What do they have in common?

[Oleg Volk]

Looking at the Bali bombing and other terrorist/freedom fighting/crazy mass murder events over the last hundred years or so, it looks like bombings are just about impossible to stop. Either the perpetrators suicide or they are not at the scene, so catching them is either difficult or impossible (what do the dead care about the process of law). That's the pattern of the Morgan Bank bombing of 1920, the King David Hotel in 1948, OKC and NYC, Bali and pretty much every other one. In short, if ten people want to blow something up, at least some of them will succeed.

In response, most countries criminalized possession of bombs, materials for them (not possible as common materials may be used) and manuals on the use of explosives. As long as armies exist, hardware and know-how will be available anyway. So the next step has been to go after potential bombers based on some common characteristic:

-political party
-religion
-ethnicity
-family ties
-etc.

For various reasons, none of the classifications is very useful. All are likely to leave out some eventual bombers and sweep up a lot of innocents. Moreover, under the law, "eventual bomber" is an innocent until caught red-handed, having already committed a crime or being int he process of committing it.

My question is this: given that the profiling (Muslims seem to be the favorite target now) isn't even all that useful, can anything be done about bombings OR will we have to just deal with them the same way that we deal with hurricanes or other uncontrollable events? Maybe count on the immediate acquaintance of wanna-be mass murderers to take them out? Again, the Soviet appeals to weed out sabotuers didn't exactly work as intended, people would snitch on each other to get even or out of unprovoked malice. Thoughts, anyone?

 

[Nannuk]

Terrorism will exsist as long as there are minorities/fringe elements who do not feel that their grievances are being properly addressed. No amount of police state tactics can completely remove the threat of terrorism. Reference: The French Resistance under the NAZIS. The only remotely effective means of stopping these attacks is to ignore them. I know that this sounds unusual and/or mental, but the point of terrorism is to bring a groups agenda to the attention of as many as possible. The talk of creating a Palestinian homestate has automatically justified the decades of attacks on the Jewish ppl. If we could somehow learn to ignore the attacks then there would no longer be the political benefit of launching them. But this, I realize, is impossible. Realisticaly, no way regional/international terrorism ever stops.

It is sad to say that we will always be under the threat of terrorism. But, then again, the rest of the world had always been under the threat. We may have thought that we were safe, but there have been terror attacks in this country since day one. We just choose to ignore them.

Nannuk
Sic Semper Tyrannis

 

[Oleg Volk]

It may be that the lawful gun owners, as a group, would eventually win not because we scared the other side into not trying for our guns but because we are predictable. Not speaking for others, but I can clearly articulate the limited and specific actions required to put me ont he war-path. Absent those actions, I wouldn't fight. By contrast, some nutcases out there are neither reasonable (i.e. want control over others) nor predictably benign even if full cooperationis extended (as in the old turtle and snake fairy tale -- "just what did you expect?"). In short, time may come when even the US hoplophobes will begin to view me and other like me as a kidred spirit by comparison with the utterly crazy and evil critters out there.

 

[LoneStranger]

There is an old saying that "Locks are only good for keeping honest people honest."

The basic ideas behind that saying apply just as surely to our current spate of Criminality/Terrorism. The only way that you can stop or limit Terrorism is to have the large majority of your populace believe that there is no future/advantage in terrorism. They have to believe that their best interest lies in supporting society.
When your populace does not believe in terrorism they become the oil that the terrorist fish must try to swim in and, unlike the fish in water, the fish in oil pops up to the surface.

Those in Govt. that believe that the terrorist is correct and right in his beliefs and actions will support those activities that drive the populace from a belief in the advantage of supporting society. These activities include attacks on gun rights, use of legislatures and their lawmaking ability to seize the property of others, use of courts and judges to favor one group over another, and the forcing of ideology on others.

You cannot FIGHT terrorism with restrictions, laws, or oppression of the people. You can only fight terrorism by allowing people to come to an innate belief in their society.


***Semi-intelligent, pontifical sounding, meandering thougths available with minimum six week lead time. You pick the subject and supply the cash and we'll get back when we're done!***