People Can Be Scary

[forsyth]

This article, Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening, made the rounds a few months back, came to mind recently.

There are a signifigant number of people out there who think hordes of "terrorists" are going to invade America and force us all to live by fundamentalist Islamic law. Many of these people think this is already happening in Europe. (see: America Alone, or better, don't see it.)

This belief is without any kind of basis in fact. It is, frankly, not true in any sense. Yet this fear continues to drive many people. If you doubt me, read some of the reviews of the book on Amazon.

People are voting and making policy on the basis of a fear we're going to be invaded by "terrorists" and "islamofacists". And people are actively pushing that idea. No matter how stupid or obviously false it is.

Comments

Why Ice is cold and Fire is hot.

[ginevra-lauwri.livejournal.com]

So i read the article, and would like to say that i love the blinkty-blink of the Banana Republic ad in the lower left corner. (It just brings back fond memories of the protests against sweat shops i participated in during college.) These folks are nucking-futs, thats no doubt, but I think the referenced article is a farce of extremism in the other direction. First, I'm tired of being damned because Im a Christian. I dont want to be Muslim or anything else. I dont want to swallow those beliefs--i dont expect someone who grew and believes in any other faith to swallow Christianity either. Im just tired of being damned because I AM Christian. Forgive me if i would like to show the joy that Christ has brought me to the world. Secondly, Im tired of the fact that those that work for something and acquire something are seen as evil. Just because you have wealth doesnt make you some type of psycho-loon. EVEN if you inherit your money. MOST other cultures--most Asian, Eastern Asian, and Arabian cultures in fact--believe in passing down family legacy and wealth. America is the only place where 89% of parents keep it all for themselves, in some way or another. I think America is one of the only places where its all good and well to be dirt poor and let "'The Man' thats keepin' you down" pay for you. Thirdly, and guess what...Im all good and well for immigrantion, too. LEGAL immigration. Millions of Americans on welfare ALREADY depend on me, and why should they have to share? Fourth, 9-11 DID happen. Thiry-five hundred people DID die just going to work. We have scores of communities against drunk driving and against crime. Society forbid that we might acknowledge the fact that terrorists--driven by whatever they are driven by--MURDERED 3500 people. There is not a faith or society or culture in the world that would not agree that America has every right to defend herself. The gent that wrote this article seems to want to sweep 3500 INNOCENT people away in the tombs of nothingness to let them moulder and decay, as if it was their fault for waking up that morning and starting the misery of war in Iraq. And lastly, I dont believe in the war in Iraq. I wish they would bring every last mother, father, sister, brother, lover, and child home. I just hope it doesnt turn out like Vietnam, where all the "peace loving" people condemned the men and women who fought for America for even being there. Like it was the soldier's fault s/he went to work that day as well.

I guess all fire needs ice and vice vera. It makes you want to throw all the extreme conservatives and extreme liberals in a tank together somewhere. The man writing this article is just as blind as the people he protrays. It is often easy to demean those you do not agree with--Schoolyards have been full of it for years. To all great myths and propaganda is that there is a bit of truth--unfortunatly, its so buried under the blantant shit-tossing no one is going to bother to wade through it.

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think America's Cold War fears were more legitimate than fears of any kind of terrorist "invasion". Attacks on the scale of 9/11 are such that they can only really happen once before people get wiser and play smarter. It would be showing that an entire nation wasn't learning from it if it was allowed to happen again, and that's rather insulting to the intelligence of human beings. That isn't to say that the terrorists won't attack again. They've tried. It's just extremely unlikely we'll ever see anything on that scale in our own country again, unless if systematic govenrmental failure occurs. That said, thinking that the terrorists could ever feild a force large enough for some kind of 'invasion' is laughable. They are barely able to maintain a gurella war against our forces in their own homeland; I can't see any feasibility behind their finding some means to come here, bringing all their weapons with them, and amassing enough people to constitute a threat that couldn't be smashed immediately by the National Guard.

It's that Cold War mentality; I'm willing to bet you these are all people who were raised coming out of that era or the descendents thereof.