# Fucking 'dogooders' are going to ruin the world.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [September 4, 2007, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961 "2007-09-04T01:01:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/41 "2007-09-04T17:36:51Z")

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[QUOTE=anyrose]  
y’all jumping on **Gus** as tho he believes the quoted text - did you miss his last sentance? Seems to me he just wants confirmation that it is, indeed, hogwash (which you all have done, thank you) but he does not subscribe to it, nor is he advocating it be passed along.  
Unfortunately, when **Giraffe** recoded the OP, it became unclear what was quoted and what was **Gus** ’ own statement.  
[/QUOTE]

LOL, Thanks **anyrose** , I fully expected that to happen. In the interest of fighting ignorance, a lot of stuff sorta goes by the wayside. That’s why I put it in the pit. I knew I would be called names and that way no one had to move it. They do kill a lot of messengers at the SDMB. 😃 I am just glad \* mod. Giraffe\* found why it would not appear… Thanks Sir: I’ll try to remember that in the future.

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**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/42 "2007-09-04T17:48:36Z")

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[QUOTE=anyrose]  
y’all jumping on **Gus** as tho he believes the quoted text - did you miss his last sentance? Seems to me he just wants confirmation that it is, indeed, hogwash (which you all have done, thank you) but he does not subscribe to it, nor is he advocating it be passed along.  
Unfortunately, when **Giraffe** recoded the OP, it became unclear what was quoted and what was **Gus** ’ own statement.  
[/QUOTE]

It seemed to me like **Gus** just wanted a way to get that load of crap onto the SDMB without \*really \* being accountable for posting it or believing it.

I don’t buy the “this can’t really be accurate. . .can it?” act.

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**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/43 "2007-09-04T17:48:38Z")

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[QUOTE=saoirse]  
I think you’re referring to [Michael Trotter’s Daily Report](http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:tuoxaNSh600J:www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/corporate_governance/MediaMentions/02-13-07_DailyReport.pdf+tax+rate+world+war+two&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us)  
I take our failure to actually pay for the war as an indication of how seriously we take its consequences.  
[/QUOTE]

Holy crap! You mean rich folks paid out 94% of their (adjusted) income in taxes during WWII? I had no idea.

Certainly does say a lot about their sense of civic duty.

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**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/44 "2007-09-04T17:54:48Z")

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[QUOTE=GusNSpot]  
I knew I would be called names and that way no one had to move it. They do kill a lot of messengers at the SDMB. 😃  
[/QUOTE]  
If you don’t want to be associated with the opinions of a breathtakingly moronic bit of fear-mongering propaganda, then don’t post it. The fact that you apparently lack the critical thinking skills to form an opinion on something so starkly stupid beyond “OMG maybe it’s true?!?!” is not exactly a shield of excellence for you to hide behind. Suck it up and drop the martyr schtick, you fucking baby.

> [@](#):
>
> I am just glad \* mod. Giraffe\* found why it would not appear… Thanks Sir: I’ll try to remember that in the future.

No problem, glad I could help.

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**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/45 "2007-09-04T18:09:49Z")

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[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]  
Wait, what?

SPAIN?

Generalisimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Spain is a first-world liberal democratic constitutional monarchy which is a member of the European Union – and as it happens, some of the largest peace protests in history took place there, with upwards of a million people protesting in Barcelona against the Iraq war in 2003.  
[/QUOTE]

Woah, I’d missed that part.

\*\* Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Spain, North Korea \*\*

One of these countries is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the others. Can you guess which one?

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/46 "2007-09-04T18:22:27Z")

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[QUOTE=Colophon]  
Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Spain, North Korea

One of these countries is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the others. Can you guess which one?  
[/QUOTE]  
Clearly!  
North Korea has two words in the name!

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**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/47 "2007-09-04T18:23:28Z")

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[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]  
Wait, what? SPAIN?  
[/QUOTE]  
The author must have taken this [Onion article](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27961) about an invasion of Spain seriously.

> [@glurge](#):
>
> Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon . . .

Those wacky Europeans, still fighting a guy 29 years after he was dead and 35 years after he was out of power. Maybe they need more peace activists after all!

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**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/48 "2007-09-04T18:27:14Z")

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Am I the only one who keeps thing of _John From Cincinnat_ every time I see this thread title?

“…fucking towel heads are going to get themselves eradicated.”

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**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/49 "2007-09-04T18:28:34Z")

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North Korea becuase it doesn’t start with an **I** or\*\* S\*\*… 😃

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/50 "2007-09-04T18:34:59Z")

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I want to know how the whole of Northern California managed to enrol itself in an educational establishment.

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**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/51 "2007-09-04T23:49:53Z")

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]  
No there aren’t. The Nazis were a real threat to the US, radical Islam is not.  
[/quote]

Actually, you’ve got that exactly backwards. Radical Islam has the potential to kill far, far more innocent Americans (I’m not counting soldiers; when you send people out to fight, many of them are going to die) and disrupt our economy on a scale unthinkable to the Nazis. WWII era Germany and Japan didn’t have the industry, population or technology to mount any kind of remotely credible threat to mainland America. A relatively few number of people can do that today, ain’t technology wonderful?

> [@](#):
>
> I actually said a thousandth of one percent, not a hundred.

So you did. My mistake. So lets use your numbers (even though I think they are low). At 1/100th of a percent, that’s still 1.2 million committed, fanatical terrorists that need to be dealt with. That makes me feel so much safer.

> [@](#):
>
> There are only a few thousand Muslims who could catually be classified as violent terrorists.

We’re fighting more than that in Afghanistan alone. Throw in Iraq and your attempt to minimize what actually faces the west becomes laughable. Oh, what happened to the 1.2 million terrorists you were just talking about?

> [@](#):
>
> There may be a lot more fundy, fanatical assholes than that but most of them are not terrorists. There is a lot of space in between just being an intolerant asshole and being an intolerant asshole with a bomb strapped to your back. Not everybody that bashes the queers or pickets an abortion clinic is going to go on a bombing spree like eric Rudolph.

Nope, but each madman with a bomb has a logistics tail of several hundred if not thousand people behind him providing training, support, money and a place to conceal himself. These people are actively participating in terrorist attacks, even if they don’t blow themselves to bits. they are part of the problem that needs to be dealt with too.

> [@](#):
>
> The percentage of Muslims who are irrationally and suicidally violent is not significant enough to warrant anything close to the Chicken Little rhetoric quoted by the OP.

I said that the OP was overblown, but that doesn’t change the core truth of the letter. It does obscure realistic discussion and hinder real attempts to resolve the issue by polarizing the issue into black and white extremes who spend all their time screaming at each other, drowning out rational voices in the middle where the solution will be found.

> [@](#):
>
> ETA, what “ideology” do you imagine I’m defending?

Well, if we use your term for the letter in the OP and call that the “chicken little” faction, I’d have to classify your ideology as the “ostrich” people. You will do everything you can to deny the fact that the west is involved in a generational confrontation with radical, fundamentalist Islam.

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**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/52 "2007-09-05T00:15:09Z")

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[QUOTE=Weirddave]  
Actually, you’ve got that exactly backwards. Radical Islam has the potential to kill far, far more innocent Americans (I’m not counting soldiers; when you send people out to fight, many of them are going to die) and disrupt our economy on a scale unthinkable to the Nazis.  
[/QUOTE]

Very true, but then why the hell didn’t we go after Bin Laden, who is far more of a threat and responsible than Saddam than Iraq?

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**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/53 "2007-09-05T01:04:43Z")

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[QUOTE=Guinastasia]  
Very true, but then why the hell didn’t we go after Bin Laden, who is far more of a threat and responsible than Saddam than Iraq?  
[/QUOTE]

I dunno. I don’t set policy. I am just talking about the world as it is right now. The rights and wrongs of US foreign policy over the last 6 years are beyond what I was talking about, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you might find one or two people willing to venture an opinion on the matter over in GD. 😉

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**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/54 "2007-09-05T01:08:20Z")

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[QUOTE=Weirddave]  
I dunno. I don’t set policy. I am just talking about the world as it is right now. The rights and wrongs of US foreign policy over the last 6 years are beyond what I was talking about, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you might find one or two people willing to venture an opinion on the matter over in GD. 😉  
[/QUOTE]

Well, I wasn’t asking you, just making a general comment.

(Gee, you don’t say!)

😛

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**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/55 "2007-09-05T04:09:32Z")

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I had to check that the author is this piece of garbage wasn’t written by my right-wing-from-hell brother-in-law.

When I was visiting him a couple of years back, his big thing was a “fact” (true or not, I had no idea) that the economic impact of the 9-11 attack was greater than that of Pear Harbor, and the criticism of people who didn’t support the war.

It’s an exercise in futility to argue with him, so normally I don’t, but I could let that go. As I countered with the questions of what does 9-11 have to do with Iraq, he got all irate and started spouting off more and more, as **Giraffe** so well puts it, “breathtakingly moronic bit of fear-mongering propaganda.”

We were headed for heated works when my sister called us in the other room to watch the breaking news of the tsunami.

I’m with the others here. If the OP wants to post this, then own it or denounce it.

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**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/56 "2007-09-05T04:34:40Z")

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[QUOTE=Weirddave]  
Actually, you’ve got that exactly backwards. Radical Islam has the potential to kill far, far more innocent Americans (I’m not counting soldiers; when you send people out to fight, many of them are going to die) and disrupt our economy on a scale unthinkable to the Nazis. WWII era Germany and Japan didn’t have the industry, population or technology to mount any kind of remotely credible threat to mainland America. A relatively few number of people can do that today, ain’t technology wonderful?  
[/quote]

Actuually, you’ve got this exactly backwards. The Nazis had a little thing called an air force. They also had other stuff like an army and tanks. “Radical Islam” doesn’t have shit and poses no threat whatsoever to the US and never will. It’s a totally made up, imaginary threat. The Muslims are not going to get you. You can relax and crawl out from under your bed. It’s like the “Red Menace” bullshit all over again, except with even less foundation.

> [@](#):
>
> So you did. My mistake. So lets use your numbers (even though I think they are low). At 1/100th of a percent, that’s still 1.2 million committed, fanatical terrorists that need to be dealt with. That makes me feel so much safer.

I said 1/1000th, not 1/100th. It’s like ten thousand terrorists, tops.

> [@](#):
>
> We’re fighting more than that in Afghanistan alone

No we aren’t.

> [@](#):
>
> Throw in Iraq and your attempt to minimize what actually faces the west becomes laughable. Oh, what happened to the 1.2 million terrorists you were just talking about?

Throwing in Iraq is imbecilic because we are the aggressors there and because most of the insurgency are not affiliated with any "terrorists’ groups but are motivated by sectarian feuds that have nothing to do with the US or really with religion at all.

> [@](#):
>
> Nope, but each madman with a bomb has a logistics tail of several hundred if not thousand people behind him providing training, support, money and a place to conceal himself.

Cite?

> [@](#):
>
> I said that the OP was overblown, but that doesn’t change the core truth of the letter. It does obscure realistic discussion and hinder real attempts to resolve the issue by polarizing the issue into black and white extremes who spend all their time screaming at each other, drowning out rational voices in the middle where the solution will be found.

There is no core truth to the letter. The Islamic boogeyman is grossly exaggerated myth contrived to scare retards into voting Republican and supporting the agendas of oil companies. You’re a fucking moron if you believe any of it.

> [@](#):
>
> Well, if we use your term for the letter in the OP and call that the “chicken little” faction, I’d have to classify your ideology as the “ostrich” people. You will do everything you can to deny the fact that the west is involved in a generational confrontation with radical, fundamentalist Islam.

A few thousand crazies with no resources, no miltary and no country are not going to take over America. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’ve been had. It’s all bullshit. You’re going to be pefectly fine. It’s Global Warming you should be worrying about.

Christ, I thought liberals were supposed to be the chickenshits, but it’s the conservatives who get blubbering, snot running scared whenever some scary Muslim on TV makes a face at them. Crawl out from under the kitchen table and man up, you spineless fucking paranoid pussies. You’re disgracing yourselves. Just go about your lives. You’re going to be A-OK. You can even tote your guns around with you if that makes you feel better.

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**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/57 "2007-09-05T04:43:54Z")

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It’s like being sprayed with bullshit. Kudos to those of you who made your way past the second para.

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**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/58 "2007-09-05T05:30:44Z")

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]  
Actuually, you’ve got this exactly backwards. The Nazis had a little thing called an air force. They also had other stuff like an army and tanks. “Radical Islam” doesn’t have shit and poses no threat whatsoever to the US and never will. It’s a totally made up, imaginary threat. The Muslims are not going to get you. You can relax and crawl out from under your bed. It’s like the “Red Menace” bullshit all over again, except with even less foundation.  
[/quote]

Jesus Christ, you’re a fucking idiot. The Nazis had an air force. Please tell me which plane in that air force had the range to bomb the continental U.S. The Nazis had an army and tanks. Please tell me exactly what navy they had capable of landing those forces on U.S. soil (or were they going to drop them from their magical air force). Do you even listen to yourself?

> [@](#):
>
> I said 1/1000th, not 1/100th. It’s like ten thousand terrorists, tops.

Gee, I forgot a zero again. That really was a stupid mistake on my part(seriously). However, the figure of 1.2 million holds, _using your own 1/1000 percentage._ That’s a long way from “ten thousand”. Wanna back up on what you said some more?

> [@](#):
>
> No we aren’t.

We’re fighting less than “several thousand” people in Afghanistan? I’m sure the troops on the ground there will be relieved to know that. Why don’t you go tell them that, I breathlessly await what their response will be.

> [@](#):
>
> Throwing in Iraq is imbecilic because we are the aggressors there and because most of the insurgency are not affiliated with any "terrorists’ groups but are motivated by sectarian feuds that have nothing to do with the US or really with religion at all.

