Electric Monkey Pants

I’ve never understood how the people who claim to be fighting the terrorists (Bush & co.) are the same ones who urge us to give up our civil liberties in order to do so.

I mean, I understand why Bush argues that: He’s evil, he hates freedom and wants to turn America into a dictatorship. What I don’t understand is why anybody actually falls for it. How stupid do you have to be?

I don’t give a FUCK how many people the terrorists kill. I’m not giving up even one of my rights. Not a single one. Or else the terrorists win. (And if you’ve been reading this blog you should know who the real terrorists are… the same people arguing we should give up our liberties).

There’s a new article in Wired that lays it down quite well:

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we’re doing exactly what the terrorists want.

It’s very simple: The goal of terrorism is terror. If you feel afraid — terrified — after a terrorist attack, then the terrorists have done their job. Don’t let them win! Don’t give in to fear.

I know it’s hard to stare death, destruction and suffering in the face and laugh, but you must do it in order to stay free. And what scares me much more than death is the idea of living in slavery/tyranny.

We can’t allow the terrorists to dictate the rules of the game or they will win. We’ve got to be rational about this: You’re much more likely to die in a car crash than a terrorist attack. By a factor of 10+. Yet, do we hesitate to jump in a car and drive? You’ve mastered your fear when it comes to driving — master your fear when it comes to living! Don’t live in fear of death or terrorism. We can’t give in to fear or the terrorists win. It’s that simple.

The next time somebody tells you we should give up rights and liberties so that we can better defend against the terrorist threat, ask yourself: Whose side is he on? Isn’t he playing into the terrorists’ hands? Isn’t the terrorists’ goal to make us afraid and to trick us into acting on that fear?

Fear is the mind-killer. It won’t be easy, but we must overcome our fear if we want to survive as a society. We can’t let the terrorists push us around. It might seem sick, greeting a terrorist attack with a yawn, but that’s what we have to do.

You know what pisses off a terrorist more than anything? Being ignored.

Seriously. They’re already resigned to death. There’s not much you can do to hurt them… except ignore them. They really hate that. Then they died for nothing!

Terrorism: It only works if you let it work on you. You have the power to make terrorism useless. Don’t give in to fear!