Documents reveal GOP's plan to use fear and scare tactics to get money, votes

Cyberwulf wrote:

Chaltab, speaking as an ignorant European who grew up in a place where terrorism was a significant problem,

Oh man, you're Irish, right? I forgot about that. You probably think we're a bunch of crybabies when it comes to terrorism.

Quote :

I wouldn't say that the Republicans don't care at all about terrorism. It's more that they don't care about tackling the root causes of terrorism, because that involves treating the populations that terrorists claim to represent as human beings, and addressing the complex political situations that give birth to terrorist organisations. It's a lot easier to make citizens afraid of brown people in turbans, and use that fear to justify doing whatever you want in the name of anti-terrorism.

That's somewhat valid, but I just can't admit that they actually care about terrorism even a little bit.

Republicans had control of the government after 9/11, and look at how that turned out. They went after Osama for about a year and a half, but finding him was hard. So instead, they tortured a bunch of prisoners until they lied about being involved with Iraq, and started a baseless war with them, instead. Because it doesn't really matter who we're killing, as long as we're killing somebody, right? Just to appease the voters?

Lysander wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Chaltab, speaking as an ignorant European who grew up in a place where terrorism was a significant problem,

Oh man, you're Irish, right? I forgot about that. You probably think we're a bunch of crybabies when it comes to terrorism.

Honestly, with the US I can understand the reaction, because you folks didn't even suffer any bombing on the mainland in World War II, and 9/11 was an incredibly spectacular and devastating attack. The British Government, on the other hand, lost their fucking minds.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Chaltab, speaking as an ignorant European who grew up in a place where terrorism was a significant problem, I wouldn't say that the Republicans don't care at all about terrorism. It's more that they don't care about tackling the root causes of terrorism, because that involves treating the populations that terrorists claim to represent as human beings, and addressing the complex political situations that give birth to terrorist organisations. It's a lot easier to make citizens afraid of brown people in turbans, and use that fear to justify doing whatever you want in the name of anti-terrorism.

I agree with Cyberwulf on this. Too many politicians just want to get votes by scaring people and giving easy answers that don't begin to address the actual problem, and wind up harming the innocent while they're at it.

Not surprised at all - "The Politics of Fear" is a great motivator, and was a winner for the GOP in 2002 and 2004 (granted, in '02 Bush's popularity was still in the high 70's and in '04 we put a stiff up against him).

But it backfired big in '06, and unfortunately what the GOP has left is either dusting off old playbooks (see Contract for America redux) or sticking to what they know and hoping that the voters suffer the usual short-term memory loss that seems to happen when the next shiny object comes along.