On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 05:14:28PM -0700, Steve C. Lamb wrote: > On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 07:11:37PM -0400, ScruLoose wrote: > > Um. Can't speak for everyone else, but I think that being dead would be > > somewhat more disruptive to my "normal course of events" than having my > > mailbox flooded. > > You're focusing on the thousands that died in the towers and at the > Pentagon and ignoring the rest of the consiquences. Not really. I was focusing on the thousands that died as a rhetorical technique to highlight the point that there are significant differences between terrorism/Sept11 and spam/swen. A violent, flaming death is merely the most glaring and attention-grabbing of those differences. > For the living there are consiquences from those actions which amount to > "disruptive to my normal course of events". That is, of course, you don't > consider the increased scrutiny at the airport not distruptive (I'd disagree, > having 3 flights this week), the increased (and to some unconstitutional) > power of the government granted by the US PATRIOT act, the added fear, > uncertainty and doubt from the worthless color coded threat level system and > the overall hostility between individuals who follow all this nationalism > without question against those who question it constantly. I agree entirely with all of these points. And they all serve to highlight my own point that terrorism is significantly different from (ie worse than) spam. > In fact it is the last one which is the one that closely resembles the > discussion at hand because some people want added security (from spam) while > others want to maintain freedom of the system (nation) while still others are > taking action which looks useful but ultimately is futile and harmful (C-R, US > PATRIOT act). Absolutely. Please note that I never said there were no similarities between spam and terrorism. My reply was a direct rebuttal of Tom's claim that distinguishing between them constitutes a "distinction without a difference", which I maintain is complete nonsense. Even if we toss viruses in with spam, I remain totally unconvinced that they constitute something that is equivalent to a terrorist attack that deliberately kills thousands (before even considering the many other effects). > There were more consiquences than "some people died." Open your eyes and > see them. Yup. I'm well aware of it, have been for years, and have actually been fairly vocal about the issue for a couple years now. If you go back and read my post, including the context of it being a reply to Tom's comment which I quoted... you'll find that I never stated or implied any lack of other consequences from the Sept. 11 attacks. Now, unless you're setting out to defend Tom's claim that there's no difference between spam and violent terrorism, we haven't actually disagreed on anything yet; so I wonder why you're taking such a touchy tone, telling me to "open my eyes". -Cheers -- ,-------------------------------------------------------------------------. > -ScruLoose- | Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem < > Please do not | in this country without having a 'War' on it? < > reply off-list. | - Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc < `-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
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