Who is the “we” in the question? Maybe if we knew the group he was talking about it would be easier to venture a guess as to why they are so afraid.
Actually, he was also… a postal worker. That’s a career which seems to have a disproportionate number of mass shooters.
What makes the least sense to me about terrorism is that it is the people in cities like new york that are and have been targets of terrorist attack that are not concerned about it, and it is people who live in iowa or kansas, or other little places that have never had an attack, and there’s not a terrorist on the planet that would find them on a map, that are terrified.
Cite for “… it is people who live in iowa or kansas, or other little places … that are terrified.”?
That claim was a bit fuzzy, but it’s hardcore fact that conservative politicians think that their conservative constituents will respond to fears of terrorism. Admittedly that could be tied up in their obvious assumption that all conservatives are racist (which may be projection on their parts).
This is not proof that conservatives actually are afraid of terrorism or muslims, but it is suggestive - the politicians wouldn’t keep making that specific kind of noise if they didn’t think it would work for them.
Well then, do you have a cite for this:
For example, I’m in Utah. One of my Senators is Mike Lee. He’s about as conservative a politician as you’ll find holding federal elected office anywhere in the country. I’ve watched him pretty closely over the years and yet I’ve somehow missed both him “making that specific kind of noise” about “fears of terrorism” AND any evidence of the “obvious assumption” that you allege regarding racism.
Your post seems wildly off base to me, moreso even than k9bfriender’s. ETA: it seems like both of you are imagining and assuming things about places and people that you aren’t very familiar with.
#NotAllConservativePoliticians?
Look, man, there is no way I’m going to claim that ALL conservative politicians are irresponsible fuckheads that promote fears about terrorism and dark-skinned people. Nor am I going to claim that all conservatives are racists who are afraid of terrorism. Neither sweeping generalization is true.
However, there sure as hell have been SOME (even, MANY) politicians crowing about terrorism and people of other races, and the vast, vast majority of them fly your banner. Because it resonates well with conservatives for the obvious reason - conservatives tend not to take well to change and things outside the norm. And a lot of that ‘not taking well’ looks like fear and hysteria from the outside.
ETA: I’m in Idaho. No shortage of conservatives around these parts.
It doesn’t have to be a fear of*** them specifically*** being victims. The conservatives need only appeal to a general America as a whole being attacked.
Ask an Iowa corn farmer if he wants a president who won’t let New York City get hit by another 9/11 by Islamic Arab terrorists and he’d probably say, yes of course. Even if what happens in Manhattan has no direct impact on him.
Excellent. We’ve found some things we agree on.
Aside from President Trump, could you give me some names / quotes from conservative politicians that you think exemplify this “crowing about terrorism and people of other races” that you apparently see as fairly widespread?
I don’t see this in my personal interactions with conservatives. Do you think it’s routine or common for conservatives to “tend not to take well to change and things outside the norm”? Most of the ones I know don’t have much trouble adapting to new circumstances. Do you see a lot of fear and hysteria there in Idaho? I didn’t the last time I was there. In my personal life, I’ve seen significantly more fear and hysteria from my liberal associates than my conservative ones lately.
I’ll grant that “terrified” may be hyperbole for some, but “concerned enough about it for it to influence their voting decisions” seems completely fair.
And if people are concerned enough about terrorism for it to influence their voting, which party are they going to be voting for?
When trump signs his EO bans of muslims, is he doing that for the people of New York, or is he doing that for the people that voted for him in smaller population areas?
Yay!
Actually due to my tendency to not watch the news and my lack of facility with names, I’m not going to be the one to feed you these - my memories of such things are both a little out of date and unlabeled.
You may feel free to consider this as you having proved the negative, but you haven’t yet convinced me that no conservative politicians talk about terrorism ever.
Well, lately the conservatives around here have been strangely mum - my working theory is that they don’t want to admit to having any position whatsoever regarding the orange turd currently in the driver’s seat. The only vaguely political thing that’s happened lately is my dad recently ‘came out’ as a prepper! (And honestly, not a very competent one - he’s blowing money to the tune of a hundred thousand dollars on solar panels when a generator for a thousandth the price would serve just as well.) He’s not the only prepper I’ve run into, either - I got roped into a conversation a little while ago where I was belittled quite a lot for not being ready to run out into the wilds and skin rabbits with my teeth on a moment’s notice.
There is nothing that says hysterical unjustified fear to me like prepperism.
That’s a truly terrible cite if it was intended to support your claim that New Yorkers are not concerned about terrorism while Iowans are. Why does “concerned enough about it for it to influence their voting decisions” seem “completely fair” to you? Do you have some evidence that Iowans were particularly influenced by fears of terrorism while New Yorkers weren’t? Or is this just more supposition on your part?
They’d probably be more likely to vote for whichever party they felt would best address that concern. I would not be surprised to learn that most Democrats think the Democratic Party has the best solutions to terrorism and most Republicans think the Republican Party has the best solutions to terrorism.
I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I suspect he’d tell you that he’s doing it for all Americans, or something along those lines.
Are you trying to claim that the republicans were not running on being better against terrorists than democrats?
If that is your claim, I can refute that easily enough, might take me a minute to dig up political ads that they were running, but many of them were talking about how democrats were “soft on terror”.
Are you claiming that people do not vote based on fear? 22.6% of people voted for a candidate specifically because of their fears.
It matters what you think is the best way of combating terrorism. The people that want to be safe against terrorists, and are willing to send people to war to kill lots of people in order to be safe from those terrorists will tend to vote for republicans.
Those who think that better world economic prosperity and a better cultural understanding of countries and areas that currently create threats tend to vote for democrats.
Unfortunately, the action option is easier to see and understand, so that’s where quite a number of people go.
What he says is random, and rarely related to reality, so I don’t know what claim he would make either. But, as his actions are those than pander to his base and ignore anyone that did not vote for him, he’d be lying if he claimed he did it for all americans.
Well those uniforms are enough to set anyone off.
We shouldn’t be, as others have pointed out! It’s not that big a problem.
And yet we are irrational beings. Death or injury that follows an understandable cause-and-effect pattern is something we can deal with – intellectually and emotionally – most of the time. “She was driving to work, and got hit by a drunk driver, and died.” Even easier to deal with: “She was driving drunk, drove off the road, and died.” These are stories we can understand. They’re sad stories, but they make sense.
Death due to terrorism is much less comprehensible.* “Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon because the heir to a Saudi fortune had a bug up his ass about the US having a military presence in Saudi Arabia, and 19 men were willing to die to fulfill a terrorist plot that hasn’t really helped any of their stated goals (besides sowing seeds of chaos, yadda yadda yadda) …”*
That’s a story that normal people who don’t think of terrorism as an option have a much harder time comprehending. And because we don’t understand it, we are afraid.
While I wish that our public policy took a more utilitarian approach to threat alleviation, I have to confess that I’d be pretty weirded out if terrorism didn’t fascinate and horrify people – if we, automaton-like, didn’t regard the recent Las Vegas attack that killed 50-whatever people as worthy of attention while pretty much ignoring the daily death toll on our highways…
The disconnect is that you don’t need to be inordinately afraid of terrorism to vote based on that issue. I am well aware that me or a member of my family is more likely to be hurt or killed in a car accident than terrorism by a thousand percent. However, I mitigate the risk of car accidents by buying and maintaining a safe car, and operating the car safely. The burden of car safety is 80% me, 10% car manufacturers, and 10% the state and county who maintain and build the roads.
However, there is nothing I can do to protect me and my family from terrorism except stay away from populated areas which I am not willing to do. The federal government can decide who they let in this country, attempt to infiltrate and disrupt current plots and future ones, and decide policy about the countries where the terrorists live. The burden of safety against terrorism is therefore 90% federal government, 9% local government, and 1% me.
It may sound odd for liberals who believe that the government has the answer to every problem but as a conservative I want elected officials trying to fight terrorism even though I am not afraid of it.
No, no, no. I have little doubt that Republicans tell people they’ll handle terrorism better than Democrats. I’m equally confident that Democrats vigorously dispute that point. Likewise, I’m not interested in disputing that fear is a factor in some people’s voted. I’m questioning a particular claim you made. You said:
Where did you come up with this idea that New Yorkers and other enlightened, cosmopolitan folks were particularly immune to fears about terrorism while rural rubes are especially susceptible to it? Or that it influenced the voting decisions of rural voters more than urban ones, or Iowans more than Californians? Did you read the results of a survey that provided cross-tabs by state, showing that more Iowans had terrorism on their mind as they voted than Californians did? Is it just a personal opinion you’ve developed, due to extensive conversations with rural and urban voters, or having lived substantial portions of your life in Iowa and New York? That’s what I’m seeking an answer to. I’m beginning to suspect that it’s just a figment of your imagination, with no more grounding in reality and facts than in your own implicit biases and caricatures of places you’ve built up in your mind, but I’d be delighted to be shown why that’s wrong, and that there is indeed a factual basis for your claim.
That’s good, because I wouldn’t try to claim that “no conservative politicians talk about terrorism ever.” Quite the opposite, I suspect some of them do talk about it sometimes. So do some liberal politicians. But do you see how we’ve progressed here in this thread? Initially k9bfriender said “people who live in iowa or kansas, or other little places … are terrified.” You chimed in with “… it’s hardcore fact that conservative politicians think that their conservative constituents will respond to fears of terrorism.” Now we’re at ‘some conservative politicians talk about terrorism sometimes’. It’s a good long ways from the wild caricatures I was reading earlier today.
I suppose it depends on the extent of the prepperism. I don’t think it’s a bad thing in moderation. For example, I was helping a family move recently. The parents happen to be really good friends of mine that are very vocally liberal. It surprised me a little bit when, during the course of the move, I had get a couple of 72-hour backpack kits out of their basement and load it into the truck. I don’t think it was driven by “hysterical unjustified fear” either, but that’s a much milder form of ‘prepperism’ than the example you gave of your father spending $100K on solar panels (must be a hell of a system!). That one does seem a bit extreme.
Well, I remain quite convinced that those scary furriners and their killin’ ways are a tentpole talking point for conservative politicians.
However, it’s probably worth noting that while I believe they are strongly opposed to foreign terrorism (or at least they use it as an argument for pushing various unsavory policies, like say war), they do not seem overly concerned with domestic terrorism performed by white people. So I would agree that terrorism in general isn’t of particular interest to them.
Well, there’s preparedness and there’s prepperism. There is a difference - for example if you live in tornado country you’d be crazy not to keep at least a few necessities around to keep you company when your house collapses around your ears. However that’s preparing for a plausible emergency. Prepperism, on the other hand, is preparing specifically for the end of civilization. That’s qualitatively different, and is entirely the product of various well-stoked fears and paranoias.
(And yes, it’s going to be a hell of a system. <Prolonged venting/ranting cut.>)
A big reason for this is the heuristic of availability
Airplane accidents rate giant national headlines, traffic fatalities mention a local notice at best. Surveys show that people think the murder rate is higher then the suicide rate because murders get covered and suicides seldom do, unless the victim if famous or the suicide is done in public.
Terrorist acts get covered worldwide, and even if the death toll from one is less than traffic fatalities in the state for that very day, it will seem bigger.