Slashdot Mirror
Tennessee Official: Water Complaints Could be "Act of Terrorism"
An anonymous reader writes "A Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director is threatening citizens with being listed as terrorists for giving official complaints. Sherwin Smith, deputy director of TDEC’s Division of Water Resources said: 'But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there's no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.' 'In terms of the comments made by a member of the Water Resources Division at the meeting, we are just receiving the information and looking into this on our end,' spokeswoman Meg Lockhart said. 'The department would like to fully assess what was said in the meeting. I am told that the meeting was far longer than the audio clip provided by SOCM and that Mr. Smith actually clarified his remarks. But again, we are looking into it.'"
While I generally agree with the concept, there's one problem with McCarthyism you may have missed.
Turns out, after a lot of documents from the era and before have revealed, Russia and the communist movement actually DID have widespread influence over the US government. The results have been quite visible. For example, one obvious result is that "the people" have this ridiculous notion that the government is "here to protect them."
The federal government is not here to "protect us." It is charged with the common defense and general welfare. That's just about it.
The government's number one tool in the fight against terrorism.
I hate to say it, but by definition, the only way for terrorism to work is for people to be terrified.
If the People would grow a backbone again, and stop being terrified, no matter if it's salafi jihadists or government propagandists who are attempting the scaring, then there could be no terrorism. War's over, let's pack up and go home.
A skiddish populous is the #1 tool in the effort that has been misnamed the "War on Terror".
The "War on Terror" is symbolic language for the war against al Qaida, just as the "war against fascism" was symbolic language for the fight against Germany and Italy in WW2. Supposedly smart people should be able to understand symbolism, but there seems to be little evidence for it on Slashdot since I keep reading the same nonsense over and over again.
You don't have to be terrified to take actions against terrorists. Just making the judgment that it is prudent to prevent mass slaughter of your fellow citizens is enough. Or maybe you could explain why it is a good idea to let your fellow citizens be killed by the thousands and do nothing?
Al Qaida is just as happy killing brave people as they are frightened people. You seem to be in the camp that wants people to be brave against terrorists, and frightened of the government. Such frightened people are easier to kill. People frightened of their government are prone to interfere with government attempts to protect them. The result of that will be the population in effect becoming human shields for al Qaida. That won't end well, at least for Americans.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell