If you kill yourself right now, and ensure that I get a copy of the death certificate and some form of proof that the person on the certificate is the one that posts here as kagetenshi I will personally gaurantee that myself and my wife will forever vote in a way you lay out with a document prior to your death. Likewise we will attend rallies and work against causes you name and write our congressman whenever a cause you support or go against comes up. If you need more political action from us, let me know and we'll work something out. You now have the ability to trade your one cheap life for double it's value in working against oppression and championing the Peoples' Rights.

Are lives truly cheap, or just the lives of people you never knew and cared about?

Ahh, of course. "No-one's flown any planes into buildings in the last few years." Like that's something that happens every single year everywhere else, and only our Ultra Vigalent Email Reader Squad prevents it from happening here.

Don't use 9/11 as a war-drum to beat, or you're the same as Bush. My point is that "May be a potential theoretical risk" is not enough just cause to lock someone up indefinately. By that justification, everybody with access to a knife should be prematurely locked up because they could be a slasher, everybody with access to a gun should be prematurely locked up because they could be another Columbine kiddie or Ft. Worth clocktower boy. Everybody with access to a computer should be prematurely locked up because they could be a hacker.

So now that we've locked up fully 100% of America's population, what next?

We have a system of CHECKS and BALANCES against this kind, specifically this kind, of abuse of power. Specifically, the garunteed right to a swift and speedy trial, the right not to be held without being charged.




Those rights have been ran over shod-rough by G. Dubyah and his warmongers in their quest to strip civil liberties while beating on the 9/11 war-drum.

Emphasis mine. Pretty heavy shit, eh? You might recognize them, I'd hope. They're Amendments 5, 6, and 8 to the constitution of the United States, and no, they're not "more like.... Guidelines than rules."

The law of the land dosen't get any clearer, nor is there any higher authority which can override it. Not even the direct mandate of the President of the United States is a lawful override to the constitution. In fact, it's an expressly unlawful one. The President does not have the authority to suspend habeas corpus, nobody does save Congress, and only during times of rebellion or invasion. This is neither.


You can say times are changing, I say they're not. The people who wrote these articles and amendments may not have been able to predict the way the future would unfold, nor the weapons with which outside powers, conventional or otherwise, would be able to strike a blow into the nation they forged.

What they could - and did - predict are the weapons with which a tyranical government begins to opress the population, and they instututed safeguards explicitly against such, weaving them into the very founding document of the nation. And now, because of one attack - one simple attack - those rights are being rode shod-rough upon, tread in the dirt because they got in the way of G. Dubyah's crusade. And with it, the lives of everyone who is grabbed and detained without facing the charges against him, facing the evidence against him, being given legal council, and not being allowed to face a judge to ascertain whether his detention is lawful or not.

Hitler was not fuhrer in a day. He didn't get in office, and then declare the death of every Jewish person in the land. He didn't silence every voice instantly.

Because that would have been pollitical and quite probably literal suicide. The road to tyranny begins slowly, with a few liberties stripped away here and there, in the interest of protecting the motherland from the evil terrorists.

That may sound like I'm talking about Dubyah, dosen't it? It's true, that sounds a lot like Dubyah... But that's also the drumhead Hitler was beating on when he took control of Germany.

Tyranny does not happen in a day, but it is happening, and we need to recognize it's warning signs and put and end to it. That very public woman who bought that land next to Dubyah's ranch to protest on? They're not going to go for her. That would raise too many warning bells. Us? We're not high-key enough.

Who they are going for, is everyone they can get away with. For example, when Bush was on the campaign trail, and he was holding his rallies where people could ask him questions, one of the people in the Rally (a registered Republican), got her way to the stage, and started asking uncomfortable questions, like why her son had to die in Iraq.

Instead of answering her, Bush had her thrown out, and the next day she found out she didn't have employment anymore.

And of course, people like Benemar 'Ben' Benatta, who lost five years of his life to government confusion, paranoia, prejudice, and then simply because if they let him out, his story would get out, and it would shine a light on what they did to him.

That is how civil liberties die, Critias. Not because the President wakes up one day, gathers the Cabinet together and says "You know, I think I'd rather be called Leader, who's with me?" If he did that, he'd be facing a popular rebellion within the day, and it would have the full support of the Army.


Nah, it happens slowly. A right here, a liberty there. Restricting access to guns, granting government agencies the right to scan and wiretap you without any oversight or even proving due cause. That's how it starts.

Times have changed since 1935. Technology has changed, and the tyrant's toolbag has changed to match the technology. In America specifically, because we engineered our whole system of government to prevent tyranny, it's only now starting to really crack. But like any dam, once the first real crack appears, the rest won't be too far behind.

Oh, and see above about that "You can criticize the president, and nothing bad happens to you and yours over it" bit. I'd say losing your job counts as something bad. I'd say being detained without charges is something bad that could certainly happen, and is happening.

Dude, the slope is soaped, greased, and oiled so much that once we lose our footing, we're rocketing down it. You don't see this as a real problem - I do. Some think everything will be over in '08. Maybe it will, but what if it ain't?

A wise man once said, "all that is nessessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing." This quote is popularly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, though a search yields to me no evidence that it was from his pen or mouth that it flowed. Nevertheless, it sounds like advice that if he was not the first to say it, he probably repeated it often. And it is sound advice.

Or, to put it another way, I once read an excerpt from the memoirs of a catholic priest who was living in Germany at the time of Hitler's rise and his reign of terror. I can't quote it exactly, but it went something like this.

"When they came for the homosexuals, I did not stand or speak out, for I am not homosexual.
When they came for the Jews, I did not stand or speak out, for I am not a Jew.
When they came for the Protestants, I did not stand or speak out, for I am not Protestant.
When they came for the pacifists, I did not stand or speak out, for I am not a Pacifist.
Now they come for me, and there is no-one left to stand or speak out for me."

I think the implications of that, at least as far as racial and religious discrimination, are clear. But it holds true for your rights, too.

If you don't stand up for any of your rights, you will quickly be bereft of all of them.

In 1939, nobody in Germany thought Hitler was all that evil, either.

And what you're describing quite clearly isn't going today, so what you're saying has zero relevance, sorry.

Well, we could say that in Shadowrun, these checks and balances obviously failed, thus leading to the dystopian world we all love to play in, but probably woulden't like very much to live in.

I was among them.


But only under the condition that I was suddenly transposed into 2070 with about a half a million and stats that by no rights do I possess IRL.

Damn straight.

So it will fail, just not because of the Patriot Act. Fine, I agree. But if you too know it must some day fail, you may understand why worries about violated civil rights sometimes gets a person seemingly disproportionaly upset. It's because of what it heralds.

LOL! Have you ever been to a convention?

Huh? We must be using different dictionaries again, because those two statements are far from synonymous.

Source? Everything I've seen has MI5 and its affiliates being very close mouthed about the sources of information to avoid tipping off other people they may have their eyes on. I haven't checked the news for a while though, so it's quite possible I missed something.

Most of the rest I agree with or have already made counterpoints against in earlier posts and am too lazy to repeat.

GenCon Europe. Point made, but have you ever been to a football match? Everything is relative.

Well for a start, the government gets to decide who are the terrorists, for example Hamas. For the second what does glorification mean? Some judges in the UK have warned it could mean anything up to and including saying they were brave (which quite frankly whatever the moral rights or wrongs, if you take on the Israeli army you're certainly something). Making such a statement in an incautious way in the UK could have me arrrested. Of course that would only happen if I did so in a public enough way that the government was aware of it and recieved such a positive response that they were also concerned about me being listened to. Selectively enforcing laws is vital to an authoritarian government after all, isn't it?

It was something I read in the Independent (major national British newspaper). I don't have it to hand. I think John Reid (our Home Secretary) said something about the help of the Islamic community in it. I can't give you the reference verbatim, but the point about needing community support would still be a valid one regardless, however. Without community support or at least tolerance, people such as these are just lone psychopaths. With a community that agrees with their aims, they are able to hide, network with others who share their chosen methods and even recieve respect and accceptance.

Laziness is like nuclear power. It can be used for good or ill.

I'm just saying that the vast majority of people are stupid, no matter what their hobbies are. Thinking that role-players are smarter is ignoring the facts at best and self-serving elitism at worst. Note, I'm not saying you're a self-serving elitist, just that it's one possible reason that people say gamers are smarter than average.

Hmmm... Hamas supports suicide bombers. Sounds pretty terroristic to me.

Bah. I'm too lazy to use it for anything.

Well it's impossible for either of us to prove statistically with the resources we both have. All I can say is that I feel I benefited from role-playing being one of my hobbies as a child in a way that I would not have with many other hobbies. It broadened my English vocabulary, stretched my descriptive ability and imagination. Also made me unnervingly good at working out probabilities in my head. It's a point that can't be resolved, though.

Well yes, but then Israel has bombed universities and powerstations and has kidnapped people straight off the street and imprisoned them without trial. Some will say that is justified and some will see it as terrorism. The point is that as a legal term, it depends on the prosecution's preference rather than on any action the defendent has taken. The government is in the position to decide who you are allowed to say is right or wrong. That is dangerous. Your judgement should not depend on what is politcally expedient for your government.

See that's how great it can be. Imagine if war were declared and nobody showed.

Why, then the war would come to you!



Out-of-context half-quotes only work if the other person dosen't know the full quote. They're considered a critical glitch if the original full quote was opposing your stance, not supporting it.




Ahhh, Dumpshock. Philosphy. Pollitics. Debate. Quotations. Benjamin Franklin. And we somehow manage to cram in some Shadowrun-related material.


Speaking of which, an Ancestor Spirit who took the form of Benny Franklin would rock.

Shhhhhhhh! That kind of talk will remind SL James of a certain misused quote in System Failure and he will light up with a frenzy like the fires of Hell all over again

Free ancestor spirit of Benjamin Franklin, back to kick the Republic back into shape.

Actually sounds better than some of the SR novels.

I suppose that this spiit would have a custom version of Innate Spell:Lightening Bolt in which involves a kite with a key attached.

This isn't quite correct. Newer amendments to the U.S. Constitution can overrule existing amendments. All it takes is a two-thirds vote of each of the houses of Congress and then the approval of the state legislatures of three-quarters of the states (this is somewhat of a simplification). So, a considerable majority of the people representing U.S. citizens could be considered a higher authority.

Which is part of what makes the argument that these unconstitutional laws are necessary so ridiculous. There's been plenty of time for us to push through a new amendment if one could be justified.

Allowing the authority of the U.S. Constitution to be ignored, even in cases where you agree with the specific action being taken, weakens all of the rights it grants. That is the nature of a legal system where precedence matters. If the federal government can get away with ignoring the Fifth Amendment under the cause of national security, they can get away with ignoring the Second Amendment or the First for the same reason. If you care about any of the rights granted to you by the U.S. Constitution and it's amendments (including the Bill of Rights), or feel that any of them do provide for your safety and security (e.g. the Second Amendment), then you need to be concerned about the way the current administration is ignoring your rights.

Remember, even if the current administration is abusing the U.S. Constitution in ways that you approve of, they won't always be in power. If a similarly-radical leftist government comes into power and tries to take the rights you do care about, their job will have been made easier if we don't make the Bush administration obey the most fundamental principles this country is founded on.

I'm really sorry that you're not aware of this, but terrorism didn't start under the Bush administration. Al-Qaeda didn't grow strong under the Bush Administration.

It happened under the Clinton administration. He had 2 attacks on the WTC. He had an attack against a US carrier. 2 US embassy bombings. 9/11 happened at the very beginning of Bush's term, after just a few months - I don't think he even managed to implement any foreign policy decisions, and the idea that they managed to both get sufficiently mad enough at Bush and plan 9/11 in a few months is just plainly ridiculous.

Take a look at history. Cultures and nations and tribes and religions have always been at war with eachother. Western culture is, in the terrorists' eyes, imposing on their culture, trying to destroy their values, their society, their religion. They hate us, and they'll fight us to the death.

You can fight back, or you can sit back, while they grow stronger and stronger until you're forced to fight. Clinton sat back and let the terrorists grow stronger. That's the core of the problem. Back when the cold war was on, and everyone was really focused on keeping control with what happened around the world, the islamic extremists were kept in check. Clinton came to power in a world with no obvious enemy, so he let down the guard. The terrorists grew strong because of that.

Claiming that the terrorist threat emerged because of Bush is just BS. The terrorist organisations grew strong in the 90s. Claiming that everything will be better if we go back to trying to get along with everyone is BS. Clinton tried it, and it spawned Al-Qaeda etc. All he did was launch a few volleyes of cruise missiles at their training camps.

Imagine an alternative history of the 90s. When Al-Qaeda started attacking US targets, instead of just a few volleys of cruise missiles, a major military operation was launched to destroy their facilities and get them on the defensive. Heavy pressure was applied to Pakistan to get their islamic "schools" under control. When Arafat decided that he couldn't accept a 2-state solution and called for the 2nd Intifada, peacemaking forces were deployed to the area and the 2-state model was implemented, giving palistineans their own state. Military, economic and subversive measures were taken as necessary to control the political climate in Iran, letting it continue upon their liberal path instead of the islamic fundamentalist path they've taken now.

The bad guys are not the Liberals, the bad guys are the terrorists. I'm not trying to blame anyone but the terrorists. But there is just a lot of truth to the saying that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Hey, we had the IRA in this country for decades and our laws worked fine. We didn't always catch them but the technology improved to catch the criminal. Most of you will never have heard of the RIP Bill in the UK, which predates 9/11 and was the first step on this slippery slope. Many of the things it contained were considered impossible for the US thanks to the Constitution. And then someone flew two planes into a US financial institution and the Constitution no longer got in the way.

I am not saying that the US government recruited the people who flew those planes into the WTC. I would point out that Bush was pretty fast to profit from the deaths of all those people...

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - It could be argued that Ben Franklin was a terrorist sympathiser himself but he makes some good points.

Please do not put words into my mouth - it is the one thing that will truly annoy me. You have interpreted what I said as an attack on Bush as opposed to Clinton. This says more about you than about what I wrote. I have no interest in in-fighting between the Democrats and the Republicans. As a European, I don't honestly see a great deal of difference between them. They both get their paychecks from the same business interests.

I mentioned Bush because he and the faction he represents are taking great advantage of the current fear of terrorism, but my point is a more general one. My point is that people are far too often talking about terrorism in the US and the UK as if it is some natural phenomenon which leads to long debates over freedom vs. security whilst ignoring the context for this debate. Why is it just a choice between these two?

My intention was to remind people that we should be discussing the wider scope of the current situation, which we are now starting to do. As far as it goes, your reply is a success and I'm pleased. I don't expect to convince you that US actions in the middle east have been morally questionable, but I am happy that such a discussion takes place rather than doesn't.

Now I'm not sure that we should have such a discussion here, but I don't think it's possible to take this thread any further away from the subject of Shadowrun so if we can remain polite then I would like to have it. I can't really wrap my head around your use of terms like "Liberal" as this is some odd sectarian thing internal to the US. Most of the rest of the world can't really understand why it is a term of abuse. The only foreign parties that probably would agree with using it as a negative term are the Islamic extremists that you dislike so much.

I'd like to comment on one particular thing you said:

Well quite. But who are the "terrorists" ? Certainly not the more than a billion muslims in general or their wouldn't be a US to be discussing. For the most part, much of modern islam is quite content to let the Western World merrily spin along on its decadent path. Modern muslims throughout much of the World (including the Middle East which is largely not the backwater that much of the US thinks it is), happily watch american movies, listen to Western music and download Western porn. Yes there are many hardliners and government oppression in many areas (incidentally commonly in places where the US government has helped support the regime against the population such as Saudi Arabia), but it is a far more complex picture than many might imagine. Picture 1950s US. You have Doris Day on the television and politicians worry about homosexuality, but it's a culture changing and growing behind the scenes.

But America wasn't bombed or invaded during these times. There was the threat of the USSR (which had a curiously similar effect in stimulating a with us or against us attitude in the populace and an ideological hatred of the other culture "communism"), but the US passed through that.

What I want to get across is that there are explanations for every terrorist movement and that these should be understood. The debate shouldn't be closed with the statement "they hate us" and left at that. This is the rhetoric of a government trying to justify a war. I feel a chill every time I hear a politician use the word "evil". That word is the period at the end of thought.

So when you say the terrorists "hate us" which terrorists are we talking about?
Are we talking about Hezbollah? They were formed when Israel invaded Lebanon. Now you may or may not think Israel was justified in invading the country, but Hezbollah are not there because they "hate our freedoms" (the words of George Bush). With over a thousand people dead in Lebanon this month due to the Israeli bombardment, you can be sure that a few more people will next time turn a blind eye when Hezbollah launches a rocket.

Are we talking about Hamas? A resistance movement that wants Israel out of the occupied territories. I don't agree with targeting civillians (though Hamas has, for now, renounced violence), but again, with an entire generation of Palestinian people having grown up entirely in refugee camps, and with Israeli assassinations of its members, it's hard to say that their motivation is entirely ideological which the brief "they hate us" could suggest. When the US refused to acknowledge they'd been elected and the palestinian authority was denied the funding it was due and couldn't even pay for a police force, you can at least see how much of the arabic world interpreted that as "You can elect anyone you like, so long as it's who we want."

