The Bad guy have won.........

I have been reading here for just over a year now and all the histeria has only brought us one thing..... a curbing of rights all around the world. The result is that the fanatics have won! They have reached what they wanted - to disrupt the lives of those who believe differently.

The readers from the US may not like what I have to say but.... it is your everyday life now. In the passed your gov. allowed you to believe that within certain parameters you were free to do as you please - the land of the free - that was also the image projected to the rest of the world. Those days are over with!!! Guess what we are all letting them get away with it. There is no such thing as absolute safety because there will always be some b**** out there who wants more power, more wealth, more & more & more. If our only answer is to curb the rights of lawabiding Citzens well then folks THEY WIN!!!

Amen

It isn't just the terrorists who've won. People with authoritarian personality types have too. What is an authoritarian? Simply someone who feels powerless. To feel more powerful, they get a job where they are able to exercise power. The power feeds their ego, and to the extent that they can convince themselves that they have to do what they do, they side with powers above them against the populace, people who they consider naive because they aren't as concerned. At a certain point, resentment kicks in. They resent the people they protect. It's how every police state develops.

Authoritarians lie in wait for events like 9/11. They are their ticket to some faux self-esteem.

Care to give some examples?

I'm personally unaware of having lost any rights that I had four years ago. Are you possibly confusing your "rights" with things that you preferred to do in a different way, but were not protected acts?

Rights are far more than "protected acts." We've gotten into this frame of mind that only actions that are explicitly granted by the government are rights, but that is wrong. Rights include all of your basic freedoms of mobility and action.

There's also the fourth amendment - the right to be secure in your person and personal effects. i.e. the right to privacy. What we're seeing continuously these days are more and more unreasonable incursions on that right.

While I agree the 4th is under attack (for want of a better word), it does not grant the right of privacy. Unless you only take some of the wording out of context. viz:

Doppy, Doppy, Doppy, you naive boy. Don't you know that flying isn't mentioned in the US Constitution? I've never heard of a constitutionally protected right to fly.

For a start I travel to the US at least once or twice a year and that for the last 10 years. Since 9/11 the US gov. wants to know details that are actually private and not even my own gov is allowed to store such info but the US wants to know what religion I am and certain bank infos - they won't however say how they are storing such info , for how long or what they are actually doing with this info. Apparently they also track credit card movements during my stay.

If I want to come to the US after Oct this year they require me either to have a passport with Biometric details (which by the way a lot of institutions are strongly opposing because they are so unsafe as far a protecting indivuals from ID theft goes - some even go so far as to say that these passport will be even easier to counterfeit than those currently in operation or I will have to apply for a visa which already takes weeks now. Imaging how long it will take to process an additional 1.000 passengers a day)

Now some of you are going to say so what if it protects me I don't care but I don't like being treated like a criminal especially when I have done no wrong gee I haven't even had a park or speeding ticket in the US in 10 years!!! and I have always left the country on the date specified on entry and never over drawn the 90 days!!

The shoe carousel - picked up some nasty foot germ last year in Atlanta. It cost me 500 USD in treatment at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale the next day. Hygiene seem to be the last worry.

The list could go on & on in the end it is just a very uncomfortable feeling.

I do admit right after 9/11 and I flew transat 3 weeks afterwards it was ok to be a little more careful and up the checks but now 3 years l see that we have something of an over kill on acts & laws that are rashly made and not thought thru completly..

Have a good travel day

Do you people ever stop?! Please whine to your Congressperson, Senator, or President, but not to this board.

Who actually won the "Cold War"? The old government of the USSR would be proud of some of the measures that are now in place in North America.

My problem is not so much that there are security measures. Where there is a threat these are necessary precautions. Something the Israelis have come to terms with long ago. But what does aggravate me is that in many cases these measures are cosmetic and the people carrying them out have no idea what they are doing. I had a first hand experience this morning flying NW out of Manila to Narita. My carry-on baggage was searched and a big production was made out of it, but the search itself was pathetic and an insult. If you are going to inconvenience me in such a way, then at least make it worth my while and do your job properly!

Yo - Randy, Is that a new moniker?

I'll whine here about government expansion until Randy or the moderators tell me to stop.

I also frequently contact my idiot Senators and representative to express my displeasure with the loss of civil liberties in this ill-defined war on terror.

NWA_5479, respectfully, the purpose of an Internet BB, among other things, is to disseminate helpful information, discuss current issues, socialize with folks who share your interests and to "vent" frustrations and whine every so often.
As long as there is no bloodshed and/or overt personal attacks in this Forum, this is pretty much a place to express your opinions.
We may not agree with everybody's position on an issue but, IMO, that's what makes this place interesting.

MNL-NRT!!