This day ten years ago

[theswede]

I was sitting in an office in a high rise building in downtown Cleveland when the rumors about what had happened started to fly. We had no TV or radio, and the news websites were swamped, couldn't get them to load. I opened the much less burdened Swedish news sites and was sitting translating out loud to the whole office what was happening. Then

Comments

[evilshell]

Time does fly, doesn't it? I remember bumping into you at the gas station, you were so innocent then ;)

I'm glad I've left since then, the country has also turned into a place I can't recognize, really.

[theswede]

Yeah, I was, wasn't I? ;)

What I just can't understand is how the American people so readily accept the infringements on their privacy and rights, the torture of people often with no evidenced ties to terrorism and the total abandonment of due process.

That's what has me disillusioned. That people so readily defend the totalitarian acts because ... well, I don't even know because of what, because there is nothing they've accomplished, far as I know.

[testing4l]

Tens of thousands of Americans killed by inane new airline policies with zero captured terrorists and not a single terrorist act documented as prevented, countless warrantless arrests often followed by torture, and an exploding American budget deficit caused by military spending. 1) I don't know of a single case involving an American killed by new airline policies

[theswede]

1) Do you know how many people drive and get killed in traffic instead of flying due to the crazy policies? Enough to have killed many times more than the bombing itself did.

2) And how many of those have been caught through the new policies about shoes, liquids and nude scanners? I know exactly how many; zero.

3) Y'know -- Europe has been dealing with terrorism for over a hundred years without revoking free speech, torturing people and taking nude photos of everyone who flies.

Say what you want, but America's done a lot of stuff that didn't need doing.

(And lest you think otherwise, I am by no means anti-american)

[testing4l]

1) That number is insignificant at best. Fatal car accidents -- while they are listed as the 3rd most frequent cause of death -- are nowhere near that common. The number of people who choose to drive instead of fly is likewise insignificant -- the majority of flights are not for pleasure. I call bullshit on that claim -- now let's see how you came to that reckoning

[theswede]

On 1) I had the data somewhere, but that was five years ago. I'll try to dig it up again, time permitting. But sure, we can call it "insignificant" that people are killed by choosing driving instead of flying if we like. By that count, US deaths to terrorism are insignificant

[testing4l]

Apropos of nothing, I recall you liked crazy error messages like this: