Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (13839)	6/24/2006 2:50:37 PM
From: Cage Rattler	Respond to of 32591

Well stated. The spectrum of influence spawned by terrorism is alarming. Directly or indirectly, it’s effect extend beyond the obvious terrorist event. In addition to fear and anger, terrorism fosters unfortunate secondary consequences. These secondary affects include proposed curtailment of human and civil rights that adversely impact upon the innocent – including it seems, the sanctity of our private email. Nevertheless, this spectrum must be triaged with all threat evaluated and all liabilities addressed in a time-appropriate manner. An appropriate approach it seems should parallel the protocol observed within any emergency medical situation -- first things first. In the ER, as on the battle field, one strives to maximize potential gain and minimizing possible losses. Thankfully, in the ER most medical situations are more easily prioritized than military/cultural parallels. Working in an ER or trauma center the physician accepts the inescapable fact that some rational medical decisions prove less than optimal in hindsight. However, that does not relieve the physician from making difficult, life and death, decisions within a context of real-time probabilities. Returning the terrorist parallel -- one might wonder if some of the more “liberally pre-disposed” restrict their data classifications to binary groupings? But even that lack of discrimination cannot excuse the shameless ease with which they equate disparate events to their advantage. For example, how can anyone equate the social humiliation of prisoners to the beheading of others or equate Saddam, Hitler, and al- Zarqawi to President Bush. We can give these folks the benefit of the doubt hoping that they really just stupid and believe that their equations are balanced and logically consistent. And fortunately, most reality-based individuals recognize their arguments as blatantly flawed. The sad thing is, such behavior/thinking can only arise from only two sources -- ignorance and/or malevolent intent. Alas, there are sad social and cultural consequences to these misrepresentations of reality. Logical impediments of this sort can and do trigger irrational behaviors, including headline grabbing public outcries. These situations are skillfully fomented by self-serving propagandists. In the group of propagandists one will recognize journalists and the plethora of Hollywood’s famed pseudo-intellectuals who sachet to Streisand’s rendition of “Send In the Clowns.” This is a semi-subtle form of propaganda which can remain inrecognized by many Westerners who welcome decisional abdication. Lies, like concussions, are cumulative -- the higher the stack of propaganda the more valid it may appear to the ignorant. It follows that the resulting outcries of “public opinion” can cause political and military indecisiveness. The results -- not unlike your Nero analogy.