Al-Quaeda? Ah, the big one. International, multi-headed, led by a rich villainous mastermind (complete with big beard). These are what American thinks of when they say "terrorist." 9/11 was terrible. I can see why America wanted to strike back. But why against Iraq? My point about a majority of Americans thinking Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 stands. Iraq was tied closely to 9/11 in the public mind and this was deliberate policy on the part of a government that wanted a war and needed public acceptance. Very few Americans even know that Osama's aims in attacking America was to get American forces out of his homeland (Saudi Arabia). This is what I mean when I warn about the dangers of not analysing cause and of Bush's clique taking advantage of the fear that was fostered. Osama loathed the Ba'ath party or Iraq. More likely to see the headline "Anne Coulter to wed Al Gore" than to see these two co-ordinating actions. And yet most Americans conflated the two. Along with just about any other arabic looking group that the governments of the UK and the USA feel like pointing at and saying "evil." And people are treated indisciminately, you can see why many now see it as a war on Islam. I personally have little doubt that many in the UK and US government approve of exterminating the religion, and I am very moderate in my thinking.

The UK and USA governments are using fear as a tool to establish control. This isn't a tool that comes without a price though. In addition to the chilling effect on free speech and free thought, it has the effect of creating an enemy where there wasn't one before. This week in the UK, a cabinet minister announced that British muslims must be more integrated into "British culture." That is to say, hers. I can't think of anything less likely to encourage integration than statements like that. Imagine you and your family living in an arab country and being told to adopt islam. And statements like that make it a very great deal harder for those who are integrated to simply be themselves without finding themselves forced to choose a side. (A side which is already determined by the colour of your skin, incidentally).

And statements like "they hate us" are similar. They are similar because they are typically bandied about without a good idea about who "they" are, just a vague notion of islamic culture in general. Islam doesn't hate you. Islam on the whole would like to carry on living and growing and rolling its eyes at Christians when they get too pissed to walk on a Saturday night. Islam isn't the problem in much of the middle east. Poverty is. Recognise that.

Recognise that there isn't a beginning to much of the strife in the middle east. You can't trace everything back to whose great grandfather slew whose. You can only move on. And to do that you have to understand how others see you. You have to understand that when Bush rants that Iran is supplying weapons to Hezbollah, half the World looks at the "Made in the USA" sticker on the side of an Israeli bomb buried in a building in Lebanon and goes "WTF". You have to understand that when America says to a country "you can't have nuclear weapons", the rest of the World looks at the USA's enormous stockpile of weapons, looks at statements on Iran that Bush has been making recently, and looks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hears "we're in charge."

I imagine by now some people have a notebook crammed with explanations as to why such and such a US action was justified. But all I'm trying to do is show that there are two sides to everything and that ignorance of this is what leads to thinking that Freedom vs. Security is a necessary choice.

There was a sketch on TV here where someone was playing a government defence minister."
The journalist asks "But were there actually any terrorists in Iraq?"
And the minister replies: "Well, ah, there are now!"

It's not particularly funny. But it's true.

If you check history, no one flew a plane into a building on purpose in the U.S. outside of war before that event either. That still doesn't mean that we need to give up anything to solve the issue. All we needed was to improve communication between existing government agencies, and instead we've done everything but that. 9/11 will probably happen again, next time using a different tactic and costing just as many lives. And it won't happen because of a lack of preparation on our part, but because of a very minor mistake that won't really get solved.

But we're not the best in the world. Not by a longshot. If we're going to be the shining example of freedom, we need to actually be "top dogs" when it comes to that. Not better than the "vast majority" of the world. Better than the world. You don't get better than the world or win a war to preserve freedom by giving it up. You may defeat the people you were fighting, but you still lost. War and terrorism are about completing goals, not about simply wiping out the enemy. If the goal of someone is to erode the freedoms of the U.S., nuking them into plasma doesn't matter if we had to give up freedoms to do so. Even though they died, they obtained the victory. That's pretty much how it is in warfare.

It would be stupid for them to drag such people out of their homes. What better way to make the public look away than to make those saying what you don't like look like idiots? Then, they can tell whoever they want. It doesn't matter. Real conspiracies that are successful are not covered up by killing everyone who knows about them. They're covered up by making sure those who do know about them are viewed as morons by everyone else. Hell, Area 51 was public knowledge and the U.S. government's best-kept secret for decades because of things like that. And, best part is, every experimental airplane flown there was immediately blamed on UFO's, making it so that they didn't have to stop flying just because people were watching.

Now, I'm not saying that it was an actual conspiracy to cover up the base's existance or that the UFO freaks are right about it. Or that the conspiracy nuts are right. I'm just pointing out how easy it is to let human stupidity do the work for you. You can be a totalitarian regime and not have the populace realize it if you use that properly.

Oh, and your Britain example, while nice, doesn't hold any water. I've met plenty of British who say far worse than that on public forums with nothing happening to them. I think some British newspapers even accused the royal family of killing Princess Di, but I'm not sure enough to say that such a statement is accurate.

Besides, if the public doesn't realize you're a totalitarian regime, they don't bitch too much when you start slowly taking away their freedoms. Even better when you have an enemy or war to keep their attention focused on.

And, obviously, you've never heard that much about the No Fly List. It doesn't just cover terrorists. It covers those who may be radical enough, in the eyes of the current administration, to help terrorists. In most cases, these people are also not public figures. The few I've talked to are guilty of having nothing more than a big mouth.

Not really. It's by comparing to history and seeing the dangers of heading down a certain path that we realize our mistakes and prevent ourselves from going down them. While you may not agree, I see the extreme liberal shouting that Bush is just Hitler with plastic surgery as actually doing a service. While most of us will dismiss their claims, there still is the fact that they are present to act as a sort of guiding post and they are actively trying their best to steer a nation from going too far in the opposite direction of their viewpoint. I see the ultra-conserves as helping balance the issue. And, when the nation does slide too far one way, usually the side that opposes it gains enough political power to slide it back. So, really, people on here making those comparisons are doing you a favor.

Now, my concern over the slow sliding of freedoms has nothing to do with a belief that Bush started it. He didn't. It's probably been going on far longer than I can even guess at with this nation, but it's been happening. Bush has merely made advancements that are noticeable to the public. The danger there is that such advances become common, and the slide begins. While Bush may not be the next Hitler, he may be the one who prepares everything for them.

The best evil is the most subtle. It's the evil you don't notice. It's the evil that, by the time you are aware it's there, it's too late to do anything about it. It's the evil that, once it gains power, holds on for dear life and proves quite resilient. I would say we're not that evil. I'd say we've been more evil than that for decades now. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing. To defeat great evil, you often need evil of equal power involved. To defeat Hitler, we needed Stalin. To defeat the Soviet Union, we needed someone willing to go as far as starting a nuclear war.

Now, you may amuse me by attempting to reply. Or don't if you wish. I'll just find amusement elsewhere if you don't.

Q. What's the difference between a Mercedes and a Ford ?
A. Diana wouldn't be seen dead in a Ford.



Ha! See - we Brits are free to say whatever we like about the Royal's and... hang on a mo., there's someone at the do...<<SIGNAL - NO CARRIER>>.

No thanks. Like I said in my initial post on this subject, I don't really come to Dumpshock (or, really, any other corner of the internet) for serious, mind-changing, intellectual, political or religous debates. I just wanted to say my piece (so the other semi-conservative folk on here might not feel so outnumbered), and I've done so. I'm not going to change your mind, you're not going to change mine, and I'm certainly not posting to a thread like this for amusement's sake.

Except for the man who flew a small plane into the White House.

Except for the other man who tried to take over a plane to crash it into the White House.

Except the Algerian terrorists who tried to crash a plane into (depending on what you read) a high-value target in Paris.

Except...

Woops. Did I do that?

Fair enough.

Evidence? I'm not finding this on any information searches.

Edit: Found it.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V114/N40/crash.40w.html

Not conclusive if it actually was on purpose or not.

Which contradicts what I said in what way?

So, suddenly Paris is in the United States?

It can be by Wednesday.

That's not hard. You aim a fighter jet at France and they surrender.

Nah. They have a newer, tougher government in France. Now it takes three fighter jets and a battleship.

Ever since this new government came into power, Poland has cursed losing the one nation they could beat up.

There already is one in Texas, then again I think there is a Bethlehem in New Hampshire too.

The US passed through that as a winner because they adopted the proper response to someone wanting to destroy you - you develop a with us or against us attitude, and you fight with any means possible. You root out their supporters from your culture, you fight for dominance all around the globe, you go on insane arms races building enough nukes to destroy the world several times over and launch star wars programmes. And thus, the USSR was defeated. There is no doubt that the USSR would've conquered the entire world had they been able to, and without the US thwarting them they would have.

Today, there are people out there who wants to destroy us and our way of life with much greater fervor than USSR ever did. We can't stop them by being nice to them. Many people seem to be of the idea that the West is always acting, and everyone else is just reacting to us. People outside the West aren't just cattle responding to us. They're real people, with goals of their own. They're not just going to leave us alone if we leave them alone. They have the same "us or them" psychology, their leaders also get great success from portraying an outside enemy as evil.

Always in search of some culture for your country, eh?