Awareness

' When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity."
George Bernard Shaw


There are a myriad of things that can kill a person in this day and age, it need not be war. Car crashes, drug deals gone bad, even the weather, as we've seen. So it is our duty to be aware of our surroundings, and how they might unfold. Many people say that something " just didn't feel right", but then they did not heed that feeling, and someone was hurt, or died. You can read so many variations on this theme in the daily paper, if you so choose.
I was once asked why I bothered to read the paper every morning, especially as the paper I have access to is a very liberal rag that I have little respect for. I had to answer that, one, it is the only paper of note I can geet, and Two, almosst any paper is edited with the intent of being basically truthful, something that cannot be said of the internet ( see Wickipedia). I read the paper, because there might be something that drastically affects me and my family, and I want to be ahead of the curve when that happens. Information can save your ass, that is the bottom line, and despite their failures, I truly believe the government believes this also.
I want the government to have all the information they can get as it relates to terrorism- only then can they make the decisions that can keep us safe, and you would have to admit, there have been no attacks since 9/11. I am sure that is not from lack of effort on the terrorists part. As I said in a previous post, THEY WILL NOT STOP. Neither can we, In this day of instant communication, new tools need to be used, and it is the truth that anyone who hinders this will be complicit in any deaths that occur as a result of any obstruction of this process.
At some point, we, as a people, have to trust the government to do right. With the checks and balances we have built into our form of government, the possibility of any one branch grabbing the reins of power is virtually nil. The other two would not have it, and neither would the people.
It wouldn't matter whether it was a red state, or a blue state. The people would kick ass, and that is the way it should be. You see, I have faith in the power of the people- but that means many things to many people, so I will define this further.
The people, shallow though they might at first glance appear, are a formidible force- but like a teenager, we do not want to be rudely awakened. We get grumpy, and tend to take it out on whatever woke us up. Just ask the Japanese. We, as a people, just want what anybody else wants, that is to raise our children in safety. America has been blessed with plenty, and we give plenty back, but we worked hard for what we have, and when that is in peril, we fight back. The muslim fanatics haven't seen us truly pissed yet, or the entire mideast region would be a sea of molten glass--- we really do not use that much of the oil there, regardless of what others say; the Europeans do, so they might get a little irritated. Oh well, don't piss us off.
The whole thing in a nutshell is this- the government MUST be allowed to listen in on calls that originate outside the U.S., but are received inside the U.S.. We need all the tools we can get, because the terrorists no longer take an airliner to voice their demands, then let everyone go. No, that was the old days, and if they had stayed with that, probably so would we have. Things change, and they changed drastically, with people dying. We cannot ignore this for it has come to our shores, and will not willingly go away.
Since the paradigm shifts, so must our techniques, or we shall fail, and die in the failing.


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