Mr.Rooster said:
I agree you can't compare the two and I was not doing so.
I was pointing out some of the issues the Democrats are trying to jam American citizens up with and in some cases succeeding. If we could cut out some of there attempts at making the American citizen more and more restricted maybe then the American citizen could take action if and when the time presented itself and it was justified and there was not enough time to call authorities. The main reason so many Americans do not get involved clear that they could have is because theres way too many laws against them. For example [not terrorist related] if I saw you or someone else having a hear attack and I tried to give CPR and accidently break a rib or something, the citizen trying to be a good semaritan can be sued by the same person the good semaritan is trying to save. The odds are stacked against the American citizen and it is often [more times then not] a better idea for the American citizen to not get involved.
That's because litigiousness has been built into the American culture; written laws arose from common law allowing the right to sue, and Americans, in general, have taken advantage of this. Laws have to be written to prevent someone bringing suit against, for example, a good samaritan, but that would be some abrogation of an American's civil rights, to have "his day in court".
What worries me more is this wholesale advocating for vigilantism. Who can say, this man or this woman is a terrorist? How do you know? Do they have a special mark on their foreheads, distinguishing them as a terrorist from the rest of the common herd?
Muslims in London right now are afraid the backlash is going to hit them. They are innocent, hardworking people, who are facing the likelihood of being beaten to death, their homes and businesses destroyed, their families endangered, all because of a handful of fanatics who have taken the name of Allah in vain, who have corrupted the message of the prophet for their own ends.
Who looks like a terrorist? Anyone with brown skin? Who are you to decide? Timothy McVeigh looked like your average American citizen - yet he blew up a building and killed over 160 people - including children. I'd wager he had a houseful of guns, too.
I worked with a man this past weekend, a recent immigrant from Jordan. He had brown skin and a distinct accent - and yet the Mexicans at the conference all thought he was one of theirs, and tried to speak Spanish to him. When asked what ethnicity he was, he answered simply, "we are all the same, under God."
Is he a terrorist? He had a wife and a baby daughter whom he loved very much and told us about. Because he had brown skin and came from Jordan, would you shoot him, because he might be a terrorist? I would say, from the arguments presented, that yes, you would. Not because he IS a terrorist - but because he MIGHT BE a terrorist. To quote: "Kill them all and let God sort them out."
Retaliation comes when somebody sticks their nose into somebody else's business and tells them how to live their lives, how they should build a society, who they should have as leaders. I find it ironic that Americans play this role on the international scene today, and yet in 1776, they objected to the British doing exactly the same thing to them, and took steps to chuck them out. In today's America, there are some Americans who evince such an air of surprise and indignation that their interference isn't gratefully received, when they perpetrate the very acts which they objected to at the birth of their own nation on others.
Vigilantism arises out of fear of the other, the unknown other. Terrorism also arises out of fear - fear of change, fear of the loss of one's culture, one's community, one's way of life. It also comes of ignorance, and in some cases, from too much knowledge. Both vigilantism and terrorism are also rooted in power - who has it, who doesn't, who wants it and who should have it.
Like the Hydra of Greek legend, kill one terrorist, and a dozen more spring up to take his or her place, each more vicious, fanatical and dedicated than the one who was killed. Killing terrorists serves no purpose except to promote more terrorism. Make them martyrs to their cause, and their cause will continue to grow. They are bullies and cowards. The only way to fight them is not to give them any reason to exist. But as long as there are people who believe that the only way to fight terrorism is through violence, terrorism will continue to grow like a festering wound, until it consumes both sides, and nothing at all will be left.
I commend the Brits in the manner in which they have taken this terrible blow. If the expectation was that people would run around frenzied and frightened and panicked, their reaction, their calmness, their going about their business, must be puzzling, at the very least. I only hope that this calmness continues, and that the Muslim community in London remains unmolested by hotheads and revenge-seekers.
