This
election will go down in history as one of the most divisive, and this
administration as the most evil, hateful,
warmongering,
fascist, and untruthful in history.
The Bush (P)Residency has a significant problem with truth. Every word out of Dumya and his gaggle of cronies is either an obfuscation, an out-of-context quote, or an outright lie. Frankly, if he wins the election (he was never properly elected in the first place, so I avoid the term re-election) the American public deserves the reaming he is going to give them. I only regret that I will have to put up with his "administration" as well.
Recently, Dumya has been harping on a statement made by Kerry about reducing terrorism to a "nuisance", belittling the concept and using it as an example of how weak Kerry is. What this actually demonstrates is how much of a panderer and false wrapped-in-the-flag psuedo-patriot he is.
What Kerry meant is that we should deal with terrorism the way others handle terrorism. I lived in Germany during the Red Army terrorist bombings, and even though the uncertainty, the government did not strip the people of their rights, and everyone lived their lives normally. In Spain, they recently had a major terrorist incident that destroyed their main train station and killed hundreds, yet if you go there you would be hard-pressed to see where the government has changed anything.
Do you think those countries (and others impacted by terrorism) are whistling in the dark, pretending the threat doesn't exist? No, they just go through their lives with a little more caution, but largely live as they always have. They look upon terrorism as random violence, like a mugging, or a car accident, or other unfortunate happening.
Kerry's point is that Terrorism is not some organized worldwide cabal that can be eliminated. Terrorism will always be with us, like crime, disease, and poverty, and must be dealt with as such. One can throw crooks into jail, treat the sick, and help the poor, but will never eliminate what created them because there is no organized center for any of them to eliminate.
(That's why the "war on drugs" is so stupid. You can't fight a war against a behavior, a tactic, a philosophy.)
Terrorism is a danger. However, living in Manhattan, I am in more danger of a taxi jumping the curb or a mugger killing me than a terrorist destroying the building I am in. That is not to say that I will ignore the threat of terrorism, it is that terrorism is among the many dangerous things in this world, and making a special effort to wage a "war" on it will not eliminate it. My keeping my eyes open along with all of my fellow citizens will do more to prevent it than any number of soldiers standing around on our street corners.
I'd rather have a well-paid cop on the beat that knew the community, as he would protect me from every danger, not just the politically-popular ones.