03Lightningrocks wrote:I don't think a gang banger and a terrorist are comparable. In this case it might end up being we have a terrorist wannabe rather than an actual terrorist. But that is still not the same as a gang banger.
About the only similarity I can think of is they are both a danger to the public. The motivations of the two are completely different.
I'm not really arguing semantics and definitions. The fact is, the government can equate similar conditions and circumstances to justify violating the Constitution. The next time they have a dangerous guy on the run, why not do it again? What is the argument for not doing it? An unapprehended gang banger is a continuous threat. If he has murdered once he is going to murder again. It doesn't matter what his objectives are, and anyway, in this particular case, there isn't much evidence that the objective was much more than just killing people. When the government can get away with unconstitutional behavior under the guise of insuring public safety, there is virtually no criminal situation that can't exploit the same claim.
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
Ultimately, the government is going to do little if anything successfully to solve the terrorist attacks. They may stop a few, like blind squirrels finding acorns, but the attacks will grow and continue. In the same manner the government is impotent in fighting the gangs. VMI77 is correct in his analysis of what the government will do with labelling the activity.
Someone said that some people just need killing. It is true.
Anygunanywhere
"When democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizen still gets to vote." Mike Vanderboegh
"The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." – Ayn Rand
If you fellers are waiting to see me debate if one is worse than the other it isn't gonna happen. They are both scum in my book. My only point was that the two have different motivations for what they do.
I'm not an expert in criminology but my uneducated opinion is that gang bangers and terrorist represent two completely different challenges to law enforcement as well. Which in turn requires different methods of prevention or detection.
As far as giving up my civil liberties. I am not going to stand by and willfully go along with that no matter if it is a terrorist or gangbanger. Unfortunately for all Americans, we have allowed ourselves to be duped into giving up way to many rights as Americans over the fear of terrorists already.
03Lightningrocks wrote:If you fellers are waiting to see me debate if one is worse than the other it isn't gonna happen. They are both scum in my book. My only point was that the two have different motivations for what they do.
I'm not an expert in criminology but my uneducated opinion is that gang bangers and terrorist represent two completely different challenges to law enforcement as well. Which in turn requires different methods of prevention or detection.
As far as giving up my civil liberties. I am not going to stand by and willfully go along with that no matter if it is a terrorist or gangbanger. Unfortunately for all Americans, we have allowed ourselves to be duped into giving up way to many rights as Americans over the fear of terrorists already.
If I'm one of those fellers you're referring to, let me reiterate --I'm not debating which is worse and don't even think it's relevant. The left is very meticulous in its exploitation of language and the distortion of meaning. What they do, across the board, is lower the denominator by devaluing meaning. The English language has a word to accurately describe just about everything. The aim of the left is to reduce vocabulary and conflate meanings so that in Alice in Wonderland fashion a word means whatever they want it to mean. In the public schools this results in a certain hand gesture or a drawing of a gun being treated like a gun. What happened in Boston attempts to devolve all threats to anyone no matter of what type and no matter by whom, even mother nature, into a single category of "public safety." Thus, the term "public safety" is transformed from what would be a justification of very limited and conditional action as a measure to deal with "terrorism" to a justification for unlimited and unconditional action as a measure of "public safety."
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
anygunanywhere wrote:Ultimately, the government is going to do little if anything successfully to solve the terrorist attacks. They may stop a few, like blind squirrels finding acorns, but the attacks will grow and continue. In the same manner the government is impotent in fighting the gangs. VMI77 is correct in his analysis of what the government will do with labelling the activity.
Someone said that some people just need killing. It is true.
Anygunanywhere
Agreed. This clown will now become a hero, more will copy and perhaps these attacks will become as common as they are in other parts of the world.
in places like La Grange ( saw that comment) I would hope armed citizens would check their back yard and handle the problem. My next move will be to a nice place like that to get out of the city for exactly those reasons.
A-R wrote:Gangbanger vs terrorist ... gangbanger uses targeted killing to "mark his turf" - terrorist uses indiscriminate killing to place an entire populace in fear ... apples vs oranges
Yeah, right, that's why all those drive by's are so accurate and never injure innocent people. And it's not like gang bangers control, say, government housing units, and have the people living there afraid; and of course no one in a gang controlled neighborhood lives in fear, or is afraid for their children to walk the streets. Yeah, you're right, no one fears a gang banger because they're so meticulous in their killing.
I didn't say any of that. Nice job extrapolating what YOU believe I said so it fits your argument.
Both gangbangers and terrorists need to be stopped. But a terrorist believed to have bombs with him and the potential to inflict more indiscriminate killing is a different problem (with different methods/solutions) than the daily localized violent actions of gangbangers.
Again, BOTH need to be stopped and I in no way am debating a moral equivalency between the two. Just trying to explain the difference in response hierarchy, methods, reasoning.
See my edited post, to which I add this: When they conducted the search in question the "terrorist" was on foot, without any bombs, and no better armed than a gang banger. There was no imminent bomb threat. And furthermore, the search was the product of incompetence and would have been unnecessary if this massive and extremely expensive security state was worth the money spent on it.
Hindsight is 20/20. They couldn't possibly know at the time what he did or did not have nor who he may or may not be conspiring with. But they knew he had explosives and had used them.
A-R wrote:Gangbanger vs terrorist ... gangbanger uses targeted killing to "mark his turf" - terrorist uses indiscriminate killing to place an entire populace in fear ... apples vs oranges
Yeah, right, that's why all those drive by's are so accurate and never injure innocent people. And it's not like gang bangers control, say, government housing units, and have the people living there afraid; and of course no one in a gang controlled neighborhood lives in fear, or is afraid for their children to walk the streets. Yeah, you're right, no one fears a gang banger because they're so meticulous in their killing.
I didn't say any of that. Nice job extrapolating what YOU believe I said so it fits your argument.
Both gangbangers and terrorists need to be stopped. But a terrorist believed to have bombs with him and the potential to inflict more indiscriminate killing is a different problem (with different methods/solutions) than the daily localized violent actions of gangbangers.
Again, BOTH need to be stopped and I in no way am debating a moral equivalency between the two. Just trying to explain the difference in response hierarchy, methods, reasoning.
See my edited post, to which I add this: When they conducted the search in question the "terrorist" was on foot, without any bombs, and no better armed than a gang banger. There was no imminent bomb threat. And furthermore, the search was the product of incompetence and would have been unnecessary if this massive and extremely expensive security state was worth the money spent on it.
Hindsight is 20/20. They couldn't possibly know at the time what he did or did not have nor who he may or may not be conspiring with. But they knew he had explosives and had used them.
Different.
As to the rest, you're entitled to your opinion.
How gracious of you. I already addressed the question of hindsight and it's irrelevant to my criticism of the search. Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant by no imminent bomb threat.....the guy was fleeing on foot, his photo was in the news, so there was virtually no way, if he had a bomb, that he was going to be able to conduct another terrorist attack. He may have had something to throw at the police, and he may have been armed, but that doesn't justify the way the search was conducted, and wouldn't even if he was capable of launching another attack. Now we learn the older brother had been on a CIA terrorist watch list for 18 months. So I say again, the money being spent by the surveillance state is not producing results that justify the expenditures, and this whole operation was the product of incompetence from start to finish.
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
FBI, local police conducting massive sweep in Oakland
FBI agents, local police SWAT and the California Highway Patrol were targeting multiple locations.
If I remember correctly, Oakland has had an ongoing gang problem.
Not enough information to comment on how the raid was conducted, but the article says they had warrants to search for both drugs and guns, so my guess is that it was entirely legal.
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
I have not read every word but most, under what authority were these people(sheep) removed from their homes?
Did they declare marshall law?
What would happen if an owners refused and armed themselves?
Maybe we need to contact our rep's to get bills started to prevent this kind of abuse of power!
suthdj wrote:I have not read every word but most, under what authority were these people(sheep) removed from their homes?
Did they declare marshall law? What would happen if an owners refused and armed themselves?
Maybe we need to contact our rep's to get bills started to prevent this kind of abuse of power!
The home owner would be cut down in a flurry of machine gun fire most likely. If he's lucky, just a concussion grenade followed by a beating. HOPEfully not infinitely detained. (Read The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA))
On the bright side, said home owner would be a folk hero.
My next move will be to a nice place like that to get out of the city for exactly those reasons.
