Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 01:43:02AM +0100, Amara Graps wrote:
> >
> > Finally, I observed a transformation in America, that frankly scared
> > me. It's there now, and is trickling outside. Fear, suspicions,
> > sometimes paranoia. Boundaries and borders are being heavily
> > fortified, civil rights are being trampled right and left, and for
> > the most part, I didn't hear people complaining about that
>
> I think this is worth worrying (and doing something) about. Paranoia
> is a very unextropian emotion...
It ain't paranoia if they really are out to get you....
I think the fact that most all detained have been released, with only a
few hundred remaining (of which over 100 have already had criminal
charges brought against them) indicates that the worry is unwarranted. I
seriously think that people are really overreacting at this point. There
are somewhere between 3-9 million muslims in the US. The temporary
detention of 0.0003-0.0001% of the pool of those allegedly being
'profiled' demonstrates that the US is being highly sensitive to a group
which to date has shown a significant lack of willingness to help root
out infiltrators, a lack of willingness to broadly and loudly condemn
the violence rationalizing of fundamentalist Islam (not surprising,
since 80% of the Imams in the US are of the Wahhabi sect), but a
significant willingness to rationalise the actions of terrorists with
the sometimes accurate, sometimes not accurate complaints about the
foreign policies of past US administrations, usually several decades in
the past, while refusing to demonstrate similar lack of satisfaction for
the governments in their home countries.
Finally: Can anyone demonstrate in any case whatsoever, that an innocent
person was sent to a labor camp, or executed by the US government, of
those detained? No, they can't. Just because fascist regiemes in the
past have abused police powers does not make all police forces and
police actions equivalent to fascism.
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