"The Polio Fallacy"

[Peanut]

The Polio Fallacy

Interesting piece tying Polio, The missing Girl in Aruba, America's Military "obligations" and the Patriot Act all together.

Have YOU seen any similar examples of "the threat simply isn't there any longer"-type mentality? Thoughts/Opinions/Debates?

[holychicken]

This guy may very well be right, but there are many fallacies in his arguement.

First this

Do you remember how long every major public event -- the World Series, Christmas celebrations, the Super Bowl -- was a time of fear of a new terrorist attack? Do you remember all the advice to stock up on medicines or food, so that we could ride out any new terrorist onslaught?

Do you remember all the places that terrorists were expected to strike? The different colors of national alerts being announced regularly?

Most of those things happened before the patriot act had anytime to be effective or even be implemented. So, considering he is using polio vaccine as his comparison, he is implying, if not outight saying, that the Patriot act saved those events.

Terrorists don't need to attack all the time. All they need to do is strike fear in a populace. The last time that al qaeda attacked us before 9/11 was 1993. . . 8 years before the 9/11/2001. They aren't so organized that they can attack as at will. . . and I also think they are smart enough to realize that they don't have to.

It has costs, as every benefit has had costs, hard as it is for many among the intelligentsia to accept anything less than "win-win" situations.

This is just a baseless accusation painting intellectuals as lacking common sense. It is incredible how much I see intellectualism attacked more and more these days. . . it is almost like these people are working together to say "hey! Don't think! Be stupid! It is much better that way!"

"I have a real problem with fascism," as one lady in a trendy California bookstore said fiercely, when discussing the Patriot Act.

She was aghast when I replied, "I hadn't noticed any fascism."

Have you?

The fact of the matter is that the patriotic act is strewn with articles that give law enforcement extreme and far reaching power that are unprecendented in history for countries that consider their citizens free. . .the reason that we haven't "noticed facism" might be partially responsible to the fact that the patriot act allows law enforcement to do so many things in secret!

But, his arguement can be completely turned around on him. He freely points out that the PA is not perfect alluding to the fact that it is probably over-reacting here or there. His arguement is that we need to "over-react" sometimes in order to nip something in the bud. However, he fails to notice that the people over-reacting in response to the PA are doing so to protect our freedoms. Using his arguements, the reason that our freedoms are still intact is because when something appears to be a threat, the populace "over-reacts" right away in order to protect our freedoms. Just like the police quelling a riot before it gets out of hand, the populace quells the destruction of our freedoms before they get out of hand.