Well...I personally do not know a single person that walks around in fear.

It does remind me of a story that has been told in various forms. A Highway Patrolman pulled over a man for excess speed. He noticed a pistol on the dash of the car. He reached in and took the pistol off of the dash and asked the man if he had anymore fire arms and if so hand them to him. The man reached into the dash and pulled out an Army Colt .45. semi automatic pistol. He then reached under his car seat and pulled out a .32 snub nose revolver. Then he reached inside his shirt and pulled out a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver with a four inch barrel. After that he reached down and pulled up his pants leg and removed a .25 semi automatic pistol from his right Wellington boot. The Officer asked...well is that it. The man said no...I have some weapons in the trunk. The officer said...lets see 'em.

The man exists his car and opened up the trunk...and in the trunk was a .12 gage pump shotgun... a .30.06 bolt action rifle with scope...an AR15...and a .22 Magnum semi auto rifle. The Officer said damn man do you legally own all of these weapons and the man answered in the affirmative...plus he had several weapons at his house. The Cop said who the hell are you afraid of and the man answered...Not a goddamn soul.

Exactly..."CONCERNED" about...not feared.

sure. i hear you. we all pretty much go about our daily lives. i'm not trying to suggest my mom won't leave the house or travel, etc. but it's something we've chatted about.

but re: this thread and fear, for me, the author in the op hit the nail on the head with the honey bottle tweet, as much as i usually hate twitter battles and that nonsense. but it's exactly like the snowglobes, the fear is being forced upon us by knee-jerk government reaction(aries). freedoms have been replaced by devices to reduce the fear of terror. look how much money we've spent on it since 9/11, look how many government agencies and more have been created to handle the terror *threat*. that's a fear-based reaction.

You view it as fear...I view it as being concerned...trying to stay one step ahead...trying to prepare...etc. The terrorist only needs to get lucky one time...we have to get lucky every time.

QFT. They can make bombs and explosives out of absolutely anything , to look like absolutely anything and can hide it absolutely any where. People bitch they feel like they have no rights, no privacy etc. I personally would rather give up just a little bit if it means saving lives. WTF reason did dude have for having a $3 squeeze jar of honey-like product for AND feel the need to make a big deal over it being taken. He is the same kind of person who will bitch and blame the govt. when something bad happens and the govt fails to protect us.

It sure is moving in that direction. The police have become militarized, they are violating many American's civil rights on a daily basis and the list of innocent people that have murdered across the country due to overly aggressive and inflexible tactics grows every week.

Nothing like real honey, there is a spot down south that I try to drive past when i'm on the road and grab myself a few kilos of the local honey. It is amazing stuff.

If any citizen of the U.S. feels that their civil rights have been violated by anyone...which includes law enforcement...there are several different ways to persue a civil and/or criminal charge/charges. If anyone that is a concerned citizen thinks a law enforcement Officer/Officers have unlawfully taken the life of any person...innocent or otherwise..there are multiple avenues that one can persue to bring the Officer/Officers up on civil and/or criminal charges.

the police around here drive those big clumsy dingy looking pieces of shit, they are holdens. we just laugh at them. they would be better off with mazdas probably the police forces of asia use them.

Drive a new clubsport or SS-V and report back. They go like a shower of shit in stock format, a few tweaks and you're skating on ice at 100+ :2 cents:

Look him up on youtube. The man is brilliant.

I hope you're kidding.

How many lives have been saved by the TSA and cameras everywhere since 9/11?

$8.1 BILLION a year it costs.

the TSA is quoted as admitting that "there have been no attempted domestic hijackings of any kind in the 12 years since 9/11."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...irplanes.shtml

But there is the rub, it won't happen. Unless the fight is brought to American soil and the USA becomes a battle ground, it isn't going to happen.


Parts of it are heading that way.

