Do you feel more secure now than you did pre-9/11 ?

[RonD1120 62]

I gave my wife new kitchen cabinets for our anniversary this month. She gave me a new ArmaLite M-15. I feel a little safer now.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[Andy9o8 2]

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Do you feel more secure now than you did pre-9/11 ?

Oh, yes, indeedy. Now that I know that most Muslims hate me for my freedoms, I'm more vigilant. And that makes me feel secure.

[Andy9o8 2]

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I have been angry . . . but to want to commit suicide just to take out some people because of what they believe? It makes no sense whatsoever.

That's because you're viewing it in terms of "wanting to commit suicide just to take out some people because of what they believe", so the narrowness of the definition naturally narrows the field of potential answers. It's also because you were raised and live in a culture in which deliberate suicide is almost always considered appalling, and rarely is seen as honorable - which is not necessarily the way other cutlures have or do view it.

The more accurate way to view the mentality would be of a soldier willing to engage in a suicide mission to further a military mission, whether that mission be strategic or merely tactical in nature. There are examples of it throughout the recorded history of warfare; and there are many cultures that consider (either past or present) suicidal sacrifice to be very honorable, such as the Samurai culture of pre-modern Nippon, which to some degree was sought to be emulated by the Japanese during WWII. Suicide bombers wearing bomb-vests to blow up lines of police recruits in Iraq or Pakistan would be another example of this. These are imperfect analogies, of course, but they illustrate the point.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

I feel less safe. Not because of any acts of terrorism, but because I have come to realize there are a lot of people out there that will believe any bullshit someone tosses to them regardless of how little sense it makes or how little basis in reality it has. Knowing there are entire groups of people who actually think the WTC were pre-rigged with explosives, that anything other than the airliners caused damage, and that it was a missile and not an airliner that hit the Pentagon makes me somewhat more paranoid than i was pre-9-11-'01. Unfortunatly were are not allowed to tattoo "DUMBASS" into these peoples' foreheads to make them easily indentifiable.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[jgoose71 0]

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A significant day in our history. Just curious about our perception of how safe we really are.


Don

I feel more safe. Regardless of reasons, Muslim extremists were at war with us and we refused to even acknowledge it. Even after the bombing of the USS Cole we just continued to ignore the inevitable.

Maybe I was just more aware of what was going on than most pre-9/11 because of my job, but we are definatly more safe now.

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[riddler 0]

I don't like to try to predict the future, which is far too complicated. But somehow, I don't really think we're going to have Sharia Law in the US (or probably even Canada). And I don't think fear-mongering will further anyone's agenda in that area. Right now, there are more Christians in the US than any other religion, and while Christianity was the foundation of our law, modern Christians haven't been successful in changing many recent ones (although there have been a few notable exceptions, such as Prop 8, teaching intelligent design in a small number of schools, etc).

The worry that "they" will take over has been the historical foundation of nearly every social upheaval, from before the Roman Empire to the Armenian genocide to the Jewish Holocaust. Anyone that buys into the argument that "they" will take over becomes a tool for other people with an agenda.

It makes more sense to focus on the root causes of terrorism, rather than ascribing it to any one religion. Terry Nichols didn't turn more people into Christians after he helped bomb the Oklahoma City Federal building, and no Muslim terrorist is going to win devotees by suicide bombing. It's terrorism itself that we need to defeat.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD