How many of you can honestly say you are afraid of terrorism?

I don’t worry about it. The odds are better that I will be hit by a car when I ride my bike to the store. It is actually really sad if someone is walking around everyday worrying about.

Brilliant question. I’m sure not afraid of terrorists or terrorism.

I’m WAY more afraid of our U.S. government and its supposed protections against terrorists.

not afraid.

THANK YOU @ Trustinglife – Thats exactly my point; im far more afraid of what the U.S government will do to stop the “threat” against the west

I agree with trustinglife.

You couldn’t possibly be afraid of something you don’t see. Most of us are in such a relaxed atmosphere we don’t know what are all the government covet operations going around

I have to echo what trustinglife said: I’m more afraid of the paranoia, disproportionate protection and overreaction to the perceived threat of terrorism than terrorism itself.

Edmartin has a point. We haven’t seen any more terrorist attacks since 2001 because
we’ve been protected. But you remember there have been a few in Europe and Asia.

I’m not afraid of them most of the time. Occasionally I get a little wacky but that was
true before 9/11 too.

Being in Tasmania, somewhere that those fundies would never have heard of, I’m not very scared at all. I agree with trustinglife and joe though.

I’m not afraid of terrorism on a daily basis. Living in South Louisiana I think I am more afraid of another bad hurricane. I am very aware of the threat of terrorism. My husband is a firefighter. He would be one of the first called in if something terrible happened due to terrorism. He is always on call to put his life on the line to save someone else and to go into a situation that others would be running from to save someone else. I know he is more likely to have to respond to a house fire than an act of terrorism, but after 911 seeing all of the firefighters who died scared me.

Believing in the success of all the covert operations is like the old joke….why do elephants paint their toenails red? so they can hide in cherry trees.

you ever see any elephants in cherry trees? works doesn’t it.

Absolutely; I guess no one remembers 9/11.

Oh I remember sitting on the beach of Tunisia while the girl painting my hand with henna tried to explain what she’d just heard in the news about the attack in a mix of Arabic, French and English…it was a bit disturbing and took another day before we could get any English papers to read what had really happened. But what are you gonna do? Sit in your bunker stocked up on baked beans, spam and bottled water? There might be an attack tomorrow, but I’m not gonna let that affect what I do today.

stockpiles of baked beans + enclosed bunker = bad idea

hahahahaha thanks for that playthebanjo :P

For so many reasons, I know!!

I don’t think anyone is going to forget 9/11. I watched the second plane hit live on the TV along with everything after that. I just don’t worry about it happening to me.

And shit, why bother terrorizing us when we are doing a good job or doing it to ourself. “They hate us for our freedoms.” But we said nothing as the government took those very freedoms away.

Remember the sniper in the DC area? That is the kinda shit that bothers me. They picked off a bunch of people with stuff most people already have. And they could have gotten away with it for a long time. And anyone could do the same if they wanted.

I am not worried at all. I am more concerned about the freedoms that are government has been taking away and trying to take away using terrorism as a scare tactic and an excuse. 9/11 was heartbreaking but it was an isolated event. How many times in the history of this country did something like that occur? I feel like the terrorist accomplished something that the set out to do, causing the world to now live in fear and “terrorizing” the world with the threat of another attack. Sad.

It is really hard to live life afraid of something all the time. You have to go into a state of “functional denial” or you couldn’t get anything done or go anywhere, you would just be paralyzed. That applies to fear of terrorism. or back when I was a kid and in elementary school we had nuclear attack drills, or fear of anything really.

If you let yourself be paralyzed by fear, it could be argued you are not living at all.

I keep hearing messages like “if we X then the terrorists will win” or “if we Y then the terrorists will win” and it seems odd to me. Isn’t the objective of a terrorist to create terror? Shouldn’t it be “if we are terrorized then the terrorists win?”

I had an experience that really changed my perspective. I was skimming through some international blogs when I came across a blog by an Iranian man. He was writing about some of the fears he had. He was afraid that a powerful country on the other side of the world, one that hated him because of how he looked and the religion he belonged to, was on the verge of invading at any moment. They would bomb the major Iranian cities, overthrow the government, and kill anyone who resisted. He thought the leaders of this powerful country were religious fanatics. He was afraid of losing his friends and family.

It seemed much more terrifying for him than any fears I’ve ever had. Mine seemed mild in comparison.

Now when I see things like this, it just makes me sad. I am afraid of terrorism. I’m afraid that we’ll become terrorists.

Great point, Phoenyx. From their perspective, we’re the terrorists.

Having spent much of my life living in Jerusalem, I can honestly say I am afraid of terrorism. I lost a very close friend to a bus bombing, and another who was a soldier, killed on a mission to prevent terrorists from atttacking a city called Sde’rot.

When I am in America, though, I am much more afraid of the government than I am of terrorists attacking.

uhmmm…@johnpowell, I think I remember reading you were hit by a car while riding your bike?

It’s good to see that others in the more ‘stable’ nations are worried by their government’s reaction to terrorism more than anything. It appears that terrorism is a great excuse to reduce people’s civil liberties and make citizens live in fear.

Our foreign policy towards middle east countries like Iraq and Iran is only pushing them further into extremism. We didn’t find WMD in Iraq and our government attitude to isolate Iran will only lead to polarization. What we are doing is insulting people’s dignity to defend themselves from the feeling of terror we bring into these countries. We should be able to engage these nations into dialogue and negotiations regarding their nuclear program. If we just were willing to start the process without conditions with Iran, we would be able by now to have UN inspectors monitoring day to day activities at Iran’s Nuclear Plant where we could verify our concerns of nuclear weapons program.

Yeah… I’m not afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of because if an attack happens to me it’s not like I’m going to live… So what’s the point of living in fear?

@theloveprophet: It’s not the loss of my own life I fear, it’s the loss of the people whom I love lives. I have already lost 2 to terrorists, and often fear losing more.
But you’re right, what do I care if I die…I’d be dead.

Right. Losing someone would suck and I’m sorry about that.
But I’m glad you did understand my point.

I’m way more afraid of the U.S. government imprisoning me for some bizarre reason. But I’m not very afraid of that. Consider the prison population in the U.S. is 2.5 million people. But why in the world would anyone be so scared of terrorism? 9/11, yeah? 3,000 people died. 42,000 people die each yeah in car accidents in the United States. See statistics here. Have you all stopped driving? Personally I’m just waiting for TSA and DHS to start strip searching us before we can drive.

I’m not afraid to them go have the power to destroy only my flesh .

I’m slightly afraid, but statistically speaking there’s other stuff that you should be more worried about. Like explosive diarrhea

If I worried about everything that could hurt me, I would live my life in the fetal position in mental hospital. There are people who make their living worrying about terrorism, why should I? Now that doesn’t mean I am not aware of current events. Also it is important to vote for people that will protect you.

Not afraid of terrorists—they killed a few thousand (unspeakably tragic, yes). Cars kill fifty thousand every year, mostly drunk drivers killing the sober ones.

I don’t see federal mobilization on a massive scale to stop this tragedy. Why is that?