• SeanRenaud said on Jun 09, 2009....

  bloc has dozens upon dozens of truly elegant posts on this subject.

  I would basically say that we have to trust the government.  We passed the point of no return sometime after World War 1 as far as I'm concerned.  We cannot defend ourselves effectively against our government.  We don't have access to the hardware necessary.

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 09, 2009....

  I will read them.  thank you. 
  
  eahhh!  What? 
  trust the government?
  
  I agree with you.  BUT
  C'mon!  We are the people! 
  Don't give up!
  We always have guns.  heh.
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 09, 2009....

  That's the thing the guns we have suck.  I mean to say nothing of our training.  200 years ago when the 2nd amendment was written your average man was more likely to have held and operated a firearm.  Today most guys wouldn't know how to work the safety.  To say nothing of the fact that we can't purchase grenades and the such.

  I don't view trusting the government as giving up.  I believe in democracy and the system.  More than that I believe technology has grown by such leaps and bounds that I'm not sure I really want your average man having access to real weapons anyway.  When the Bill of Rights (and thus the 2nd amendment) was written we didn't have any truly terrifying weapons yet.  We had muskets and single shot rifles, and cannons and stuff but you need a bunch of guys to do any real harm with them, even again say unarmed people the unarmed could run or rush you.  Today?  We can see from various school incidents what happens when someone opens on unarmed civilians.  And that is with small arms.  Can you imagine what the Drug War would have been like in the US if the purchase of grenade launchers or .50 cal machine guns was possible?  (which is also my proof that gun control works.  If it didn't drug lords would have done drive bys with .50 cals mounted to jeeps not cheap ass uzis. 

  All in all I think it's a fair trade.

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 10, 2009....

  Good points.  However, don't be duped into thinking that anybody can't buy whatever they want somewhere.  The laws don't stop the criminals, they only stop collectors and some wackos, I'm sure.  just to be fair.  pulling that out of my ass.  Basically normal citizens that are doing nothing wrong.  Now with so many gun control laws going through, normal citizens are criminals.  Criminals without guns.  If the Constitution falls through and the Bill of Rights, the last resort is what?  #2
  We will be unarmed.  Or everything will be registered.  At least in my state.  Even the antique guns grandpa brought home from the war.  Like anyone would shoot those.  Shotguns and rifles too.  I think the gun control laws are out of control.  Now, I'm gonna email the NRA and tell them I want some money!  LOL!
  Night!         
  
  

• Cussane said on Jun 10, 2009....

  Hmmm, back to the orignal post, From the government point of view the terrorist is a fluid defination, if it helps US interests then they are not terrorist's, if however at some point they no longer help US interest then suddenly they are terrorists, 3 examples
   
  1. When Bin Laden and Gang were fighting the russians, they were the good guys...now, not so good
  2. When the AUC in Columbia was helping fight the FARC, even though they both used the same tactics they were the good guys, once they got caught raping, burning and selling drugs.....not so good
  3. At the height of the troubles, Britian was an ally of America, however the USA did little if not nothing to stop NORAID from purchasing and shipping arms to the IRA (hence that would have made certian americans if not terrorists at least compict in supporting a terrorist organization)
   
  So does this also mean America has sponsored terrorism, like the so called axis of evil
   
  As for gun control, hey whatever works for you, you can debate the pros and cons all night long, some places have systems that work well, other's not so well, what i dont understand is when some kid shoots up a school no one ever seems to ask where the gun came from, and why the person who supplied the gun or the parent/owner is not held to account
   
  Cussane

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 10, 2009....

  1.  I would argue your wrong Door.  That because of gun control it is nearly impossible to purchase and or ship some weapons into the US.  Sure if you had a dozen hook ups you COULD get those weapons into the states but its so fucking hard that nobody does it.  Not even criminals.
   
  2.  Well duh terrorists=bad guys.  If they are working towards our goals they are freedom fighters.

• Cussane said on Jun 10, 2009....

  Hmmmm, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, so if they switch sides does that make them freedom terrorist's Cussane

• travelr712 said on Jun 10, 2009....

  that is the problem with going to war against a concept. you can never win, because there will always be people who will do things you do not like that you can lable as terrorism, and they become terrorists. getting involved in these types of wars is one of the things that has always hurt this country, because it is not a war that can be won, it either has to be abandoned (korea, vietnam, serbia, kosovo, etc.) or it is never ending. when did we 'win' ww2? well, the french switched sides just after the invasion of sicily. the italians switched sides just after normandy. but the war really ended when the germans and japanese stopped shooting at the allied soldiers and signed a formal declairation of surrender. the war ends when one or the other side says 'i give up'. but a war on terror, there have always been, and will always be, groups of people not associated with the government of the country they are in who try to take over a town, a city, a government, commit acts of war against an army of another country, etc. they will be labeled as terrorists. so the war on terror will never end. this creates another delema for our country. the power of a wartime president exceeds the power of a peacetime president. you are right ity, fear has caused the people of this country to allow themselves to be lead into a never ending war. not good.

• bloc said on Jun 10, 2009....

  I've written a lot about this as sean has pointed out. Bush asserted the power to detain anyone without a trial, including american citizens and then they did exactly this to a citizen named jose padilla. 
  
  
  I've stressed that our founding fathers laid out the bill of rights for good reason. Democracy does not exist if the government can rip anyone off the street and hold them without a public trial. I believe this is a human right and should apply to all citizens of this earth. 

• Cussane said on Jun 10, 2009....

  I dont believe you can never win, the brits won in Malay and Aden, were winning up until the early eighties in Northern Ireland, however the problem is when you have a group of people (and in most cases they either have popular support or some form of government recongintion) who we as the west fail to reconizge, yet still try to apply our values to, this is where you get into the never ending war, we did it in Indo-china even though we watched the french use the exact same tactics and failed miserably, same with central america and to a lesser extent south america (plan columbia anyone). we did the same in the middle east time and time again, remember the Israeli's were first classed as terrorists, yet we were one of the first nations to recognize them as a government, so what is the difference between them and hamas, both have committed terrorist acts, both were classed as terrorists, both have been elected by the people they represent but only 1 remains a terrorist. As for detaining without trial, this i believe is counter-productive, look at the effect that had with Bobby Sands, the fallout it had in central america and if I remember correctly there were charges brought against Pinochet for the same thing after he left office Cussane

• bloc said on Jun 10, 2009....

  @cussane
  
  I think you are talking about different things. A war on terror is not a war against a specific group. It's a war against a noun which can never end and has no bounds. A conflict with a specific group, like the IRA, is a very different thing. I believe the bush admin specifically used such a broad label so that they could use it to justify all kinds of things that don't relate at all to the people that attacked us on 9/11. The Iraq war is a good example. They claim it's the central front on the war on terror while also admitting that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and was not allied with Al Qaeda.
  

• travelr712 said on Jun 10, 2009....

  i agree with bloc here. i called it a war on a concept, he called it a war on a noun, but we both meant the same thing. certainly, you can win battles in a war such as this, but those wins you speak of cussane, did not eradicate terrorism. terrorist organizations did not lay down their weapons and sign a peace treaty, they still exist and are still in a state of jihad. my assertion is that you cannot win a 'war' on terror, because the definition of what terrorism is, and who the terrorists are, is not universaly definable. to the british, washington at trenton was a terrorist. he certainly employed terrorist tactics, and was part of a rebel force against the established authoritarian government. to the british, the american militia was no different than the ira. to us, they were patriots, freedom fighters, warriors of a just cause endowed by their creator, the god of nature, in their quest. as bloc said, the bush administration used this termonology to broaden their powers and allow his presidency to become that of wartime, not peacetime. since we are still engaged in this 'war on terror', that gives any government of the united states the ability to claim any other faction around the world is a 'terrorist' organization for any reason they want, and use wartime principles on that faction, rather than the much different peacetime principles such as due process. a war like that will never end.

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 10, 2009....

  Thank you all for giving me your input!
  I must re-ponder my positions on 3 separate issues now. 
  Which I love.  I hate stagnant.  That's why I get on SC!
  
  
             
  
  
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 10, 2009....

  1.  Obviously a war on a concept is a stupid idea.  That is much is completely certain. 

  I think my point is that people dissapear each and every day.  I don't see why anybody believes that a peice of paper is going to prevent the government from disappearing you if they really think you are a problem.  You kinda gotta either trust them or move to someplace with leaders you can trust.  I have no doubt in the following statement.

  There are enough loyal one hundred percent march into Hell barefoot guys in the military that if the US president (or likely a even most Senators) wanted somebody to never be heard from again their car would turn up abandoned at the side of the road. 

• travelr712 said on Jun 10, 2009....

  i agree with you sean, but with such covert acts, the perpetrators get a 'chip in the big game', they know something that would end the senator's or president's career. it is much easier to take someone out of the picture if you can declair war on everyone you don't like. that way, you don't have to hide it. it's not that america declairing that they are ending their war on terror would make people stop disappearing, it's that declairing war on an idea gives the government far too much power.

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 10, 2009....

  worth repeating...
  
  "declaring war on an idea gives the government far too much power."
  

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 10, 2009....

  The War on Terror was never a war on a concept though and we all know it.  It was a war on Islamofacism (which might also be an undefeatable adjective but it is separate and distinct and we all knew what we were talking about)  and that is a real problem in the real world with a limited number of leaders.

  Also nobody got up in arms about the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty despite equally or more disastrous results.

   

• travelr712 said on Jun 10, 2009....

  well sean, just like with ww2 and poland, the reason the war started was irrelevant when the war ended. if the bush administration had limited their declairation to the war on islamofacism, i wouldn't have nearly the problem with it. but they didn't.
   
  i have a huge problem with the war on drugs, and have written many posts and comments about the futility of that war and how it has actually created a far bigger problem.
   
  i don't know much about the war on poverty. but both of those examples show that this type of war cannot be won, all it does is create huge burocrasies and wastes taxpayer money while making the problem worse.

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 10, 2009....

  Bush DID limit his war on terror to the Islamofacists though. It wasn't phrased as such for political reasons but clearly the warlords in Darfur, or abortion bombers in the US were not prosecuted.  They didn't meet the basic criteria.

  Note:  I'm not defending Bush.  I''m pointing out that if you didn't know that The War on Terrorism was really The War on Islam you weren't paying close enough attention.

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 10, 2009....

  sean - the war on drugs has been spoken out against since before it started. 
  The war on poverty I have never heard of.  Is that called welfare?  If it is, I may start speaking out.
  
  

• bloc said on Jun 10, 2009....

  I'm on my iphone so 'll have to come back later because I have a lot to say. I just wanted to comment on sean's assertion that this is really a war on islamofacists. This is what the bush admin want us to think, but they called it the war on terror for a reason. Saddam was a secularist so they needed a broader label.

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 10, 2009....

  There are lots of terrorists that seem to have been ignored.  And Saddam was a casualty of his region, skin tone, oil probably has something to do with it as well.

  Other than the simple fact that it seems that he wasn't I don't see why Saddam wouldn't have helped the Taliban.  I would have in his shoes.  Particularly toward the end when it became obvious he would get blammed for it one way or another.  But I figure if the US can be grown up enough to admit that if the Taliban hates the Russians they must be our friends despite any and all other differences that Saddam must be capable of similar adult themes as "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"  All the facts seem to lie in the direction that those two groups couldn't figure that fact out though.

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 14, 2009....

  Where the hell did bloc go???

• travelr712 said on Jun 14, 2009....

  he got lost in his iphone :-)

• bloc said on Jun 17, 2009....

  sorry, i've been busy :(
  
  
  @sean
  that doesn't change the fact that this was not a war on islam or islamofascists. Bush's powers to spy on any american wasn't limited to islamic people as another counter example! 

• doortoinsanity said on Jun 17, 2009....

  That's ok.  :)
  I agree with you bloc.  There were no boundaries.

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 17, 2009....

  It was a war on Islam/Islamofascists.  The fact that there are cells working inside this country doesn't change the nature of the war.  It certainly wasn't a war on abortion doctor bombings.  Seems despite a fair level of public awareness that it wasn't really a war on the warlords of Darfur nor the drug cartels ramping up violence in South America.

  More importantly any time the Bush Admin even hinted that they were going to be racially profiling everybody got all uppity.

  Clearly there were criteria above and beyond simply being a terrorist that were factored in.  And I again default to the fact that you've got to pick a point and simply have faith cus you don't have a choice.  I mean we have to live the fact that Obama has the Football.  He could go insane for whatever reason and do a lot of damage very quickly.  I have blind stupid faith that he won't.  I don't really have a choice though.  I can either be comfortable with the fact or I can drive myself insane worrying about it

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