9/11 Death Sentence?

[THE_DITCH_DOCTOR]

Wow....I don't know what else to say but Wow.... Nicely put Dixie/Alco.

[Richard B the EMT]

"Make Love, Not War. Be Prepared For Both"

(Bumper sticker for Edelman's, a large sporting/camping/hunting supply store in Suffolk County, New York)

[JoelEMT]

I have read this thread with great interest. I was living in the Philippines when 9/11 happened. I remember getting a phone call advising me not to go outside for 48 hours due to the unknown extent of the terror operations and the high % of Muslims living in the Philippines. Then, there was the Missile strike retaliation of Oct '01 When once again, I was advised not to go outside. During the 2 years that I spent there from June '01 - April '01, I had to be very careful as to where I went, who I talked to etc. There were Rebel soldiers there, along with portions of Muslim extremist groups. I;ve had to avoid patrols etc. Too often, I had to hang back cuz right out my door were rebel soldiers heading into the mountains. Carrying a camera was a times grounds for suspicion as a Spy.

Now, being Canadian has not excluded me from feeling the effects of 9/11 nor has it kept me safe. ( Over there, any white skinned person is an American.) I have "enjoyed" (perhaps not the best word...) the comments of this thread because it has allowed me to see how 9/11 has affected the individual. We see and hear in the news how it supposedly affects nations. I have to agree with Steve on many of the points that he has made. War/Terror= death. Simple as that. No glory, Rarely is it for a greater cause other than self-preservation.

Dixie - I have to agree with you as well on many points. Living in a semi-socialist country as I do... I can barely pay my provincial health-care premiums right now. I took a friend to the emerg this past week with ABD pain - I think it took close to 6 hours before she was seen. Every system has its pro's and con's. Preferably it would be up to the end user (you and me) to decide which system they wanted.

With Respect to voting. It has been said that It is a privilege and not a right. I have to disagree slightly. It is both. As a citizen you have the the right to vote. BUT, I feel that you should ONLY exercise the privilege of that right IF you are informed of the situations/ current events etc. that will help to make an informed choice. A right does not mean you have to do anything, nor does it necessarily mean that you should. ie freedom of speech. (as mentioned in another thread)

I do NOT pretend to know of the suffering etc. of those directly involved with 9/11 nor do I pretend to tell you what to do in your own country regarding your politics/policies etc. Therefore I withhold any judgments.

Just my point of view is all.

[Guest]

Voting is a right.

Not a privilege.

How can anyone compare voting with driving ?

My mom has never driven a car but she has voted in every election that I can remember.

You can not have your voting right taken away for minor crimes,only felonies.

It has to do with the surrendering of your constitutional rights as a form of punishment.

You have no right to drive a car,you can be denied driving privileges at anytime.

The DMV can say you didn't pass their test and you do not drive.

The voting process is like it is because our founding fathers wanted the diversity of the population voting.

We have added to the list since then, we allowed women,minorities and persons 18 and older.

If you look at that admendment, it was made during a time of great turmoil, young persons were protesting against the Govt., did the Govt. deny them the right to express their feelings through voting ?

If you start admining test to get the right to vote,where are the tests gonna stop, what questions are gonna be asked ?

Is a person gonna be denied because their answer is not good enough ?

What happens when the elite asks questions that not everyone can answer ?

Now for the comment about this country falling.

We have been written off many times but we're still around.

I can't for the life of me see how anyone can compare the US to Germany.

No, I take that back, when you start limiting the population of a nation the right to exercise it's desire at leadership, yea sounds kinda dictatorial to me now.

We as Americans can not be led by a dictator,we have a checks and balance system with the voting population having the final say.

Look at the local elections in LA.

Hispanics are gaining ground in every election, they are voting Hispanic and putting Hispanics into office because they are tired of not being heard.

The same with TX.

Hate crimes.

We have enforced hate crimes for many years, yes that is true.

We are still enforcing hate crimes from the civil rights movement era.

I think we should never stop enforcing hate crimes.

Are other countries doing the same ?

We are holding persons responsible for their crimes at the military prisons,several are in jail and more to come.

Are we gonna get everyone ?

No, the officers are gonna walk and that aint right.

[THE_DITCH_DOCTOR]

I choose to take the advice my grandfather gave me and not get into an fight with someone who is obviously unarmed when you yourself are well armed. It's just not sporting.

[countrygirl]

I have read all through what everyone has replied to on this subject. I agree and dissagree with some of the things said. Just like everyone else id like to throw in my opinion and im not doing it to insult or defy anything anyone has wrote. But, that being said my personal opinion is that I feel that we should bring our soldiers home from over seas. Make that place a crater and i also feel that anyone who could do such a thing that was done on 9/11 should be taken to the tallest oak tree around and hung up high for everyone to see. But like i said this is my opinion and mine only, and im pretty sure a lot of you will dissagree and maybe some feel the same. Guess ill have to wait and see what everyone thinks what i think should be done. So please feel free to let me know. thanks

[THE_DITCH_DOCTOR]

I don't see why we should reduce Iraq to a smoking crater. They did nothing to us to provoke the US led invasion, and they simply want us out. I agree we should bring our soldiers, sailors and airmen home and hang those responsible for all the atrocities that have occurred as a direct and allegedly direct response to 9-11, on both sides.

I do feel that I should perhaps clarify my earlier statement about the pre-voting test, just so that I am not labeled as being unfair. I was thinking of something along the lines of:

Who are the two senators from your state?

Who is your Representative in Congress?

Who is the governor?

Name two of your county (or city) council members

Who is the mayor of your town?

Who is the police chief (or county sheriff)?

Name four of the nine Supreme Court Justices

Something to prove that you are paying attention to what happens in this nation. Being a troglodytic hermit when it comes to current affairs is an option, but if you chose that route you should be held to your decision and your opinion should not count because it's not an informed decision. This information is not hard to come across if people put a little effort into it. If you don't deem it necessary to be well informed before opening your mouth, then don't expect me to give you any more of my attention than I absolutely have to.

[Guest]

It's all right countrygirl,low blows are the first signs of desperation.

He went as far earlier, to call me a Republican !!!!!!!!!

I do feel that I should perhaps clarify my earlier statement about the pre-voting test, just so that I am not labeled as being unfair. I was thinking of something along the lines of:

Who are the two senators from your state?

Who is your Representative in Congress?

Who is the governor?

Name two of your county (or city) council members

Who is the mayor of your town?

Who is the police chief (or county sheriff)?

Name four of the nine Supreme Court Justices

A lot of those questions are answered on the ballots or in the media campaigns that surround the elections.

I agree you do need to know who you are voting for.

We obviously have the time to watch the news and be informed but not everyone shares our luxury, some folks work from dawn to dusk and then go home long enough to eat and get a few hours sleep before they start over again.

How many people do you know had ever heard of bin Laden, Taliban,Al-Qedia,Islamic Jihad before 9-11 ?

I keep thinking about the guy who gets laid off from his job of 15 years because his job was sent to Mexico,his only recourse is to vote and he is gonna vote for change, should we deny him that right ?

His vote may not make a difference and it probably don't mean anything to anyone else but he is gonna be smiling when he leaves the voting booth.

[Asysin2leads]

Just to get my $.02 in here...

It really pains me when I see the people who were far removed from 9/11 (i.e. most of the red states) strutting and puffing out their chests while the ones who are really at risk of getting killed by angry misguided religious zealots (the terrorists, I mean, not the Christian coalition), scramble trying to protect themselves under the asinine and short sighted policies in place. To have a had a front row seat to the worst terrorist attack in history, then to read the local newspapers and read the obituaries as they ran for WEEKS, to talk to people who lost their loved ones, and to have visited the memorials, and now to see people with Florida license plates in their suped up pick ups with the airbrushed artwork posing for pictures in front of the pit of the World Trade Center site (its not the fucking Grand Canyon, folks), well, I'm still proud to be an American, but dammit if there are some people who don't piss me off.

Counter terrorism funding has become a pork barrel project with each senator waiting to dip their greasy fingers into the barrel and spread the loot around to their home states, regardless of what it means to the states that really need it. Currently, in the US, our soft targets in major metropolitan areas maybe woefully underprotected, but dammit if we don't have the BEST guarded county fairs in the world! Yeah!

Remember, for every backwoods Rambo wannabe first responder, tooling around the interstates in his way cool tactical gear funded by DHS, there is a police officer standing in front of the United Nations or the Golden Gate Bridge or the Sears Tower who's radio may or may not be able to communicate with other emergency workers.

Bush et al. has sold us out. Emergency workers, alive, just don't get him votes. Its only when we perish 'heroically' that he can use us in his campaigns. That's what I believe, and I'm sticking to it.

[THE_DITCH_DOCTOR]

It's all right countrygirl,low blows are the first signs of desperation.

He went as far earlier, to call me a Republican !!!!!!!!!

I do feel that I should perhaps clarify my earlier statement about the pre-voting test, just so that I am not labeled as being unfair. I was thinking of something along the lines of:

Who are the two senators from your state?

Who is your Representative in Congress?

Who is the governor?

Name two of your county (or city) council members

Who is the mayor of your town?

Who is the police chief (or county sheriff)?

Name four of the nine Supreme Court Justices

A lot of those questions are answered on the ballots or in the media campaigns that surround the elections.

I agree you do need to know who you are voting for.

We obviously have the time to watch the news and be informed but not everyone shares our luxury, some folks work from dawn to dusk and then go home long enough to eat and get a few hours sleep before they start over again.

How many people do you know had ever heard of bin Laden, Taliban,Al-Qedia,Islamic Jihad before 9-11 ?

I keep thinking about the guy who gets laid off from his job of 15 years because his job was sent to Mexico,his only recourse is to vote and he is gonna vote for change, should we deny him that right ?

His vote may not make a difference and it probably don't mean anything to anyone else but he is gonna be smiling when he leaves the voting booth.

I haven't made any low blows, especially not to Countrygirl. I've just made statements that you don't happen to agree with.

A low blow would be (for the sake of example) calling you (DaEMT) a close-minded hillbilly who only votes for a given candidate for people based on his alleged religious affiliations and because he talks like you do, who probably is missing a good number of his permanent teeth, who drinks heavily, beats his wife, and couldn't find Afghanistan on a map because you probably failed 10th grade geography. That would be a low blow.

Calling you a Republican isn't a low blow- especially when one of the only national politicians I happen to have any large amount of respect for is a high ranking Republican (John McCain). Personally I think John Kerry is a spineless douche bag but that's beside the point.

And what's on the ballots or in political advertising has nothing to do with who is in office from the last election- unless they are running for reelection. Besides, last time I checked we didn't elect police chiefs (at least in most places) or Supreme Court Justices.

Sorry I don't care if someone's dog just died, if they have lost their job, if their wife left them for their sister, their child has cancer. There's no excuse for being uneducated. Does it really take that much time to read a newspaper or watch the nightly news (30 minutes for the latter and maybe an hour for the former if you're a slow reader-)? You don't have to attend every city council meeting to be an informed citizen and you aren't required to watch CNN for hours on end. Run the damn answers in the paper weeks before the election (just don't announce when) for all I care. The point is this: this country is supposed to be a democracy, not some manner of stultocratic theocracy, much to the chagrin of Dubya and his cronies.

As for who heard of Bin Laden, the Taliban, al Qaeda, etc before 9-11....well let's see we'd launched cruise missles at bin Laden and his al Qaeda training camps and weapons stockpiles in Sudan and Afghanistan as far back as 1995 (I can double check that if you want to be 100% certain, it could have been 1996), the Taliban regime's take over of Afghanistan, its destruction of several UNESCO World Heritage sites (the two Buddhas being prime examples), and its brutal oppresion of women were frequent fodder for news on Fox News, CNN and Headline News. It's not a matter of these people and organizations not getting press coverage- it is completely a matter of most Americans being inattentive unless it directly involves them or if it involves NASCAR, the NFL, the NBA, or some celebrity.

By the way, since there might be those of you out there without the time to find a dictionary, stultocratic is the descriptive form of "stultocracy" which means rule by morons.