On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 3:11 PM, Nathan England <nat...@nmecs.com> wrote: > Did you happen to pay attention to the news media at all during the attempts > to panic the > people if the sequester bill was not passed and what horrible things would > happen if the funding > fell through? > > Was that not "inciting terror" ? > > You better believe it was! There were people screaming the schools would be > shut down, fire > departments would shut down, police departments would shut down!
Seriously, dude? Really? You're going to compare "My kids can't go to school" and "my house might burn down" with "I might be minding my own business when suddenly my body is ripped to shreds in a thunderous explosion, and there is absolutely no way I can predict when or where this might happen"? Don't be ridiculous. Budget cuts aren't terrorism, and using the word terrorism to describe them waters down the meaning of the word and cheapens the reality of people who actually live in terror that their lives may be snuffed out at any moment for no reason. That, incidentally, is my definition of terror: the threat that you might die at any moment, and that you have no reasonable recourse or option to avoid sudden death from an anonymous source. By "no reasonable recourse or option" I mean that there is nothing you can do without substantially upsetting your life that will keep you safe: converting to Islam, staying indoors constantly, and moving yourself and your entire family to a different country all count as unreasonable. Getting mugged, having your house burn down and not having a place to store the kids during the day don't qualify. -Dan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
