Quote:
Originally posted by Roycroft201
Two kids at Columbine did as much, and the Republic did not totter.
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That's the point that many, many people seem to miss (not on these boards, but IRL). Terrorists gain nothing from simply killing people (well, I suppose a trivialist argument could be made that they gain every time our superpower loses a citizen, but that's just not realistic). If we had roving bands of secret serial-killer terrorist cells that tampered with peoples' brakes, caused heart attacks, and 'accidentally' hit people with buses, nothing would happen. Why? Because the deaths would just be written off as just 'what happens;' terrorists, by definition, need spectacle to create fear. Which is why they are successful against the United States: combine a movement that creates its own power through violent, lethal spectacle, with a nation that has a 24-hour news cycle, 3 (major) cable news networks, each trying to 'outscoop' the others with the most amazing, graphic pictures and headlines, all the other news media (print, radio, and internet), and very strong free speech rules? It's a terrorist's dream.
Of course, images such as of the Towers falling are very powerful for us, as well, serving to rally the nation, recognize the seriousness of the situation, and all that, but, we wouldn't need to if they hadn't fallen. A strong argument can be made, IMO, that the best way to stop terrorism would be simply to not televise their actions. Deprive them of television coverage, and they go from being terrorists to being simple insurgents, buried by the mass of US law enforcement. However, that isn't very workable, and even if it were, it may well be a worse cure than the disease. The solution, IMO, happens one green-tip at a time.