Re: The Net and Terrorism

At 03:44 PM 6/30/96 -0700, you wrote:

>in reality. it seems to me no nation-state has ever experimented with
>trying to take away the root causes of violence and discontent. 

But here in the U.S., we ARE trying to take them away via the educational
system.  About the only thing we can effectively do is to provide more
educational opportunities that denounce violence, racism, hate crimes, etc.
However, you cannot eliminate discontent without eliminating greed; which is
simply not possible.

Even so, there are a couple of problems with even attempting "to take away
the root causes", not the least of which is the Constitutionally protected
right to free speech.  I am allowed to teach my kid to hate anyone for any
reason.  I can blame this or that group for this set of troubles, and that
the best way to deal with this is not only to scare them away, but to kill
as many of them as possible.  It may be morally repugnant, but it is
protected speech.

The countries that sponsor terrorists have not been noted for their
successful educational systems.  And they certainly are not going to listen
to Western discussions on how best to solve their "problems".

Do you still not accept that we have a world that contains people who exist
in conditions that foster and breed terrorists?

If not, look at some more concrete examples.  Have you ever met an Islamic
fundamentalist?  How about a Christian fundamentalist?  There really is no
difference between them, other than the specific quotations that exit their
pre-programmed mouths.  When religion enteres the picture, no amount of
logic will convince the true believers that they are acting destructively.

Even moderately regligious Christians (the people to whom I have been most
exposed) have very strong beliefs that X is the word of God, and therefore
not subject to question.  When this is some destructive (yet not obvious as
such) statement, such as "Go forth and multiply", no amount of education or
logic will convince them that Zero Population Growth is a good thing.

I'm sure you can multiply this into all sorts of destructive behavior
preached locally, such as the Southern Baptist preachers who refuse to
denounce the maltreatment of blacks or the burning of black churches.  There
is no force of law that can alter this behavior.

My point here is that this behavior is explicitly protected by the Bill of
Rights.

So, do you not accept that we have the environment right here that can breed
violence and discontent?

For the most part, I see kids today being educated with much less "hatred"
than even my age group was brought up with (I'm 34).  We're moving in the
right direction by incorporating diversity in education, entertainment and
the workplace, but we can never hope to erase it all.  And if even one
person retains the seed of violence, they can employ the "warfare of the
weak" -- terrorism.

>or that they are worth the money. terrorists invariably have a 
>patricular pathological psychological profile that sees the world
>in terms of "martyrs vs. villians" with the villians in the government,
>and the villians taking away or abusing respectable citizens.

So your point here is one of *agreement* that human nature will produce
psychological profiles of people who commit acts of terror.

>the "problem" of terrorism will be solved when we take the view
>that insanity and violence is *not* 
>a natural aspect of human behavior (as TCM tends to suggest), 

Even in spite of your argument above?

Violence is here.  It's been present since recorded history.  We've gotten
pretty good at it, actually.  I think the record speaks pretty clearly that
violence continues to be a part of human behavior, despite any efforts made
to stop it.

>and that
>there are specific environmental conditions that breed it. like
>malaria, if you take away the swamplike breeding grounds, you will
>largely remove it. such a thing is a radical hypothesis, but one that
>nonetheless has never really been tested in practice.

As I said above, we can reduce some of the breeding grounds, but we can not
eradicate them all.  And if one were to conduct a study correlating racist
attitudes with education with numbers of acts of terror, we might find a
direct correlation.

The U.S. has a level of tolerance for diversity that I only recently came to
appreciate.  We hosted a foreign exchange student from Scotland (hardly
culture shock to him), but he surprised me when he commented on how
surprised he was that different groups of people were mixed together --
black kids hanging out with white kids, catholics and protestants being
friends, the sort of thing that I take for granted every day.

He expected the subtle racism of home.  And lets just say that Great
Britain's culture is probably closer to ours than any other country.

I am more than willing to agree with you that elimination of hatred and
prejudice will go farther than any law enforcement measures to reduce
terrorist acts.  However, my point, and I believe this is Tim's point, too,
is that it will *never* eliminate these acts, and that there must be other
ways of dealing with the problems that occur.

>>I'm not advocating such "terrorism," by the way, merely telling it like it is.
>ah yes, the standard amusing TCM disclaimer. hmmm, your signature suggests
>otherwise.

This personal attack was completely unwarranted.  Are you suggesting that
Tim is a sponsor of terrorist attacks, or that he approves of the repeatedly
demonstrated governmental penchant for violating our privacy whenever
convenient?  There was no point to making this statement, other than to
foster discontent.

>>(Remember, terrorism is just warfare carried on by other means, with
>>apolgies to Von Clausewitz.)
>disagree. the purpose of warfare has traditionally been to seize

I completely disagree with you here.  Terror has all the same purposes as
general-purpose warfare:  it's simply being carried out by a smaller group,
without the resources available to an entire government.

