Why do Americans seem to fear terrorism, but ignore gun deaths? An article I found

[Angie7F]

I guess terrorists is nothing to Ireland, guns are nothing to Americans, and earthquakes are nothing to the Japanese.

At the end of the day, it is waht is most unfamiliar to us that scares us the most

 

[Les]

I guess terrorists is nothing to Ireland, guns are nothing to Americans, and earthquakes are nothing to the Japanese.

At the end of the day, it is waht is most unfamiliar to us that scares us the most

Too right.

 

[BNguyen]

Some people also seem to forget that outside of the US where they have stricter gun laws they also have smaller populations so obviously there will be lower homicide rates concerning guns but still, if people want to kill other people, they will find other ways. Guns just happen to a little more convenient and quicker when it comes to offing people.
And the city was shut down because they already had enough damage done with the bombings and didn't need more casualties on their hands by letting people more out and about with a guy with explosives on the loose. Hey, he could pull a Joker and have the whole city be a hostage - all he'd have to do is come out and say he had stashed bombs all over the place. So yeah, I think they made the right call in locking down the city to prevent more harm and to make it that much easier to find this guy - with only the police and national guard moving about, he'd be easier to spot.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Some people also seem to forget that outside of the US where they have stricter gun laws they also have smaller populations so obviously there will be lower homicide rates concerning guns

Hey? Do you mean the overall rate, or the per capita rate? Why would the per capita rate increase when population does.

 

[Tygerml]

Why do people fear crime deaths, and not the government(when governments have killed far more of their own people in the last century than crime)? Why did/do people fear nuclear Armageddon when you're far far far more likely to die from smoking? Why do people fear airplane crashes but not car accidents? Human beings accept the familiar, something that happens every day is just that, everyday. Something that happens rarely on the other hand catches our attention. Death is a part of life, and it is everywhere. If we feared death based on how often it happened, no body would be able to live, so we evolved to be able to accept death in the usual(and largely unavoidable) ways, and only fear the spectacular ones that we can avoid most of the time.

I think a lot of it involves control. People drive their cars, they feel safe because they control it. They don't control the plane in any way, so it feels less safe. Same with smoking vs. nukes, or crime vs. terrorism. People are afraid of things they can't predict, control or comprehend.

 

[BNguyen]

Some people also seem to forget that outside of the US where they have stricter gun laws they also have smaller populations so obviously there will be lower homicide rates concerning guns

Hey? Do you mean the overall rate, or the per capita rate? Why would the per capita rate increase when population does.

Bigger population, more guns floating around, more chances of being killed because of those guns going around. Bigger populations also tend to have higher crime rates than areas with smaller populations which have fewer guns floating around thus fewer deaths because of guns.

 

[Elijah Newton]

OP - heard an interesting bit on the radio this morning on that very topic. The tldr; was that terrorism, whether domestic or international, is an attack on the nation. The individuals hurt or killed are a medium and the message is intended to intimidate or coerce the entire population who hears about it. Gun deaths, while no less reprehensible, are more focused. Gun-related homicides, accidental deaths and suicides (which, curiously, aren't usually counted when tallying gun deaths in the US) inspire less terror among the general population because broadly speaking the intent was not the same as terrorism.

Interesting reading there. I'll be honest, things like this make me feel a bit better about making broad generalisations jokes about Americans as gun-mad conspiracy theorists.

It's not.... it's not all of us. You know that, right? Jokes are good, I'm not going to argue against humor or anything, but for what it's worth please understand people like that scare the ever loving piss out of the rest of me and a lot of folks in the US. They're a minority, but a vocal one with a disproportionate amount of legistlative clout so I can't exactly blame you for the generalization but really. From where I stand they're not your average joe.

( snip )

Holy carp, sir. Do you know how rare it is for me to hear / read a self-professed gun-lover and come away thinking they sounded really sensible? I sincerely wish I heard more from people like you and less from Therumancer's crowd. Personally, I lean towards gun control but you are a great counter to Therumancer's approach. I thank you, hugely and earnestly, for posting. I hope you speak up in all kinds of places.

