Psychologist, actually. But a geek most of all. People stereotype. In-group, out-group. Politicians exploit that for their own gain. Just look at how British politicians are scaremongering in Britain: propagating the idea that we are under constant threat of a well-organised, nefarious and cunning Al Qaeda full of highly trained, explosive-expert ninja-terrorists ready to take our Western Free World down in flames. Same thing happens in the US. But hang on --when was the last terrorist attack? Correction: when was the last successful terrorist attack, and who committed them? Our recent attempts have been made by who can frankly only be described as slightly unhinged locals with a chip on their shoulders, not highly skilled foreign agents fresh from the training camps in Afghanistan. Even the serious attempts of 9/11 or 7/7 turn out to have been committed by untrained amateur individuals that were already on the radar of Western intelligence well before they made their move. The 9/11 conspirators were Saudi nationals funded by Saudi money and driven by Saudi fundamentalist ideology. US intelligence had been warned about them months ahead. The British wannabe terrorists were inspired by the firebrand fundie speeches by Abu HAmza, who has been doing his thing in the UK since at least 2002 (and was not kicked out of the country until 2008), not by training or indoctrination abroad. Again, they had been on MI5's radar for months. If anything, terrorist success was due to local government complacency and failure to act timely. When it did act, its first act was to summarily execute an innocent man. Jackass terrorism begets Jackass counter-terrorism, apparently. So what do we get? Panic mongering and ineffectual token gestures purported to make us feel safer, but which in reality are designed to erode our civil rights and freedoms. Ostracism of a selected ethnic minority. Justifying illegal invasions abroad as self-defence. Before it was Lebensraum, now it is oil; it is our birthright. Hitler is laughing in Hell.
Indeed, I understand that part (hey, a person can't hang around these forums for a few years without learning something, right ). I suppose this is all just History doing it's cyclical thing. A few years ago, when France chose not to support America's desire to kill all humans go to war, our fine members of Congress actually resolved to change French Fries to "Freedom Fries." Before that Chuck Norris was the icon of American resolve against the Lebanese. Then there was McCarthyism and the host of other post-World War 2 us-vs-them sentiment. Round and round and round, we go.
its only because george phoned up the french president and said "god told me to go to war" and he just laughed and hung up. Iunno, the whole religious tension seems so 1100's to me.
Someone really needs to tell Georgy boy that it was DIck CHeney whispering in his ear while he slept...not God.
Sorry to barge into this thread without reading it all for context, but this paragraph really struck a nerve with me. Since when did our politicians forget that Britain is not the USA. We have lived with war and destruction on our soil for a long time, be it during the World Wars or more recent Northern Ireland conflicts. If there is a major threat to Britain from extremists, while not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, we can live with it. Giving up personal freedoms and privacy en mass seems counter-intuitive when we're supposedly tackling nations that lack those exact qualities. I live and work in London, I travel on the tube nearly every damn day. Those are what most would consider 'high risk targets', I know that and accept it. Do I want to get blown up tomorrow? No. Am I willing to give up every civil liberty on the off chance the risk of getting blown up is lowered? **** no. I don't know a huge amount about politics, but I would love to know exactly why our politicians continue to believe in treating the British public like children. I think Ron White perfected the terror alert system, Alert 1 - Find a helmet, Alert 2 - Put on said helmet.
You haven't seen anything that can't be explained through other, more valid causal connections. Sure it does. He needed a modern convenience, as luck would have it, he found one. It makes no difference what he needed, only that need was fulfilled. However, the fact it was fulfilled (AFTER the **** hit the gusset) is not quantifiable proof of divine intervention, it's merely a statement of what you'd egotistically like the explanation to be. I can rationally justify those statements and show that the contributing factors to my world view are comprehensive. I find statements such as "god having a sense of humor.. seen it way too many times" to be narrow-minded and prejudicial. Wut? Not really. If this thread was entitled "Scared of Rottweilers" you wouldn't say it was a derailment if someone stated a more general fear of all dogs. And frankly, I'm more scared of christian nations than muslim ones. Why? Because they have the nukes.
Pakistan? That to me is the biggest instability right now, a country with nukes that is strating to see attacks happening throughout its borders and no longer confined to the Afghan border.
scare mongering, there's some radio jockey's who get off on it all.. if you listened to them everyday and trusted what they said, you'd think obama was a shoe bomber waiting for the right time to sneak into a nuclear stockpile and set it all off they call him everything from a child (some people will get this, it's part of the apocalypse).. to a communist muslim sympathizer (they stop at calling him a muslim directly- but they would if they thought they could get away with it) .. it's pretty ridiculous but this is a free country- you can say all the crazy stuff you want.. were back to gridlock and thanks to failed penis exploder boy.. we can't get on a plane without the cow corral longer than ever.. I like how obama went after afghanistan but were still in iraq? I don't get it.. you vote for something and get more of the same- think alot of people (including myself) feel like the bailout helped noone but the rich idiots who ran those companies.. and I throw bush into this too, he started the whole bailout before he left far as islam goes imo.. the guys running the holy war can pretty much say mission accomplished.. you managed to instill enough hate and had the right monkeys in office to keep your recruitment up I wouldn't mind someone sane (maybe nexxo) having his own radio show.. it'd be interesting to listen to at least.. imagine someone who thinks instead of a ratings whore with a brain full of nuts.. just to show you how powerful these guys are.. bill o'reilly on fox was always calling this abortion doctor a baby killer and he was gunned down in his church http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/01/bill-oreilly-crusaded-aga_n_209665.html now considering how many people there are in the united states.. doesn't surprise me at all, people get shot over a case of beer here in fresno.. I can just imagine what the average joe here thinks of muslims nowdays and yeah viper I know how you think.. when you see things happen for you and opportunities click- maybe then you'll get it.. it's far easier to go down the path of I know everything.. you ever hear the term ignorance is bliss? you just have to look at microsoft employee pics
thehippoz: seriously, you didn't watch this, did you? EDIT: Those Bill O'Reilly videos made me angry as hell. I really hope I'm not insulting any clever people when saying he's an idiot. Then again, just about all reporters seem to lack any idea of how to have a conversation..
Media scaremongering causes the majority of fear in the UK and the US. Lets be clear here, the average street is no more dangerous than it was 20 years ago. In fact, I feel safer walking the streets in Glasgow than I ever have as I feel sectarian violence has dropped in the last few years. The only thing thats more likely to happen is being run over by a car as there are more of them nowadays. You really were more likely to be caught in a bomb explosion planted by the IRA than you ever will by a fundie. All the trash newspapers like Daily Mail, The Sun, News of the World etc would have you believing there was a bomber waiting in every plane/train/kebab shop and a paedo waiting for you to leave your kids for a microsecond before running off with them. The fact is that the majority of people believe what they read in papers and see on the news, I mean Why should they lie, exaggerate or embelish? Right? The only news I still respect is Channel 4 news, even the BBC I would say feels like it is talking down and dumbing down these days.
