• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Reverse Psychology question: Could we be avocating terrorism?

kcasper

New member
Joined
Nov 26, 2005
Messages
20
Reaction score
1
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
This question should be as fun for all of you as it is for me the write it. Could we be helping terrorists by spending so much time ranting against them?

It has always bothered me that our politicians spend so much time ranting about terrorists despite the relatively low number of people that die by terrorism compared to just about any other cause of death. But I had alot of trouble pinning down why it bothered me that they were more or less shouting to the wind. After all if you spent 200 billion on preventing auto accidents, it would likely save more lives than preventing another 9/11 would.

Or is it bothering me because of a more serious idea. It goes like this:

A scientist when asked about a subject he doesn't consider credible, often he won't respond. Most definitely won't rewrite a statement disproving a Discreditable idea for the reason that many people will take the discredited idea slightly more seriously than they would have otherwise.

If a company like Wal-Mart wants to get more customers, what they won't do is mention a competitor that is providing the same service. "Don't buy there" or "We do it better than" ads would almost certainly cause their own sales to decrease due to causing loyal customers to remember the other service. No company that holds a large chunk of any market would mention a competitor.

What private markets avoid doing the government seems to be going out of its way to do. Our president himself, not quoting exactly, has said that terrorism probably can't be defeated and they are a threat to the US. Someone who doesn't like the US is going to hear out of that " terrorist can't be defeated and can distroy the USA". I remember a poll from 2003 that said 90% of arabs in the middle east don't like us.

All of this attention to terrorists has caused people in the US to spend a huge about of time casually talking about our vulnerable points, detailing them in books, articles, blogs and forums like this one. Doing much research that could be valuable to terrorist planning.

Our politicians seem to have decided that they will spend so much time ranting that it is certain that if anyone calls themselves a member of a terrorist originization then they should be competed over by news organizations to see who can publish the story quickest with the most publicity. Considering that publicity is the general goal of a terrorist, this can't be a good thing.

Does anyone here seriously think that terrorist haven't thought of this either and are not using all of this to their advantage? Or am I an idiot? Well everyone is but it is fun to ask.
 
I would have to agree with you, but only up to a certain point. I don't really see how your examples tie in with the opinion that you are trying to get across. Your example with the car accidents, I don't think that a huge sum of money spent on preventing car accidents would do anything: because they are accidents and they are unintentional and can not be avoided. A terrorists attack is deliberate and therefore you have some way to prevent it, by passing certain measures that might help to catch a terrorist. See what I am Trying to get at here? I wouldn't say that it is not all politicians who are to accept the full blame for creating new centimate. I think our news is just a big of a factor for contributing to fuel terrorists ambitions. I think that they see our television and think that all Americans think a certain way. I would also agree with you that the news should think about keeping sensitive information more secret. They are the news though and they have the power to say what they want, but I have to say that I do not need to know specific information that could otherwise get people killed. I think this is also a reasonable argument that the government isn't secretly controlling the news, why would the government undermine itself by telling everyone over the news that there are soldiers in this area? I agree that terrorists do use published information to their advantage, but its freedom of the press so what can we do? I guess they could think about what they say, but all I think they are concerned with are t.v. ratings. It was interesting to see the results of the cartoons of Mohammad. They were saying that the Danish newspaper should not be allowed to print things like that, but it is the presse's right. Middle eastern people kind of took those cartoons a little too seriously, and used it as justified retribution. One example where I disagree with you is where you say that you saw a poll that 90% of Arabs in the middle east don't like us. First of all that is Arabs and not other peoples of the middle east although I am sure others don't like us either. Why should we care if 90% don't like us, should we have to try to please them?

Just because they don't like us doesn't give them justification to kill me or you!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom