Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Did you ever expect a Canadian to say please stop the personal attacks based on my nationality? Thanks.

Sorry, but I don't think invasion of PRIVACY is the answer. Maybe you do. I DON'T.

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StrongCanada, I didn't intend for my comment to be a personal attack. I'm just saying that Canada's politics are pretty much "do whatever you want" as far as its citizens are concerned. Isn't heroin legal in parts of your country?

And how about offering alternatives instead of getting all huffy and accusing me of being a jerk?

StrongRad, if I understand you correctly, it's impossible to stop the terrorist completely and forever. I probably agree with that... but do you think it's possible to slow the attacks down and prevent future deaths? I do.

And JohnTheTinyCowboy, you made me smile. Just defeat the terrorists! Of course! Why didn't I think of that? I mean, it's not like there are steps we need to take to ascertains Osama's whereabouts... all we have to do is stumble blindly about in Afghanistan, because I'm sure he's there. (In case you didnt' pick up on my point... the way we FIND Osama is through interrogating people who might know where he is. Guantanamo, anyone? Wiretaps in places, anyone?)

Did I use the word jerk? No, I didn't. I said please stop the personal attacks. And I don't know where you get your research, but last I checked, heroin isn't legal in Canada. There was talk of controlling it for medical use, but I'm pretty sure that hasn't passed.

Ok. I'm not going to feed the troll anymore. Sorry everyone.

BOT - I simply don't think that imposing restrictions on otherwise-law-abiding-people, or even criminals, is going to do anything but cause people to rebel. Then you have a new set of problems.

Ok. You all want my opinion on what we should do? Well, I'm just not an expert, so I'll admit it - I don't know. Go ahead and put me down for being a Canadian, or a fence-sitter, I don't care. I'm big enough to admit that I might not have all the answers. Too bad some people can't do that. But I don't think ID cards (when, as I believe SR said) that could be as easily forged as passports or DL's, or subjecting EVERYONE to wire tapping and constant surveillance is the answer.

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I'm not a troll. Trolls come in, make intentionally inflammatory posts, and then bug out once everyone's been sufficiently upset. I'm here for an exchange of ideas. Just because someone doesn't disagree with you doesn't mean they're trolling.

My bad about the heroin thing. I probably read about it being considered for medicinal use somewhere and then forgot the context. I'm sorry.

And fair enough if you don't know. That's fine. But to go back to my original question a bit, when would it (if ever) be okay to invade the citizens' privacy? I understand that right now, it's not okay to you. Can you imagine a time or situation ever happening when it would be okay?

I'm not sure what SC's gonna say, and I most certainly do not claim to speak for her (or ANYONE else on the forum).
Personally, I don't know that it would ever be ok for me to have the privacy of law-abiding citizens invaded. With that said, I have no problem with surveilance cameras in parking lots, city streets, etc, because those are public places, and when you're in public, PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU!

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

You know, there was a reason George Orwell was compelled to write "1984"....

Granted, we're not that bad yet, but I feel we'd be well on our way toward it if that 'we should constantly survey everybody at every minute' line of thinking continues to exist. The fact that there's actually POTENTIAL for that kind of technology to be used irresponsibly really paralyzes me sometimes, much like the existence of nuclear weapons that can destroy the world several times over.

I really do understand and respect where you're coming from, lahimatoa, and I do think a little more close monitoring to a small, responsible extent might help, though I admit I'm no expert in how we would go about that. But solutions that might help solve problems in one area (terrorism prevention) yet cause many more in another (public privacy and people's negative reaction to it, as SC pointed out) seem iffy to me.

Sorry I'm late on this one.

The answer is no, no, no, no, no, of course not, heck no at all.

Removing our civil liberties stands about as much chance of diminishing terrorism as staging a military ground war does.

To quote Benjamin Franklin (actually more likely Richard Jackson, a fellow diplomat), "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

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Absolutes are quite rare, IJ.

And just to clarify, I'm not talking about removing all of our civil liberties. What I'm asking is this...

Could the state of terrorism in the world or our country every reach the point that removing some civil liberties would be acceptable to you in the name of preserving our safety?

For example, let's say we find out that there are at least 200 sleeper cells in the US all devoted to staging a massive coordinated attack on 20 US cities on Sep 11, 2009. And we know they're all Arab in appearance. Would you be okay with things like racial profiling, wiretapping, interrogating people who knew about the plot.... all to save the lives of countless thousands of Americans?

Maybe you aren't, but I can't imagine a more slippery slope. There are powerful people in the United States and Britain who would not mind if we lived in a police state (as long as they can play the police), and saying "Aww, can't we just take a few of them away?" is exactly what they'd be saying a few years after they took just a few away the last time and just a few the time before that.



Fantastical hypothetical situations do nothing to further this discourse, so I hope you'll understand my glossing over them. But the answer is no, because removing our civil liberties has never and will never help to preserve or increase our safety.

And I don't know about you, but I had a lot more peace of mind in the few days between September 11 and the passing of the PATRIOT Act than I do today.

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This brings up a good point, but I have a feeling that quite enough of that stuff is already going on to begin with. Terrorism has pretty much been with us since the beginning of human existence, and I feel the best thing we can do about it is raise awareness of that. That's probably the most positive thing to come out of 9/11 - people were made somewhat more aware of the consequences of terrorism than they might have been on September 10, 2001.

My feeling is it's just too complicated an issue, and with the world population constantly expanding, it's not going to get any less so.

Fair enough. Then may I ask what is acceptable to do in the name of preserving our safety? To me, some things I don't really like are neccesary to do to save lives.

Realizing that the US hasn't experienced a major terrorist attack in almost 4 years now, what would you do if you were in charge to keep us safe?

Me? Panic! Who the heck's bright idea was it to put me in charge??

Er.

In all seriousness, I'd fire Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice.

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Well, the answer to that, or lack thereof, is what makes it such a complicated issue for most people - the careful balance between our safety and our civil liberties. This is why none of us here are among those in charge of decisions like that in the government (at least that I'm aware of). The simplest solution is probably some kind of middle ground between ignoring terrorism completely and doing too much. Who's to say we haven't gotten as close to that middle ground as humanly possible already? There weren't an awful lot of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil before 9/11, either.

And I know what you mean about things being necessary to save lives. Just about everything involving war is a prime example, for reasons I don't think I have to go into.

Okay, so you'd fire them and hire people who would do.... what? Obviously they'd do things differently than Rumsfield or Rice, but what exactly would they do?

lahimatoa, if I were a backseat policymaker I'd be shooting documentaries in Michigan or something.

I can tell when somebody's a crappy guitarist, but that doesn't make me Jimmy Page.

I don't have the answer (though I think Grem's point is salient), but I can say that if I were in charge I wouldn't be detaining potentially honest Americans on foreign soil indefinitely without trial or access to legal representation any more than I'd be reading their mail or tattoing their wrists.

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Quoted from another board I frequent:

"Anybody can poke holes at something. Holding up your hands and saying 'I'm no expert' doesn't excuse you from making a suggestion."

But if that's how you feel, then that's how you feel. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

I know what you're getting at, but I probably speak for most people here when saying I'd really have to think things through on this issue when considering what's best to do. It's a sort of thing volumes of books could probably be written on it without arriving on a totally satisfactory conclusion. Terrorists to me are basically normal people with more ambition at doing something extreme in making a statement than the rest of us, so singling them out without screwing up the rights of the innocent is nigh impossible. I'm not here to offer suggestions myself, I'm just respectfully questioning whether going too far with invasion of privacy for the sake of trying to stop terrorism entirely is actually any better a solution than doing nothing about it, that's all.

And thank you for your points. If nothing else, this discussion has caused me to think a little more in-depth about this issue.

I definitely agree, but is it worse to not have the answers and admit it, or not have the answers and go to war pretending you do?

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What if Bush isn't pretending? What if he really feels he has the right answers here?

And the feeling I'm getting from a couple posters here is this:

"We can't do anything to stop terrorism, so let's not do anything. Or, the things we can do violate our civil liberties."

So we're supposed to do NOTHING? Can we pray that the problem will go away by itself? This view is absolutely insane to me.

That's not what I said at all. I'm just wondering if what you're proposing will actually yield any better results than doing nothing. Like I said, the right answer probably lies somewhere in the middle of doing nothing and getting really 1984-ish with it.

You're putting words in our mouths, lahimatoa, and it's leaving a bad taste.

Maybe Bush thinks he's doing everything in his power to stop terrorism without punishing honest Americans. But I think he's not as dumb as we tell ourselves he is. It's much less frightening to imagine we have a bumbling buffoon in office starting wars and getting our friends and relatives killed than a calculating schemer starting wars and getting people killed, so that's what he tell ourselves. Bush has consistently and conspicuously ignored the advice of his own cabinet (and replaced all dissenting voices with assenting ones wherever possible) to the point that he's verging on capturing the title of Most Quixotic Politician from Ralph Nader. There are people in the Pentagon who have those solutions that I so woefully lack, but Bush does not want to listen to those people.

So, to revise what I said previously: Is it worse to throw your hands up and admit that you don't have the solutions, or to hear the experts around you telling you the solutions and ignoring them?

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As long as you throw up your hands, admit you don't know, and then do your darndest to come up with something that works, yes, that's better than ignoring people you know have the correct solutions.

I know this is going to sound really hickish and downright redneck, but if we give up our freedoms and liberties in the name of fighting terrorists, they win... I really feel that way, no matter how it sounds.

IJ, that was funny. About the backseat policy making, and shooting documentaries thing. It was the perfect propellant for firing Dr Pepper onto my monitor..

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I sometimes wonder what the reaction is to the innocent citizens living in arabic countries. Because, if I remember correctly, last time terrorists did something terrible like this, they lost 2 countries.

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