Pants-wetting airline passengers doing the terrorists' job

I meant the passengers were from Manchester ( ie. Mancunians), not the plane.

I know, it’s just I spotted that glaring lapse in The Flying Dutchman’s intelligence leading to his otherwise-watertight assessment of the security risk.

Oh , I see what you mean.

There’s a couple of pricelessly-rolleyes quotes here:

Somebody give these guys a job with MI5!!

Not quite the full story, the Mountbattens changed their name in WW1 when there was a lot of anti-German feeling in the UK . Shop-keepers who had German sounding names over their shop-fronts had their windows broken, and even innocent dachshunds had stones thrown at them.

The situation wasn’t much better in WW2. Many Germans and Italians who had fled to Britain to escape persecution from their own country were interned as soon as war broke out.

My maternal grandmother attended a catholic school during WWI. The nuns were from Germany and spoke no English. Every morning, they started classes with a prayer for the Kaiser.

That’s pretty much where I am, too. There’s a nutrition guy, I don’t remember his name, who thinks that people can live much longer if they essentially starve themselves, not to death, but living on a tiny number of calories. But I’d rather enjoy myself until I’m 60 than starve myself to 100. I want to live life not fear death.

Which underscores the unbelievable retraint of people today for a community which has produced young men attacking their own countrymen.

Or it underscores the unbelievable lack of restraint of people then?

Compared to what? It seems like there are two standards of behavior. In the west it is expected (as it should be) that people are judged as individuals, that diverse opionions are tolerated, and that freedom of religions is allowed. In the Islamic world you are not allowed to bring in bibles, women are beaten for not being covered head to toe, crowds march in the street calling for death to infidels, and people that blow up innocent women and children are hailed as heros.

Why are we wasting time pitting people that are nervous about terrorism and not pitting the Islamic community in Britain that is deep in denial and expoliting the very freedoms that Islamisists want to deny to others? If the muslim community doesn’t want to be looked upon with fear they need to clean their house from within. Denounce the madrasses teaching hate, be vigilant for signs of terrorism, and look at what is going on in their values and beliefs that produce terrorists that target innocents.

Compared to now. You are saying that people now are showing unbelievable restraint because people then did acts X and Y. But that means you are accepting acts X and Y as the normal, rational acts.

It’s possible to pit one group or person for doing something nasty and also to pit another group or person for doing something nasty. All sorts of horrible behaviors are spurred by fear. Fear isn’t an excuse.

Isn’t it possible though, that instead of those Islamics who haven’t changed their beliefs to support the country that “extend[ed] an enormous amount of freedom to them,” might be because they refuse to abandon their dogma? You know, the one that is not like the fanatical minorities that fly planes into buildings? That peaceful version that doesn’t “hate Jews and Christians, exploit women, and want to turn back the clock a thousand years”? Perhaps that would explain why they wish to retain their heritage and faith rather than to terrorize those whose religion is opposite their own. Or at least, that would be my take on all this.

Also what points Rayne Man, saoirse and jsgoddess make.

So start a pit thread about it, what’s stopping you?

So I got the origin/destination wrong. Big deal. I still appreciate the characterization of a “watertight assessment of the security risk”.

What if the two guys were wearing colour matched head bands?

You must mean these people.

“So much of it”? Dude, statistically, I’m more likely to be killed by lightning. I don’t see anybody declaring a War on Cumulonimbus.

Relatively speaking, there isn’t “much” terrorism in the world, because the practical-minded bad guys have learned there needs to be only a little bit of it to make hordes of stupid people panic and run around like frightened sheep.

Your extreme overreaction is entirely out of proportion with the actual threat. You’re free to box yourself up inside your own paranoid fantasies, but please don’t invade my reality with your ludicrous twitching anxiety.

I’d probably think “hey, those two guys are wearing colour matched head bands”. If I noticed it at all.

Well yah. Thanks to George Bush ! (I’m partially kidding)

If you were living in Iraq, Afghanistan or Israel you might think differently.

Well, there you go. You’ve got me that those people are undoubtedly the majority worldwide.