Also : purvue = purview, I think. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purview)

 

[Thaluikhain]

Bigger population, more guns floating around, more chances of being killed because of those guns going around.

Overall, yeah, but that wouldn't affect the per capita rate.

Bigger populations also tend to have higher crime rates than areas with smaller populations which have fewer guns floating around thus fewer deaths because of guns.

You mean high population density leads to greater crime, and high overall population leads to that? Agree on the first part, not sure about the second.

 

[Bifford]

Guns are a big part of American culture, and the right to own a gun is an important principle, even to many who don't actually own them. This is not the case with bombs.

 

[BNguyen]

Bigger population, more guns floating around, more chances of being killed because of those guns going around.

Overall, yeah, but that wouldn't affect the per capita rate.

Bigger populations also tend to have higher crime rates than areas with smaller populations which have fewer guns floating around thus fewer deaths because of guns.

You mean high population density leads to greater crime, and high overall population leads to that? Agree on the first part, not sure about the second.

Well, let's just leave it at that because I have a habit of turning conversations into arguments on here and I don't need this to spiral out of control over a misunderstanding I'm sure you'll agree.

 

[Elijah Newton]

Bar one incident at Millwall recently (surprise surprise, of course it's fucking Millwall!) football violence isn't really that big an issue anymore. Though the whole firm business did/does make some awesome films. Just don't ever, EVER watch Green Street Hooligans. What a piece of shite.

*laughing* Sorry, this is way off topic because I'm not someone who'd say what Dirty Hipsters did, but I loved that you had both the comment about Millwall and Green Street Hooligans in your post. I've seen GSH (I don't think it was widely viewed in the states) and while I don't know enough about hooliganism to call real from fake, well, it's a movie. I liked it well enough but assumed it was exaggerated. Anything you'd recommend as a better film on the same topic? Also, what's up with Millwall? Don't know anything about it, do they have a reputation or are you speaking more out of good-natured rivalry?

I'm not trying to pull a holier-than-thou bit, either. I figure everywhere has some kind of sports madness. My adopted state's preferred crazy is arson. http://annarbor.com/news/4-couch-fires-but-no-arrests-following-wolverines-victory-over-syracuse/

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Bar one incident at Millwall recently (surprise surprise, of course it's fucking Millwall!) football violence isn't really that big an issue anymore. Though the whole firm business did/does make some awesome films. Just don't ever, EVER watch Green Street Hooligans. What a piece of shite.

*laughing* Sorry, this is way off topic because I'm not someone who'd say what Dirty Hipsters did, but I loved that you had both the comment about Millwall and Green Street Hooligans in your post. I've seen GSH (I don't think it was widely viewed in the states) and while I don't know enough about hooliganism to call real from fake, well, it's a movie. I liked it well enough but assumed it was exaggerated. Anything you'd recommend as a better film on the same topic? Also, what's up with Millwall? Don't know anything about it, do they have a reputation or are you speaking more out of good-natured rivalry?

I'm not trying to pull a holier-than-thou bit, either. I figure everywhere has some kind of sports madness. My adopted state's preferred crazy is arson. http://annarbor.com/news/4-couch-fires-but-no-arrests-following-wolverines-victory-over-syracuse/

Ah, well, I'm slowly being brain-washed into a West Ham fan by my mate's dad, and the rivalry between Millwall and West Ham is both long and bloody. It extends both on and off the pitch with huge fights in the streets, in the stands...
Anyway, for some good films about the football hooliganism try The Firm, Football Factory and another film called Rise of The Footsoldier which mostly focuses on the criminal underworld in Essex and the Range Rover murders.

also, with regards to the exaggeration part, it's hard to tell having not been there myself. I'm told that some of the films aren't too far from the truth and that things did get horrifically violent.

 

[Les]

( snip )

Holy carp, sir. Do you know how rare it is for me to hear / read a self-professed gun-lover and come away thinking they sounded really sensible? I sincerely wish I heard more from people like you and less from Therumancer's crowd. Personally, I lean towards gun control but you are a great counter to Therumancer's approach. I thank you, hugely and earnestly, for posting. I hope you speak up in all kinds of places.

Well it is nice to be appreciated for being a sane voice on this end of the debate. All too often elsewhere I get involved in these sorts of discussions and because I am pro-gun I end-up being shouted at for being stupid and hating babies and why can't I just 'get-it' that letting normal people own guns is bad and wrong and bad-wrong or 'Badong'?

And then I sigh and shake my head and cede the floor to guys like Therumancer.

Also : purvue = purview, I think. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purview)

I'm from Oklahoma, cut me some slack. ;P

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Something people (generally outside the US) seem to forget, or not notice, is that gun laws only impact... you know... legal guns. And while I don't doubt that a higher-than-insignificant percentage of gun-related violence in the US is due to legal guns, I seriously doubt that gangsters, wannabe gangsters, plain crazy people, etc. etc. are using legal guns.

If you can buy pretty much any gun you want with little to no background checks, why would you bother with gun smugglers? Furthermore, how many wannabe gangsters and teenage school shooters do you think actually have contacts in the black market underground gun-smuggling circuit?

 

[Elijah Newton]

Also : (snip)

I'm from Oklahoma, cut me some slack. ;P

Absolutely didn't mean any disrespect by it, liked your sentiment and wanted to offer polish. It's all OK with me, if you'll pardon the pun.

because I am pro-gun I end-up being shouted at for being stupid and hating babies and why can't I just 'get-it' that letting normal people own guns is bad and wrong and bad-wrong or 'Badong'?

Yeah, that's got to suck. My side of the debate definitely has its Therumancer analogs, no mistake. Drop me a line if you ever need to vent and I'll laugh / groan.

 

[Elijah Newton]

Ah, well, I'm slowly being brain-washed into a West Ham fan by my mate's dad, and the rivalry between Millwall and West Ham is both long and bloody. (snip)

Hey, thanks for the movie suggestions, I'll give them a look.

Heh. Just realized where I knew Millwall from : "Millwall! That's the one. D'you know this chant? "Millwall, Millwall, you're all really dreadful and all your girlfriends are unfulfilled and alienated.""

Spoiler

 

[Therumancer]

Okay, this touches on a lot of things so I'll start with the one most likely to piss people off so we can move past that:

When it comes to international coverage of things like US Armament, there is a very transparent case of "gun envy". Basically the Brits and other countries like to go off about armed Americans because on a basic level they wish they had an armed populance as well. In say the UK, the people are more or less entirely at the mercy of their own goverment and law enforcement, which can act pretty much as it sees fit without any direct threat of resistance from the people. In the US, the goverment is greatly limited by what it can do because in the case of a popular uprising the most it could hope for would be to destroy itself. Assuming the military backed the goverment during a popular uprising, when the smoke cleared and the tanks and planes destroyed everything (and that's what it would take) there would be nothing left for the goverment to rule. In a more "present" sense it also means that stupid laws become more or less unenforcable because at the end of the day your typical cop has to worry about whether it's worth potentially getting shot to enforce some politician's stupid vanity law. Overall the US works well and maintains the world's highest standard of freedom because of the way the right to bear arms limits govermental authority and excesses. The authorities can deal with armed individuals, and even small groups of individuals, but not with any kind of popular or large scale uprising, and it also means that at the best of times the authorities have to show caution.

Im a member of the UK and i have to say your wrong on just about every level we choose to make guns restricted. Elections and the courts are our protection , infact its yours to. we just dont elect anyone thats going to pull a coup and the courts prevent them from doing so if they tried. for the politicians to order the police or the army in to do anything against the population they have to run it through parliament and it can be overturned by the courts. And the military wouldnt back the government in these cases anyway , you see we have a parliamentary democracy, america is a presidential republic. theres actually a lot of difference in how they work , your president is your commander in chief , it doesn't work like that here.

To really "see" things clearly here you have to listen to what people from the UK, Australia, etc... have to say when they aren't discussing guns directly, but in terms of the goverment doing stupid things with no recourse for the average person. Goverment/police thuggery are pretty much a way of life, because at the end of the day it has all of the real power and can make the people do whatever it wants. A cop in the UK will just do whatever a politician tells them to usualy when a law is passed, because there is no real reason for him not to. Without his life being in danger the path of least resistance is to just do whatever he's told, and tell anyone who complains to blame the politicians. A lot of things in the rest of the civilized first world go badly there largely because the population is powerless. They just don't tend to put 2 and 2 together. Nor do most bother to consider this when they try and say "we have more freedom than the US", when really whatever freedom they have is entirely based on whatever the goverment wants to give them. In some nations like Canada that are also fairly critical you have the police running around with Blank Warrents (or they used to), something which pretty much undercuts 90% of the rights the people there think they have.

See, at the end of the day, ask yourself could the people of the UK for example ever have the right to bear arms like Americans can if they wanted it? The answer is no, they could not. The goverment would never let them have it, holding all the cards it has no real vested interest in changing that. The UK goverment wouldn't even need tanks and planes to put down a large scale revolt because the people just aren't well armed enough for it to be a factor, any revolutuon would have to worry about arming itself from the outside.

err again no , the police have to behave in certain ways they for example they only shoot people who pull guns on them (well mostly) And just like in the states here when they cross the line and behave "thugish" both countries resort to the courts not to the gun.

Politicians dont command the police, the best they can do is pass laws that might affect their powers but again its not one guy making a decree its a bill that goes through readings votes and reviews.
Every 4 years we have Elections if gun ownership was something we wanted we are free to vote in a party that would do it, but having been on both sides of the line we know better than to do that , by restricting guns you loose nothing and keep a few thousand extra people alive each year.

The bottom line though is that the armed incidents you hear about are a small price to pay for the freedom and safeguards inherant in an armed society.

maybe, but paying that bill doesnt net you that reward, you have that because of the a document i think you call the constitution

when the UK fought the IRA, it largely gave as well as it got, because it was willing to be just as vicious under the table if need be as the guys they were fighting, leading to massive amounts of atrocities on both sides and an actual war. The US in general isn't willing to do that, or at least not on the same level.

With the Gun Violence there is a clear cost/benefit analysis involved, the price of the gunshot deaths is well worth the benefits in terms of limiting goverment power. With terrorism there is no clear question like that. In an objective sense we should be profiling people like crazy, and having our troops in The Middle East rounding up 1,000 civilians at random for every American that dies in a terrorist attack or the result of insurgency and executing them to make the conflict unsustainable (ie we'll achieve genocide before the fall of the US if they push it far enough). We have the power and abillity in reality to end the entire problem in a couple of months.

Yep My grandad served in WW2 and went straight to NI after to join the black and tans. he used to regail us as kids with stories about how whenever the RUC or British army lost a trooper they would go down to some catholic bar drag a dozen out the back line em up and blow thier brains out against the wall.

didnt work though did it? nope it escalated the fighting 1 IRA man kills 1 RUC, they kill 12 indiscriminate in response and the next day there are 12 new groups of families and friends ready to sign up and fight he opresser, it was only when we started talking to them did we ever see an end to that time.

Hell, in an absolute sense the entire world survives at our whim because we alone have enough nukes to end the world 10x over if we ever just decided "hey you know, let's destroy the world for lulz!" we *might* be able to stop someone else from doing that with our anti-missle technologies if we wanted to, but nobody else could... that's a truely staggering amount of power. The US on the other hand is based on the principle of not flaunting our power (despite what we're accused of) and pursueing humanitarian goals, at our worst we're like a nosy cop that nobody wants around until they are yelling for help. Profiling violates our moral imperitive and the principles of proof and equality we long since established. Acting in a way to fight an "intangible" cultural enemy as opposed to a national one is directly contrary to our founding principles. As a nation we've been telling the world they should be living by our standards of proof, and using our level of military restraint, and it would be galling to many if we had to admit we were wrong, make the exceptions, and do all of the things we've been trying to define ourselves by not doing. Personally, I've been long since convinced we were wrong and need to face reality, thank Islam and Muslim culture for taking the dream of global co-existance and dumping it into the crapper by demonstrating there are people who can't co-exist with anyone else at all except under their own very specific terms (including things like the enslavement of women). A lot of people have not been, and think things will magically work out if we stick to our guns.... and neither side ever wanted there to be sides drawn about things like this.

well you and russia both have the ability to wipe everyone out int he initial exchange. but the UK , France, China, Israel, Pakistan ,India and possibly the DPRK all have enough nukes to end all life on the planet and you cant shoot em down because theres no need for them to hit you , 10 large nukes in the same area anywhere in the world will be enough to trigger an ELE (extinction level event)

Not flauting your power? the last 5 decades have seen nothing but aggressive attempts to shape the world after you own ideals, why do you think people are fighting back? through the IMF, World bank, 40 years of trade deficit and dollar imperialsm. restraint? you bankrupt and enslave nation after nation then wring your hands and wonder why some people might be pissed at you? WAKE UP DUDE!
Islam isnt to blame , equating the terror factions claiming to be Muslims is like saying the KKK is a fair representation of Christianity. you are aware that Muslims Christians Jews and Catholics all pray to the same god right? or that there are thousands of them serving in your armed forces and police.

To be blunt, your pretty much defining the problem. You believe your in control of your goverment, but you really are not. If the goverment ever decides it wants to behave differantly, there is literally nothing you can do about it. When things seem to be running smoothly it's easy to believe that there isn't a problem, the right to bear arms is making sure that things stay that way by taking options off the table. It's great to say "we can always choose to remove someone from office" until one day you find out you can't, and all the guys with guns... well they happen to be on their side. It's nice to say the police are accountable, until one day they aren't, and they are the ones with the guns.

As far as US foreign policy goes, your deluded. To be brutally honest with you, I believe we SHOULD be acting a lot more like and thaluikhain imply, but we don't for simple reasons of morality. We wind up not pursueing our own interests or strong arming people when we probably should be. A big part of the problem is that you really have no conception of what it would be like if for the moment the US ever DID become aggressive and act to our full potential instead of letting oursevles be internally castrated by our own morality. Which is part of the reason why I mentioned our
potential power in my post, in anticipation of these kinds of points. I very much believe the US itself has been suffering due to it's lack of assertiveness, and I believe the world needs a reminder about what we can actually do,
not that I believe we should remain tyrants indefinatly, but I am tired of listening to the crap your dishing out with all the problems we bring on ourselves for NOT acting that way. Why always be the good guys, if nobody bothers to recognize it? As I pointed out, you all continue to exist because the US says so, human life exists right now because the US chooses not to end it when you want to take it to that extreme. We could conquer any country, annhilate any people, we could throw darts at a map and genocidally annihilate where it lands and bet on it in Vegas for lulz if we wanted to. We simply choose not to do things like that because they are wrong. Many of the complaints we receive about backing rebels, putting new, friendly goverments into power, and similar things all come from our own morality in trying to minimize civilian casualties and be the good guys in how we deal with those who cross us. We could just decimate anyone who crossed us and leave their entire civilizations as giant graveyards, we have the power to do it, nobody
could stop us without us taking out the world with us, we simply choose not to. When you QQ about what we've done to those who cross us, be careful to think about what we could have done instead. Not to mention all the times when we have simply chosen to let things go when most other nations in our position never would have. It's easy to talk smack about the US and how "evil" it is when you intentionally limit your perspective.

Heck, at the moment I'd be content just to have the US go back to being isolationist, acting only in it's own direct interests and letting the rest of the world otherwise take care of itself. I'm sure to many people that sounds great on some levels, but truthfully it means when most nations yell "help" there won't be anyone to answer. It's not like France is going to come running. For all the times we might do something nasty to those who cross us, there are ten incidents where we basically sit there and keep two other nations/cultures from killing each other while we try and mediate a peace, all on our dime, and at the expense of US lives. We also spend tons of money sending personel to flip cheeseburgers for refugees who would just as soon slice our throats as look at us. The US handles the heavy lifting for almost all of that kind of stuff you see happening. With the crap we get, as far as I'm concerned we should just let the genocides go, and let the people we save starve and die in plagues. I mean it's not like anyone else is going to step up to shoulder the burden in the same way, so why the hell should we, right? We're the bad guys remember, I agree, we should all be sitting back, twirling our Snively Whiplash mustaches, and plotting what kind of atrocities we can perform for the sake of performing atrocities to amuse ourselves... let the world be right. Replace our diplomats with card dispensers that dispense cards saying "Diry Deeds Done Cheap", since I mean... really, what's the differance to how we're viewed now anyway.

-

I doubt the above really made my point (especially given my style) but I'll finish by addressing the issue of Islam.

In general I tend to specify "Muslim" because the problem is less the Islamic religion in of itself as much as the cultures that have been based around it. In of itself Islam is something that can be practiced perfectly harmlessly as it's no more inherantly savage and problematic as any other religion like Christianity. Technically an Islamic can wander around totally normal and you'd never know what religion he was, just as you generally can't identify a Christian or whatever. This is fine, people are entitled to practice whatever religion they want as long as they keep it to themselves and it doesn't intrude on anyone else.

The problem is that the Muslim cultures throughout The Middle East which have built themselves up around Islam are not into peaceful co-existance. They might play the role, but at the end of the day they are hardcore theocrats who very much believe that it's their way or no way. They take their religion to the point of oppressing 50% of the population, adoping radical forms of grooming and dress, and doing things like executing women by stoning for not marrying their rapists. It's taken to the extreme where women visiting from other nations are expected to adopt the mode of dress and submissive posture of the women in the region when visiting, and women in positions of authority elsewhere are expected to be seen deferring to men in public or during meetings. It's not just one nation that is responsible for this, it's many nations sharing the same basic culture spread throughout a specific region. What's more that region acts as the center of faith for the religion which is practiced globally, and effectively sets the policies and practices of the majority throughout the world. While only a minority of people might become terrorists, the culture itself encourages terrorism and the aggressive promotion of the religion and destruction of it's enemies. This ensures that every time an "Al Queda" is defeated another similar group rises up to replace it. People being what they are Islamics are also not so stupid as to provoke much more powerful nations by showing public support of these things, after all if they were in a position to do so, they wouldn't be resorting to terrorism and covert operations.

Now whether "Islamic" and "Muslim" are a proper textbook definition to set about the differance between the religion and the culture, is irrelevent as I've explained the intent many times, and to be honest using the term "Muslim" as suggested to me as an easy way to differentiate since it actually does refer more to the cultural practice of Islam rather than naming the religion itself directly.

In short if you take Islam to the point where you can be identified as islamic due to your facial hair, mode of dress, need for prayer rooms, and similar things, you support the traditional gender roles of Islamic society, etc... then you represent a part of the problem. You are who the terrorists are fighting for, even if you are not a terrorist yourself. Your existance encourages the current state of affairs. If you have otherwise assimilated into society and might act normally when your in another country, perhaps quietly reading the Qua'ran once in a while, then it's not generally a problem. Basically when you have to walk on eggshells around a group of people who get uppity and violence because "OMG, someone drew a picture of Muhammad" that's a problem, and the rest of the world shouldn't have to deal with that crap.

Being motivated by faith, reason does not work in these cases, it's been tried for decades, and really assimilation is a problem when you find people that try and blend into the rest of global society becoming targets for terrorists and such themselves. Truthfully the actual "Radical Islamics" are the ones that aren't a problem and deal well with the rest of global society, the majority are however "Muslims" and represent a global threat, as long as the culture persists it will continue to produce one terrorist group after another even if the terrorists remain a minority overall, much like how the military represents the minority of any population.

I also use the term "Muslim" to extend it to things like "Black Muslims", and groups like "Nation Of Thizzlam" which as I understand things follow a belief structure based around a figured called "Yakub" who was an ancient scientist/sorceror who was obssesed with magnets and whom created the white man to oppress the original black man, whites effectively not being real people and similar to demons. A return to the status quo being prophecized, and on it's way to arrival. This belief incidently formed a lot of the backbone of the teachings of Charles Manson who talked about "Helter Skelter" which would be the great race war between whites and blacks, which whites would lose, but allegedly in following him you could prepare for whites to retake the world.... Wikipedia has some stuff about it if you look up "Yakub" and the like. It's another real sweetheart of a religion. In general when you start looking at Muslim sects they tend to go from bad to worse for anyone who isn't a follower. (Yes kids, Therumancer does indeed come up with what he says based on hard information even if he doesn't always provide it).

See, at the end of the day my basic attitude is that it pretty much comes down to Muslims, or everyone else in the final equasion. The culture just doesn't represent enough of an overt threat that we can see for people to take it that seriously. As much as it pissed people off even 9/11 just amounted to a few buildings. The thing is that it's persistant and the lack of strong response, combined with constant gestures of good will (seen as weakness) make the problem worse. From a Muslim perspective, if they blow up a few buildings but then we have employers making special policies to allow their mode of dress and/or providing prayer rooms and such to avoid antagonizing them, that's a victory. You'll notice you don't see Muslims refusing to use these things because they came about due to terrorism.

At the end of the day I recommend incredibly hardcore actions because I believe that's the only way to resolve it. Ideally we need to break the culture, but we can also simply make these actions too expensive to maintain. The differance between what I've mentioned and doing mass executions and what thaluikhain (I believe) mentioned about
the Black and Tans despite my own use of Ireland as an example, is that at the end of the day we really don't want to take over The Middle East and make it part of the USA. They present no threat, we leave them alone. Oil is less of a factor than many people make it out to be because really the leadership in the region is more than happy to sell it so they can buy new Rolls Royces every week. If anything the oil is what they use as a shield to prevent retaliation rather than the reason for violence, because the resource gives us a reason for taking a lot of crap we wouldn't otherwise.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Ah, well, I'm slowly being brain-washed into a West Ham fan by my mate's dad, and the rivalry between Millwall and West Ham is both long and bloody. (snip)

Hey, thanks for the movie suggestions, I'll give them a look.

Heh. Just realized where I knew Millwall from : "Millwall! That's the one. D'you know this chant? "Millwall, Millwall, you're all really dreadful and all your girlfriends are unfulfilled and alienated.""

Spoiler

Ah Black Books, yet another outstanding comedy series on Channel 4. I'm not sure what they were feeding their staff at the time and/or putting in the water, but they should do it again. I'm going to assume that if you've seen Black Books you've probably already seen Spaced as well? If not, definitely worth checking out!

 

[Thaluikhain]

As far as US foreign policy goes, your deluded. To be brutally honest with you, I believe we SHOULD be acting a lot more like and thaluikhain imply, but we don't for simple reasons of morality. We wind up not pursueing our own interests or strong arming people when we probably should be. A big part of the problem is that you really have no conception of what it would be like if for the moment the US ever DID become aggressive and act to our full potential instead of letting oursevles be internally castrated by our own morality. Which is part of the reason why I mentioned our
potential power in my post, in anticipation of these kinds of points. I very much believe the US itself has been suffering due to it's lack of assertiveness, and I believe the world needs a reminder about what we can actually do,
not that I believe we should remain tyrants indefinatly, but I am tired of listening to the crap your dishing out with all the problems we bring on ourselves for NOT acting that way. Why always be the good guys, if nobody bothers to recognize it? As I pointed out, you all continue to exist because the US says so, human life exists right now because the US chooses not to end it when you want to take it to that extreme. We could conquer any country, annhilate any people, we could throw darts at a map and genocidally annihilate where it lands and bet on it in Vegas for lulz if we wanted to. We simply choose not to do things like that because they are wrong. Many of the complaints we receive about backing rebels, putting new, friendly goverments into power, and similar things all come from our own morality in trying to minimize civilian casualties and be the good guys in how we deal with those who cross us. We could just decimate anyone who crossed us and leave their entire civilizations as giant graveyards, we have the power to do it, nobody
could stop us without us taking out the world with us, we simply choose not to. When you QQ about what we've done to those who cross us, be careful to think about what we could have done instead. Not to mention all the times when we have simply chosen to let things go when most other nations in our position never would have. It's easy to talk smack about the US and how "evil" it is when you intentionally limit your perspective.

Again, utter crap.

The US can't very well go and destroy the world, because it's part of it. The computer you are using, the clothes you are wearing, all of those are likely made in or out of things from outside the US. Destroying the nations that produce those isn't in the US's interest, nor another economic crisis.

And...do I really have to explain "Mutually Assured Destruction"?

Should the US go down the road you propose, the rest of the world is likely to remember how wonderful the Russians were for fighting the Germans in WW2 (or perhaps the Chinese vs the Japanese) and move towards them. The EU suddenly would start thinking about getting its act together.

Not committing as many atrocities as it could does not make the US "the good guys". It makes the US tolerable to the rest of the world. As long as the important parts of the world don't feel too threatened by the US, they've no particular reason to become a threat to it.

It is not in the US's interest to provoke others into challenging it. It doesn't matter if the US "wins" if the end result is less favourable than the status quo, which it is likely to be.

Now, there is more that the US could safely do, it could get involved in another ground war or two, overthrow a few more third world governments without hurting itself too much. There'd be very little actual benefit for the US doing that, though.

 

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Two separate things.

Regarding Terrorism, we Americans are still sore over 9/11.[footnote]Some of us are still sore over Pearl Harbor. Anime has gone a long way in winning the forgiveness of the younger generations, though.[/footnote] It was noticed during the recent bombing in Boston that if it were some white dude, he'd be presented as a lone crazed maverick gone amuck, but if it were some Arab or Muslim, we'd assume that he was part of the cell of a terrorist organization. Sure enough, the media and political heads have presumed the Tsarnaev brothers were part of a larger coordinated attack "on America" rather than wait for evidence to indicate cause.[footnote]Only privately do Americans note that these guys may simply have been incited into a rage via propaganda, the way Scott Roeder was incited by the media to gun down Dr. Tiller. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller]. In fact, it's looking like Tamerlan was the fanatic and pressured his little brother to participate. But I speculate.[/footnote]

So we're not afraid of any act of terror, just attacks from organized radical Muslims[footnote]...even if the attacks have less to do with their faith and more to do with, oh, say, revenge. America likes to fuck over nations and a lot of people are rather irate about it.[/footnote] because the last big attack was coordinated by organized radical Muslims. We've almost forgotten about Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh, red-blooded American terrorists, both. But we don't even think about acts of terror (such as the Boston Marathon Bombing) as terror until there's a gang of crazed Muslim Arabs behind it.

Regarding Guns, there are numerous hypotheses regarding the US's high rate of homicide, but our (relatively) relaxed arms-restrictions isn't unique to the United States, and the regulations we want to (re-)instate didn't help our homicide rate when they were in effect before. But yeah, the War on Drugs remains a central theme when it comes to most of our murders, in fact, most of our crime. In fact, our drug problem that the WoD is trying to contain seems to be smaller than the WoD and the gang conflicts involved. But that's not to say drugs aren't a problem, just that the current policy with the WoD and the DEA is really not the solution.

238U