Look at the Irish Question:  they want independance from a government they
deem undesirable.  Look at the arabian terrorist bombings of Americans in
Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc.:  they want to drive the U.S. Army out.
Likewise, the bombing of the Murrah building in OK was a "military" target:
it housed the agencies that some small group percieved to be responsible for
the attack on Waco.  Even the church building burnings happening across the
southern U.S. appear to have a specific objective:  to frighten the victims;
and if the victims left the area, the terrorists would have accomplished
their objectives.

No hidden purposes here:  these are all military actions being carried out
by groups that are simply not in a position to negotiate.   It is "warfare
by the weak".

You may think that you hold every answer to terrorism in your hand, that
hugs and kisses before bedtime will make the evil monsters under the bed go
away.    The point of Tim's essay was that, yes, the net can be used by the
evil monsters, and yes, the evil monsters are here, and no, the evil
monsters are not going away any time soon.  Why did you feel it necessary to
try to slam his fairly well-researched and quite obvious conclusion?

John
--
J. Deters
>From Senator C. Burns' Pro-CODE bill, which I support and you can find at:
http://www.senate.gov/member/mt/burns/general/billtext.htm
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On Tue, 2 Jul 1996, John Deters wrote:
> At 03:44 PM 6/30/96 -0700, you wrote:
> >in reality. it seems to me no nation-state has ever experimented with
> >trying to take away the root causes of violence and discontent. 
> But here in the U.S., we ARE trying to take them away via the educational
> system.  About the only thing we can effectively do is to provide more
> educational opportunities that denounce violence, racism, hate crimes, etc.
> However, you cannot eliminate discontent without eliminating greed; which is
> simply not possible.

     <snort> Bullshit. The root causes of violence and discontent are not 
persistent "us against themism". The root causes are situation dependent,
but would fall into 3 areas:

	1) boredom.
	2) lack (of food, housing, land, etc. Also includes perceived lack)
	3) Response to the perceived threat against the 2).

    It is my opnion that the education system in this county is a breeding 
ground for violence and discontent for in several ways:

	1) By almost totally failing to prepare students for "Real Life"
           while at the same time telling them what wonderful intelligent
           humans they are, it sets them up for 1 & 2 above. 

        2) Given the revisionist teachings often presented in schools, and 
           the current practice of "blame the white man", certain ignorant
           (see 1) individuals feel threatened leading to 3 above. 

	As I said in an earilier post, IMO one of the things that has
kept the levels of terrorism down in this country (unless you count things
like the KKK as terrorism...just thought of that hmmmm...again caused by 
the 1 & 3 as well as occasionaly 2 above). 

> The countries that sponsor terrorists have not been noted for their
> successful educational systems.  And they certainly are not going to listen
> to Western discussions on how best to solve their "problems".

      They have also not been known for their freedoms. The USSR 
supposedly exprted quite a bit of terrorism, especially by proxie. They 
have a decent educational system, but free thought is discouraged. 

> My point here is that this behavior is explicitly protected by the Bill of
> Rights.
> So, do you not accept that we have the environment right here that can breed
> violence and discontent?
> For the most part, I see kids today being educated with much less "hatred"
> than even my age group was brought up with (I'm 34).  We're moving in the
> right direction by incorporating diversity in education, entertainment and
> the workplace, but we can never hope to erase it all.  And if even one
> person retains the seed of violence, they can employ the "warfare of the
> weak" -- terrorism.

     Agreed. 

> psychological profiles of people who commit acts of terror.
> >the "problem" of terrorism will be solved when we take the view
> >that insanity and violence is *not* 
> >a natural aspect of human behavior (as TCM tends to suggest), 

	I'd say they _are_ natural. It is natural and healthy to act
violently at times, and insanity is simply a broken [mind brain] shit
happends. 

> >and that
> >there are specific environmental conditions that breed it. like
> >malaria, if you take away the swamplike breeding grounds, you will
> >largely remove it. such a thing is a radical hypothesis, but one that
> >nonetheless has never really been tested in practice.
> As I said above, we can reduce some of the breeding grounds, but we can not
> eradicate them all.  And if one were to conduct a study correlating racist
> attitudes with education with numbers of acts of terror, we might find a
> direct correlation.

	I doubt it. THere are quite a few well educated racists. 

> away.    The point of Tim's essay was that, yes, the net can be used by the
> evil monsters, and yes, the evil monsters are here, and no, the evil
> monsters are not going away any time soon.  Why did you feel it necessary to
> try to slam his fairly well-researched and quite obvious conclusion?

	The monsters are in our heads. They are us. 

Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@crash.suba.com

>Do you still not accept that we have a world that contains people who exist
>in conditions that foster and breed terrorists?

of course. but what TCM's writing often seems to hide is a cynicism
about these conditions. "there's nothing we can do about it. buy
a bulletproof jacket and avoid crowed downtown areas". I'm saying
this cynicism and isolationism tends to make the problem worse,
not better. you clearly agree that we must find the reasons that
terrorists are being bred, and work to eliminate those conditions.
TCM apparently would feel that such a thing is a waste of time.

another thing that annoys me about the TCM slant or "spin" is the
pervasive connotation in his writing that terrorism is going
to get far worse in the future. if so, I would say that is because
world conditions that breed terrorists are getting far worse. he
seems to convey the idea that the world is a nonsensical place
where things, like increases in terrorism, occur for no particular
reason.

keep in mind that Ruby Ridge and Waco happened only a few years
ago. that's a nanosecond in cosmic time, yet the terrorist 
repercussions are being felt immediately. I would say its very
visceral evidene that terrorists are responding to events and
are not just madmen out for the fun of killing people.  there's
a bit of that of course..

>So, do you not accept that we have the environment right here that can breed
>violence and discontent?

it's a fatalistic way of putting it. yes I agree that such an environment
exists. no, I don't believe there is nothing that can be done about it.
no, I don't believe that everything that can be done about it has been
done about it. far from the case. my point in the essay.

>So your point here is one of *agreement* that human nature will produce
>psychological profiles of people who commit acts of terror.

no, I specifically reject that insanity and violence are "normal"
aspects of human behavior. merely because they have been around
for centuries does not prove they are normal, only how warped
the world has become such that abnormality is considered normal.

>Violence is here.  It's been present since recorded history.  We've gotten
>pretty good at it, actually.  I think the record speaks pretty clearly that
>violence continues to be a part of human behavior, despite any efforts made
>to stop it.

what your argument amounts to is essentially "well gosh, if there was
a way to get rid of violence we would have discovered it by now". not
if you are cynical, pessimistic, closeminded, and believe that violence
is simply a part of life.

>As I said above, we can reduce some of the breeding grounds, but we can not
>eradicate them all.  And if one were to conduct a study correlating racist
>attitudes with education with numbers of acts of terror, we might find a
>direct correlation.

no, but I believe you can eradicate virtually all the most extreme "swamplike
breeding grounds" that lead to the most insane terrorism such as
OKC. would OKC have happened if neither ruby ridge or Waco happened?
a compelling case can be made...

>The U.S. has a level of tolerance for diversity that I only recently came to
>appreciate.

I agree. but it's not optimal. it's fantastic compared to the rest of
the world, though, I agree. good anecdote.

>I am more than willing to agree with you that elimination of hatred and
>prejudice will go farther than any law enforcement measures to reduce
>terrorist acts.  However, my point, and I believe this is Tim's point, too,
>is that it will *never* eliminate these acts, and that there must be other
>ways of dealing with the problems that occur.

disagree. terrorism on the scale of OKC is largely unprecedented in
American history. I believe you are conflating degrees of violence.
and behind your and Tim's argument is that "there is a point at
which it is a waste of time to try to put any more work into 
eradicating terrorism, because it is inevitable". 

>Look at the Irish Question:  they want independance from a government they
>deem undesirable.  Look at the arabian terrorist bombings of Americans in
>Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc.:  they want to drive the U.S. Army out.

the point is that there is no physical strategic value from bombing
symbols.  I was making the point that terrorism is extremely symbolic
at the root. I'm not saying either warfare or terrorism is better
than the other. they're both very evil. but it seems to me that
people like TCM who equate terrorist activities with what governments
do are doing a grave disservice to civilization. you can find isolated
examples where governments behave like terrorist organizations, but
their primary purpose is to avoid such situations.

>You may think that you hold every answer to terrorism in your hand, that
>hugs and kisses before bedtime will make the evil monsters under the bed go
>away.

bzzzzzzt. what I am pointing out is that what Tim is essentially saying,
as you seem to be, that trying to combat terrorism is a waste of time
because it is a fact of life, is erroneous in my view. it is a common
libertarian argument that goes, "criminality is everywhere, so why try
to stop it?"  a rather juvenile ideology.  may you live in your reality and
see what it is like. hint: the current one we are living in is not
one in which the government does not try to fight terrorism.

    The point of Tim's essay was that, yes, the net can be used by the
>evil monsters, and yes, the evil monsters are here, and no, the evil
>monsters are not going away any time soon.  Why did you feel it necessary to
>try to slam his fairly well-researched and quite obvious conclusion?

because, from my past experience, it seems Timmy's wildest 
fantasies are always contained in the paragraphs
in which he says, "now, I'm not advocating this or anything...."