I travel all over the world, often to real police states, so I have a real reference here and am not just talking out of my ass. I have less hassles in communist countries like Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and China than I do in my home country. Wrap your head around that for a minute. How could that even be possible? How could the only place in the world, besides at a border crossing or airport, that I've ever been asked to "show my papers" and then treated like a criminal for no reason whatsoever, is in my home country, and not in the communist regimes that we were taught are so evil?

No matter how you want to spin the fact that your privacy is eroding, and all the CCTV cams, drones, and militarized police are a good thing, they are not. Just be happy you live in a relaxed area and not in one of the more uptight places.

:2 cents:

Westerners are not willing to die simply for their belief in God. Western soldiers just do what they are told, and fight the battles they are told to fight. If given a choice, they would choose not to fight. Meanwhile, extremists believe all non believers must die and are willing to sacrifice themselves in the process. Until that changes, Muslim extremists have the upper hand. That is just the way it is.

Richard Dawkins is brilliant, I follow him on Facebook as his page is really interesting with many updates daily :thumbsup

Let's face it, the scary thing in our lives in the Government
It was them that voted to go to war in a region that has been at war for a thousand years. We got involved and pissed a bunch of people off and they figured out how to attack us. The government didn't have the cold war anymore and yield more power when we are at war with someone.

That's why we are still there. Now we just send in drones.

So here we are, losing more rights than we even know of, they control how we fly, how we drive, how we work, what health plans we have and we have lost all privacy.
They have taken over. Soon, our voting rights will be lost to illegal aliens. There are more unemployed that have fallen off the unemployed insurance than are on it. Middle class in disappearing. Government agencies are growing in power with Executive Orders.

Hell, we can be told that a new law will not effect peoples insurance over and over again, just to find out many will lose their insurance, a complete lie, and still people will defend the person for saying those lies.

All the time they are saying it's for the better good

Agreed 100%

Bin Laden (and the U.S. Govt.'s overreaction) have transformed us after 9-11.

But when you really think about it, it was just a dozen guys with fucking box cutters!
And the airlines put a stop to that ever happening again when they put steel locked doors on the pilot cabin.

And yet we are all treated like criminals when we try to fly somewhere. And we are spending billions and billions of dollars on the fucking TSA (which if I were Pres. would be shut down tomorrow)

So yes, "terror" means "fear". I'd say Bin Laden "won".

We are too fucking scared to get on an airplane without being treated like criminals and allowing strangers to sift through our personal belongings, xray us naked, and frisk us.

I know I'm not scared. Planes used to get hijacked and bombed all the time, and yet the world still turned and we still didn't have to give up our freedoms.

But now? People are more than happy to be searched because they are scared.

And when someone stands up against it? Rochard calls them a "jackass".

And it's not just Rochard. It's millions of scared people who think it's necessary to have an organization like the TSA and to be searched. :(

My house has never been robbed or burned down either, yet I still carry homeowners insurance. I have never been at fault in a car accident to appreciate the full value of my car insurance either, but I still spend the money on it. I spend a few grand a year for my various insurances for the sake of basically protecting just me. 8.1 billion a year to protect billions of people seems about comparable in the grand scheme of things.

Then there is the theory that while it is true there have been no attempted hijackings could the reason why be because of the presence of the TSA? Look at the Boston Marathon. Had that happened on a plane whether hijacked or not there would be a lot more than 3 casualties I am quite sure.

Also while they say there have been no hijack attempts there certainly have been tons of attempts to take all kinds of actual weapons, chemicals and small explosives on planes. Who knows what their game plan was had they ever actually made it on the plane.

So it's been 12 years since "9-11" and we are to think that spending billions and billions of dollars and being treated like criminals has made us "safe".

Okay...let's look at the 12 years BEFORE 9-11 when there was no TSA...
There was ONE incident from 1989 to 2001 on a U.S. flight.
ONE.

