. |
Yet, despite the claims of lack of security at airports etc broadcast by our scaremongering Tabloid press, they *haven't* done so.
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No, actually that's the *strength* of that argument, ie that we will *not* be forced to dance to the terrorists' tune by throwing away our principles and rights because they are suddenly "inconvenient"!
That is what *makes* us civilised.
If we have to become what we hate in order to destroy it, we have *LOST*.
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I don't for one second believe that the terrorist are only after creating 'terror' (i.e. the fear) that drives us to do that.
Hence I think it is appropriate that our response is sufficiently rigorous to combat the threat.
It's not just the fear of terrorism we face, they're actually trying to kill us.
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The number of people killed on September 11th is approximately the same number killed on the USA's roads in *one month* and resulted in a massive downturn in people using air travel, even though there were huge increases in security.
The number of people who died in rail accidents such as Paddington or Hatfield are the equivalent of a couple of *days* deaths on the roads in the UK, but they caused a lot of people to decide to stop using trains and, instead, go back to road travel *even though* they would actually be less safe.
When a certain type of birth control pill was announced to have a possible link with heart disease, many women stopped taking it, even though the risk of complications due to pregnancy etc were much greater than those from heart disease.
The point of all this is that people do *NOT* respond to risk and threat in a rational or sensible manner. They see headlines and very often don't bother to look behind them, this is very probably what the government is *relying* on to get their anti-terror legislation through Parliament (and also very probably what got George W Bush re-elected).
The terrorists (note the first syllable "Terror") are counting on this, they don't want us to *think* about the fact that actually there aren't that many of them and whilst they can hurt us they can't really "destroy" us, they want us scared and frightened and willing to throw away rights and liberties to counter their "threat" because it serves *their* purposes.
We should *NOT* give in to terror by dancing to their tune.