so often in America people are enticed into being afraid of the wrong things and it is costing everybody. Terrorist attacks, minorities, killer kids, illegal immigrants, etc. Our fear is consuming us.

I agree 150%.

But there is money in fear and paranoia....additional security personnel & equipment, bigger fences, etc.. :devil:

its the same in the uk.the establishment want you to be scared,they make you think they will save and protect you from the monster they have made.sound like a nutter now! basically its all about control of the masses,once we had god and religion now we have propoganda and the bomb.

I agree with you, Mandela. Absolutely. Michael Moore had a chapter in one of his books that dealt with this. The chapter was called The United States of BOO!

How is it bad to be afraid of terrorist attacks? Sure you shouldn't let fear govern your life, but what are we supposed to fear? President Bush locking himself in the Oval Office and us just ignoring him?

Terrorism works by striking fear. Fear and cowardice are not doing anything. By fighting this war and still saying we shouldn't is saying the general public is controlled by fear, while soldiers aren't.

Illegal immigration is a major issue, but you shouldn't fear it, or let it control your life. What happens when the US gets a president of Mexican descent that annexes the US into Mexico? What if our economy collapses from it? Well, I'm sure Canada will be glad to have us illegally enter it.

School shootings I don't fear in the least though. I'm in a small town, and stuff.

So a little fear to keep people from letting whatever happens is good, but it isn't good to let it control your life, which is what I'm guessing you are trying to say.

Our fear of terrorism has probably created more terrorists just like our fear of black and hispanic criminals has created more black and hispanic criminals. If there weren't terrorists in Iraq (or freedom fighter in their eyes) before without a doubt there are some now and the United States created those terrorists they put hate in their hearts. The only time you should fear a terrorist attack is if approval ratings are slumping or the USA needs an excuse to enter a war and thats the damn truth right there.

Mr. E the economy is going to collaspe but the thing is it has nothing to do with Mexicans coming into america.

You mistake fear with something else called recognizing danger. Fear is never beneficial, fear causes irrational action.

If you are asking what you should fear, i answer with a quote:

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict- Martin Luther King Jr.

The people of Darfur and other countries may disagree with you..here, World Powers have not intervened at the risk of 'offending Muslims' and at the expense of thousands of lives subject to the terrorists running rampant over their soils...not everything is so black and white as to make the US the Great Evil One responsible for all the blood shed in the world today...

Im talking about in america Iwanttobelieve not the rest of the world.

Then you will forgive me, I hope...I've always held the idealist perspective..as in 'I am my brother's keeper'...oceans can no longer divide us and what happens elsewhere impacts us all...but, in keeping with your idea, are you aware of the statistics and dynamics of domestic terrorism?

edit: BTW its easier to just call me 22 or tutu...people have called me that around here for years now..its much shorter to write lol

22 i call domestic terrorism the boogeyman and i don't believe in the boogeyman.

So you don't believe domestic terrorism exists?

not from islamic extremists no.

But from other extremists, yes?

You may also be surprised to find that fear is one of the only things that gets people interested.

People don't respond enlarge unless you scare the @#$% out of them. That is a psychological problem.

Lol. Very true, Scottman. Funny, but true.

so true and so unbelievable fucked up.

22 the kinds of extremists who profit from war and from citizens with less freedom. The real rich and powerful kind. The kind that the gov. can't do anything about no matter what because these extremists own them. If your going to fear terrorist fear those terrorist.

I don't wallow in fear those things, Mande...I fear the pedophiles living in the same neighborhood as my little girl...I fear the drug dealers peddling their shit on our streets...I fear the poverty in our towns...the sickness in our hospital emergency rooms...the domestic violence in our homes..the entertainment industry shoving sex down the throats of our teens....I fear the extinction of species by the hundreds for want of sport or more shopping malls and bigger SUVs..I fear many things but I do not cower to fear...I take an active stance..admit of the danger and do what I can...what I must. To deny terrorism or to confine it to one exclusive group or locale is itself dangerous. Problems are not resolved through subjective denial of their very existence. Terrorism can be loosely defined as:

Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988)

The following is a list of known terrorist groups operating in the United States..whether confining their acts to domestic terrorism or international terrorism...

Armed Commandos for National Liberation
Armed Forces of National Liberation
Armed Forces of Popular Resistance
Army of God
Aryan Nations
Guerrilla Forces of Liberation
Los Macheteros
Mountaineer Militia
Organization of Volunteers for the Puerto Rican Revolution
People's Revolutionary Commandos
then, of course, there are hundreds of supremacist groups, religious extremist groups, organized gangs, drug, sex and crime cartels...all whose actions fit the definition of terrorism...

Of course there are more immediate dangers...drugs...homicide...child abuse...orphans...poverty...etc...to concern one's self with...but, at the least, lets acknowledge that terrorist groups do exist and operate within our nation's borders...

I think what Mandela meant was something like this.. we spend considerable amount of time worrying about things like terrorism, illegal immigrants, etc... we pay them considerable more attention than they deserve.

Do terrorists exist? Yes. Of course. Should we fund police and counter terrorism units to fight them? Yes. Should we worry, on a regular basis, about them? No. Should we turn our lifestyle upside down in response to them? No. How many people died inside the US last year from terrorism?

While we focus on these things certain real "threats" get a free pass. How many people will die in preventable car accidents? How many people will be hospitalized for unsafe working conditions? How many will die from the same? How many people will contract cancer from industrial exhaust, and how much of that would be preventable if we forced industry to give up a bit of profit?

How many law abiding people in the continental US have faced a terrorist or actually been attacked by a drug gang? But how many inner city small businessmen have been denied a small business loan by a bank based on his or her address? How many people have lost a job in a company making a profit, because the company wanted to make MORE profit?

I think Mandelas points is that there is an atmosphere of fear about the country, but all aimed in the wrong direction.

Even pedophilia..a very real threat of course.. has become near hysteria and some parents deny their children the opportunities to play outside or in parks that 40 or 50 years ago would have been a given.. and I dont know that pedophilia has really increased that dramatically in the past 40 or 50 years. We may be over reacting to our fears. I say "may be" to be diplomatic..but it seems obvious we have when it gets to point that a PEDIATRIST ends up having his house attacked because a mob mentality takes over and people end up not distinguishing between a pedophile and pediatrist.. (this happened in England..).

Of course precautions must be taken, but taken in proportion to the threat. We may have lost that..balance.

I think that stems from a greater awareness of social ills by the common person than say...40 or 50 years ago...people are aware of threats that they did not perceive back then. For example, one only needs to search their zip code in the sex offender's registry..easily accessible online...to see the threat of sexual offenders in their own neighborhood. One only needs to hear about the over crowding in the prison systems due to drug offenses...and to know that the only solution currently offered is the early release of prisoners back into society...to perceive a growing drug problem. One only needs to turn on the news or go online to know the atrocities in every corner of the world...or to wonder about the effects of global warming...etc...

IMO the only way to combat a nameless fear is to recognize it, acknowledge it, become educated on it and choose the best course of action to combat it. I'm not aware of any other way to dispel a fear.