Here it is:
"1994: FedEx Flight 705 experienced an attempted hijack by disgruntled employee Auburn Calloway as it left Memphis, Tennessee, with the intention of using it as a cruise missile against FedEx HQ. He was subdued by the flight crew before an emergency landing back at Memphis"

So a disgruntled employee attempted to hijack a cargo plane and failed. Lol.

There ya go. The FACTS.

And now we are spending all this money and being treated like criminals...all over a dozen guys with fucking box cutters back in 2001.

It's so goddamn insane that I can't even wrap my head around how any of you can justify that.

bush won fegets

i like the comparison of home insurance to chances of terrorist acts.

the difference of course, is a fire is a fire.

A terrorist, who just spent 12 years studying how the TSA does things.. isn't gonna turn around and hand themselves over to the TSA

They will do what the TSA isn't doing, it will succeed, and your spiral into facism will continue

see how home insurance and security against terrorism isn't comparable?

The government is our own terrorist. We wouldnt be in such predicaments if it wasnt for their personal agenda and actions. The people didnt ask for this.

Guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one. Perhaps my analogy was a bit far fetched with the insurance premiums being compared to the cost of the TSA.

I still think that the "substitute" terrorist attacks thus far have been way less catastrophic than the almost 3000 lives lost on 09/11. What percentage of terrorist attacks have actually been prohibited due to the TSA being in place?... who knows.
That is just like trying to measure how many speeders didn't speed because a speedtrap is in place where it used to not be. How many took alternate routes so they could keep speeding and how many just slowed their asses down and accepted they couldn't speed via that route? All we have to go by is what happened before it was in place, and what has NOT happened since it has been in place. Too much to factor in to really measure its value IMHO.

Exactly!

It's what our govt. does that causes this hatred to begin with. Greed and corruption.

And I think it's pretty obvious from all the drone strikes that the U.S. govt. doesn't give a shit about human life.
So what do they care if "terrorists" (the same thing that George Washington would have been called today) kill Americans too?

They don't.

Matter of fact, they WANT that to happen so they can ramp up their control even more.

Oh the people did ask for this...as the government is composed of people that were selected by the majority of the people to represent them and their positions in government. If the people do not like the choice they made then they can select a new representative every 2-4-6 years...or possibly sooner via impeachment.

I have repeatedly stated that the government is of the people...by the people...and for the people. It is a simple concept. The people are in control of who they want to represent them...thus the people get the government they deserve.

I take it you must disagree with this.

i didn't ask for this. my mom didn't. in fact, no one i know asked for any of this. i asked for the sidewalks to be cleaned monthly.

in fact, congressional approval ratings are at an all time low.

I saw one pole that placed the congress at 5% approval rating. All of these people were put in power by their fellow countrymen...so I would extrapolate that approximately 95% of those that are up for reelection in 2014 will be replaced.

I seriously doubt that will be the case...I suspect it will be close to just about the opposite...as is usually the case. Since the "government" is only the people that are selected by the majority of the people...the people get the "government" they choose/ask for.

Is your Representative and/or Senator up for reelection in 2014...and will you be voting for them again or not?

How about the rest of you?

And you are repeatedly wrong.

Did you choose any of the things that our govt. has done?

So YOU are the one who decided to experiment on black people by giving them venereal diseases to see what would happen?

YOU are the one who decided that we should go into Vietnam?

YOU are the one who decided that we should invade Iraq?

You see...you are leaving out an important fact:
Our govt. does 99% of things in the shadows. We don't even KNOW what they are doing because they "Classify" everything.
If not for Snowen, we wouldn't even have known what the NSA was doing to us.

So no...obviously it's impossible for the PEOPLE to be in control of the govt. when that govt. is shrouded in secrecy.

Man, you really should stop thinking about everything as "patriotic" or not. The real world doesn't work that way.
The govt. is about as fucking evil as it gets.

Just because you might be a vet (I don't know you personally so I don't know if you're flat out lying or really a vet) doesn't mean you should be lockstep with the Feds.
I have family who are vets of Vietnam. And one who is in Afghanistan right now.
And they are not at all like you. They think for themselves. Some things they agree with, some not.

i'm disenchanted with the system and certainly disenfranchised by corporations and lobbys.
it may make me feel better to have not voted for the current loser but it certainly does not make a difference.

not sure it ever really was designed to anyway, our forefathers may have put a rough version of a representative gov in place, but their view of the typical citizen was not a good one, thus the electoral college was created to ensure that if citizens voting made a *mistake* in voting, the college would swoop in to correct that.

so we have a system that is designed to bypass voters, a system perverted with big business, the military and lobbyists

all in all................you see where i'm coming from?

I am far from being in lockstep with the feds. I decided a long time ago not to become an activist so I do what I can legally do which is to pay attention to major bills that are coming up for vote and stay in the face of my Representative and Senator as to how they should vote.

You often speak about how you are against career polititions and who in the hell is it that makes them career politions? They cannot elect themselves...it is the people that elect them and it is the people that keep reelecting them over and over.

The "government" is the "government" people choose/want or they would not keep choosing to elect the same people over and over again...and they would pay attention to what bills are coming up for a vote and get in the face of their Representative and their Senator.

If the truth could be known I would wager that 90% of the people do not even know the names of their Representative or Senator...and for those that do...99% have never contacted the over any matter. Studies have been done multiple times over the years that show the majority of people...when they leave school...they never read another book for the rest of their life. The majority of the people never read a news paper and the majority do not even watch the TV news.

It is a government of the people...by the people...and for the people but it does require that the people involve themseves in what the hell is going on...but either way the people get the government they deserve.

Choice...really? I don't think so and neither did he.

http://www.leechapman.com/zappa_quote.jpg

You have no sense of reading comprehension what so ever if you conclude from my posts that I am in lock step with the government...that pisses me off...sport. You are like all of the fucking clueless idiots that constantly accuse me of being a Republican...when I have never been a Republican in my life. Hell I am not even a Democrat anymore.

Fuck honey and bin laden. How you like them apples.

Sorry if it pisses you off....sport. I'm only reading what you wrote. And I am not saying anything I wouldn't say to your face. Not trying to be disrespectful. I just think you post a lot of things on here that suggest the govt. can do no wrong because you might have been in the military at one time.

But "Sport", I'd argue these points with you face to face as well. And if it pisses you off..then you could try to whip my ass I suppose. Wouldn't help you much, but you could try. lol

fair enough

but to clarify, there is plenty of evidence what was about to transpire pre-911, and with it, plenty of controversy.

In the end, we're left with following the money, and 3k people died, and the VC in charge, with his company, managed to turn around and make trillions from the act.

So, if you want to talk about terrorism, what is worse? 3k people dying, or the theft of trillions of dollars from your economy, and in extension your infrastructure/government economy? that's a lot of kids not going to be getting educational perks.

If you were spending all this time, money, and lives on keeping your country safe, and it didn't work, why throw good money after bad?

Speed traps in comparison to war isn't fair either

Well it is clear to me that you are going to stick by your idiotic statement that I think the Government "can do no wrong"...so combined with...your posts making it pretty apparent that you hate the Government and you make it apparent that you think it is the root of all evil in the world...I can easily conclude that you are just a kook...so go fuck yourself...sport...you are dismissed.

That is why they drop bombs when I call them and ask them to. I'm like, "yo, 'Bama, how 'bout you drop some heavy shit right on top of that little shawarma shop on Eastern Ave and Shabab Street, in central Baghdad. Those fucks just shorted me $2 and called me an infidel." And he's like, "For the people, by the people... bombs away bitches!"

And that's how it's done. Just like you say.

Good luck with all that. I'm sure they are listening to you, just like I'm sure your single vote will make a difference if they are reseated or not when their term is up.

LOL!

I'm "dismissed"? Okay "sport".

You're a character. But so are lots of other people...pretty common. Have a nice day. Sport.