Terrorism: I am NOT Afraid

David Heath
Tuesday, 20 May 2008 19:17

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Almost all governments are addicted to terrorism; some even know what it is.

We, the ordinary people are paying for all this.  The lies, the half-truths, the deceptions and the misrepresentations.  All of these things are specifically intended to drive up our fear-level and (worst of all) encourage us to pay for the privilege.

There is (as Bruce Schneier puts it) a war on the unexpected.  Any time someone does something unexpected, unusual, out of the ordinary, they MUST be suspicious.  There are endless stories of police reports filed over people taking tourist photos, of camera enthusiasts photographing something interesting even of teenage pranks being labelled terror activity.

As an anonymous poster on Schneier’s blog says, “Comrade, let me see your papers. Now! Tell me, comrade, what are you doing here in the middle of this public open space watching people stroll by? Are you some kind of subversive agent who takes pleasure in exercising your civil rights?" 

However, the people are starting to fight back.  Some time ago, a small lobby group called DownsizeDC started to promote a petition to convince the politicians of the world that their “war on terror” is not backed by their voters.  The petition is simple – tell your local politician, your local runner-up, all your local candidates; tell the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, all the Cabinet Ministers; and if they won’t listen, tell the Leader of the Opposition and all his team the following:

I am not afraid of terrorism, and I want you to stop being afraid on my behalf. Please start scaling back the official government war on terror. Please replace it with a smaller, more focused anti-terrorist police effort in keeping with the rule of law. Please stop overreacting. I understand that it will not be possible to stop all terrorist acts. I am not afraid.