Subject:
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Re: Just Teasing, I Have No Intention of Debating Any of This...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 23 Mar 2003 06:32:07 GMT
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Viewed:
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751 times
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John wrote:
> > Not our precious freedom. If we have to give that up to be safe, then we've
> > already lost. This nation, absent all that makes it great, is nothing worth
> > saving. It's not the land or the people that make this a pretty good place.
> > It is our history and our institutions and our way of life.
>
> But don't you see? It is conceivably *very* easy for ONE madman to wipe out
> our history. In a totally open and free US society, all it would take would be
> one sick individual to detonate a nuke in D.C. Try to imagine the
> ramifications if D.C. were incinerated. Think of the chaos. It's practically
> unimaginable. And there are probably 1,000,000s out there who would do it in a
> heartbeat. That would be an interesting poll question in the Arab world: "If
> you had the opportunity, would you sacrifice your life to incinerate the
> capital of the US? Yikes.
Hmm, in a "totally open and free US society" (which we've never had, or
certainly haven't had this century), I don't think nuking one city would
collapse us. See, the thing is, with a totally open and free society,
the power is sufficiently distributed that once city wouldn't kill us.
In fact, think about it, what was the real effect of 9-11? Ok, so we
have overreacted with some security issues (but amazingly, we've
actually improved the airport situation, I honestly think that the
security check points work smoother after than before). Sure there has
been some economic fallout (but it's hard to say how much is a result of
9-11, the economy was already in a downturn). To be honest, the impact
on my life was about 3.5 days. I spent most of 9-11 watching TV at work,
I spent 1/4 of 9-12 and all of 9-13 driving from NC to MA instead of
spending 1/4 day flying, I spent a similar amount of time driving home
instead of flying. But I also got some benefits out of the drive. I
spent about half a day with Lindsay Braun and got to stop at Potomac
Mills on the way home. I also took more of my uncle's stuff with me than
I could have on the plane (the purpose of the trip was to attend my
uncle's funeral). Oh, maybe add an extra half day for the extra time
I've spent by getting to the airport earlier (though never really
necessary in the end - amazingly when I left BrickFest last year, it was
literally only half an hour between walking out the door of BrickFest
and walking up to the gate at Reagan airport). Probably you could toss
in another day or so for miscellaneous things (like attending a church
service 9-11). Oh, you could also toss in a day and a half for me
driving to Florida for Thanksgiving instead of flying, and perhaps a day
for Christmas (Christmas has less impact because I drove to a conference
in Miami the day after Christmas, and then drove home to NC from there,
if I had flown, I would have had to get a ride back to St. Petersburg
from Miami, and then fly home to NC the next day (and then I also
wouldn't have bought about 25 Harry Potter sets at half price, and
wouldn't have had the chance to see the Millere's home). Oh, I also
would have missed the fun of driving from Charleston SC to Raleigh NC in
a blizzard (I was in Raleigh for 12 years, and saw two 18"+ snowstorms,
what was this thing about global warming????).
This is not to trivialize the horror of 9-11, or the horror of people
getting run over by tanks, or the horror of people's homes getting
flattened, or the horror of buses being blown up.
To continue the thought though, I wonder how much effect WWII had on a
lot of Americans? I'm sure it had a trivial effect on my parents and
grand parents compared to the average Londoner.
Frank
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