Terrorism

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I take it you've all heard the argument that a lot of governments are guilty themselves of terrorism with these new laws?

"Using violence or the threat of violence" sounds remarkably similar to what happens when rights are removed "because otherwise terrorists can freely cause carnage in our country." (Note, the second bit isnt an exact quote because I can't remember the exact wording on why Britain needs universal identity cards, and various other issues in many countries).

Something made me laugh/cry/hang my head in despair recently. The australian prime minister was quoted saying "a vote for the democrats (in the US) is a vote for terrorism." Is he even allowed to overtly meddle in other countries politics like that?

There is no doubt that terrorism is a real threat in this day and age. But then there are a lot of incidents that suggest the muslim community are repressed. Does anyone really know what happened with that brazilian guy who got shot in london because the police thought, for some unknown reason, that he was a terrorist?

How did it get this way? To look for a close analogy, I am pretty sure (although without statistics) that the vast proportion of school-shooters are white. I suspect the same comment could be made on paedophiles, although I'm not sure there. Why don't we keep white people away from our children?

To steal an idea from some author who's name I cannot recall (michael crichton?), the point of all this is a state of fear, where people will agree to the decisions of a government, or other group of people, because there is a common enemy or threat which must be faced. Communism, pollution, jewish people (a favorite for many centuries), and so on.

The question of whether the word terrorism is overused isn't really the point, to my mind. The question of whether we are pushing a large portion of the world population into a hole because of the actions of a minority is closer, but still not there. The question is, how much did we help this situation, where people know there are terrorists out there, but have reason to worry how much they are being told is a lie?

I don't know what the solution is, although generic bush bashing (which I used to love so much) doesn't really get us anywhere. Neither does the rhetoric that I now love. So what do we do?

I realise that this is very long, and with the amount of questions seems more like an introduction that an opinion. That's what it is meant to be, I don't have all the answers, and I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.

p.s. @froot: quick is right... the last time I saw statistics we were the most watched people in the world.