Of course. It’s all sectarian violence. Just a little internal matter that we should run away from and leave leave to the natives. Who cares how many people die, they’re all just brown skinned savages, right? It’s an internal matter, nothing to concern us, nothing at all. Jesus fuck, you’re like Pol Pot’s wet dream.

> [@](#):
>
> Cite?

That a terrorist can’t act alone, he needs support? Are you kidding?

> [@](#):
>
> There is no core truth to the letter. The Islamic boogeyman is grossly exaggerated myth contrived to scare retards into voting Republican and supporting the agendas of oil companies. You’re a fucking moron if you believe any of it.

And you’re a fucking moron if you discount all of it. Scratch that, I think you’re just a fucking moron regardless. I’m not supporting a particular political party or some imagined corporate agenda, I’m talking about the way things are. Politics doesn’t play into it. It’s a crime that you attempt desperately to spin the state of the world for whatever axe you’re trying to grind, just the same as it’s a crime when the neo-cons do it. Y’all are two sides of the same coin.

> [@](#):
>
> A few thousand crazies with no resources, no miltary and no country are not going to take over America. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’ve been had. It’s all bullshit. You’re going to be pefectly fine. It’s Global Warming you should be worrying about.

I never said anyone was going to “take over America”. The fact is that radical Islamic terrorists can hurt America badly. I fully expect that there will be a terrorist attack, using nuclear weapons, on a western city (probably an American city) within my lifetime. Maybe that will wake people up, but if experience is any guide there will still be legions of people yammering on about how we “provoked” them, about how “mean” and “unfair” and “imperialistic” America is, and how the proper response is more concession, more compromise, more retreat, and you’ll be one of them. It’s going to happen. Our response to that, or even the way to prevent it, is open to debate, but categorizing the threat as a “couple thousand” people with assault rifles is short sighted, moronic and ultimately disastrous. Global warming? HA! Global warming is the threat the left uses to scare people into submission the same way the right uses terrorism. You’re gleefully engaging in the exact same behavior that you condemn so heartily. H.L Mencken said it best: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. " It’s as true for the left as it is for the right.

> [@](#):
>
> Christ, I thought liberals were supposed to be the chickenshits, but it’s the conservatives who get blubbering, snot running scared whenever some scary Muslim on TV makes a face at them. Crawl out from under the kitchen table and man up, you spineless fucking paranoid pussies. You’re disgracing yourselves. Just go about your lives. You’re going to be A-OK. You can even tote your guns around with you if that makes you feel better.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Same old shit. Find a new schtick, wouldja? This one is getting old.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/59 "2007-09-05T06:43:07Z")

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[QUOTE=Weirddave]  
I never said anyone was going to “take over America”. The fact is that radical Islamic terrorists can hurt America badly. I fully expect that there will be a terrorist attack, using nuclear weapons, on a western city (probably an American city) within my lifetime. Maybe that will wake people up, but if experience is any guide there will still be legions of people yammering on about how we “provoked” them, about how “mean” and “unfair” and “imperialistic” America is, and how the proper response is more concession, more compromise, more retreat, and you’ll be one of them. It’s going to happen. Our response to that, or even the way to prevent it, is open to debate, but categorizing the threat as a “couple thousand” people with assault rifles is short sighted, moronic and ultimately disastrous.  
[/quote]  
Yeah, I heard the same hysterical stuff during the Cold War: every Shmoe “knew” there was going to be a big nuclear war in their lifetime.

This isn’t a calm, deliberate assessment. It’s a statement of fear.

Fact is people don’t like uncertainty. They prefer to “believe” in definite disaster over possible disaster.

Hey Dave, got your fallout shelter planned yet? I mean a nuclear attack is certain, right? Those Islamo-suffixes will just order up an H-Bomb at Amazon, right?

The US faces security challenges, Russian loose nukes among them. They should be addressed with a serious _fact based_ methodology, well directed appropriations and careful analysis. We have sufficient screaming school children, however.

> [@](#):
>
> Global warming? HA! Global warming is the threat the left uses to scare people into submission the same way the right uses terrorism.

Hilarious. Some of the most extreme environmentalists are calling for the equivalent of … a one dollar hike on US gasoline. That would _still_ give us cheaper gas than Europe. And this is Greenpeace talking. Count on the right wingers to provide _unsubstantiated_ claims of the nightmarish effects of such steps on “the economy”.

Meanwhile the right wing wants us to check our liberties at the door and thumbs their nose at our allies because they don’t love war enough. Divide and conquer or other fundamental strategies are discarded, because of insufficient emotive appeal. Sorry, bub, there’s no comparison: the frightened schoolgirls are all on the Republican side of the aisle.

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**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-dogooders-are-going-to-ruin-the-world/417961/60 "2007-09-05T14:43:17Z")

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He says that Ireland was allied to the U.S. in WW2 when in actual fact it stayed neutral throughout the war.

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