Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Leafsnail]

But suddenly, people discovered airplanes can actually crash into the sides of buildings! Now Airplanes have special laws. Laws ships and trains don't have. Odd, when you consider the damage a train can do if deliberately hijacked. Or a Ship. But terrorists haven't struck terror there.

There are clearly absolutely no differences between planes (fast, can fly anywhere), boats (slow and easy to evacuate any area a hijacked one is moving towards/ intercept it) and trains (fixed on rails, generally have "emergency stop" levers in the carriages that cannot be overridden by the driver which would make hijacking one fucking useless, often remotely controllable, can be easily escaped from once stopped with the emergency stop button).

EDIT: Why am I even bothering, you'll just keep spitting out more and more strawman arguments no matter how many of them are exposed as crap.

[Dsarker]

It's also impossible to stop a plane without shooting it down. A boat you can board, a train can be stopped as you have said.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Don't know much about the John Titor thing, but I was predicting this state of politics since 2007... It was obvious that Obama was going to win.  I had no faith in him back then and was telling everybody that around the third year of his term, the nation would begin erupting in disappointment, disillusion, cynicism, desperation, and anger.

2007? Some people called it in December 2000

There are clearly absolutely no differences between planes (fast, can fly anywhere), ... boats (slow and easy to evacuate any area a hijacked one is moving towards/ intercept it) and trains (fixed on rails, generally have "emergency stop" levers in the carriages that cannot be overridden by the driver which would make hijacking one fucking useless, often remotely controllable, can be easily escaped from once stopped with the emergency stop button).

EDIT: Why am I even bothering, you'll just keep spitting out more and more strawman arguments no matter how many of them are exposed as crap.

Added a few links to your reply just to highlight your statement that they are different vehicles.
By the way... Here's an interesting article on train breaking distance.

There are also some real nasty terror attacks above and beyond what you think using just stuff that is commonly found traveling along highways, but




It wouldn't be hard to outline, plan, and "pretend execute" 10 that would have theoretical casualty effects that are quite significantly larger then you might imagine, but not only would that risk someone getting hurt for an intellectual exercise, it'd also only result in idiots panicking and imposing more stupid unnecessary regulation due to an inability to really examine actual risk of injury to themselves.

By the way, a strawman argument is about creating a position the other person doesn't have, and then attacking it. An example of me doing that would be saying "You favor a police state", and then deconstructing a police state.

What I've been doing instead is accepting that you all favor some form of regulation based on the potential threat airplanes represent, showing that the "threat" of airplanes is less than what you think, and stating that the regulations that have been imposed because of airplane attacks has been pure hysteria and worthless, as well as stating that ANY regulation imposed due to terror attacks would be the same.

Is your position not "in favor of some, but different, regulation due to the threat hijacked airplanes represent"?
If it isn't, I apologize. It certainly seems to be.

[Phmcw]

@Truean :

Well, you don't just discuss with terrorists. They have girlfriends, a mother, a father, a family, friends...
Well trained operatives are the minority, and Al quaida was an exception, given that they were trained by the US at forming a terrorist organization (how much do you bet that their clever cellular line of command was designed in Washington?) to fight the soviets. The terrorist we have home are expatiate afghan fighters that try to recruit young Muslims. There monitoring and having a good relation with Muslims communities, and an understanding justice in case of a concerned mother denouncing his son definitely help...

Anyway it's not an idealist dream, it's the basis for the coordinated European anti-terrorist efforts and it certainly shown good results.

Actually it's the only way to get good result in any crime-fighting policies.

[Leafsnail]

EDIT: Why am I even bothering, you'll just keep spitting out more and more strawman arguments no matter how many of them are exposed as crap.

STRAWMAN ARMY, MOVE OUT

Instead of addressing any points that other people make, you just throw in random irrelevant issues and assume your opponent's position on them without asking.  Then you brilliantly expose a contradiction between their position and the strawmanned position you made up (and apparently you can't even tell you're doing this).

[PTTG??]

The bill passed but the specific problem amendment that would have caused the problem failed. Nothing to see here.

[Phmcw]

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senate-rejects-amendment-banning-indefinite-detention

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/2011/11/29/national-security-at-risk-as-udall-webb-amendment-fails-to-pass-senate/

No you got it wrong, sorry. The Udall amendment was the one who would have repelled the "infinite detention without trial" not the other way around.
So the bill passed full force and it's two third of the senate that hates your guts.

[NewsMuffin]

No action taken to bring justice to banks that blatantly broke the law in 2008

I don't know if anyone has said this before in this thread, but this is wrong.
No action was taken because they didn't break the law. They lobbied congress/the senate to change laws, which they did, so that they could do what they did. What they did was perfectly legal because they MADE it legal.

[Dsarker]

No action taken to bring justice to banks that blatantly broke the law in 2008

I don't know if anyone has said this before in this thread, but this is wrong.
No action was taken because they didn't break the law. They lobbied congress/the senate to change laws, which they did, so that they could do what they did. What they did was perfectly legal because they MADE it legal.

Reminds me of Star Wars Episode One.

"My lord...is that legal?"
"I will make it legal."

[Shinziril]

As for the airplanes . . .

Problem: Airplanes are large, high-velocity flying vehicles that can be used as impromptu kinetic impactors.

Thesis: Pilots are already screened to ensure they will not use an airplane as a missile.  Therefore we only need to worry about non-pilots.  Therefore you simply need to make the controls of the airplane physically inaccessible to anyone who is not a pilot.

Solution: Does the pilot of an airplane need to leave the pilot's compartment for any reason while the airplane is in flight?  If no (and I don't think they do), simply install a door between the passenger compartment and the pilot's compartment thick enough to withstand anything small enough to be possibly smuggled onto an airplane (e.g. bolt cutters are not an issue, due to being rather unsubtle).  These doors may even already be present.  Put a lock on the door, preferably on the pilot's side of the door so that it is inaccessible from the passenger compartment.  Keep the door locked while the airplane is in flight. 

The maximum damage a passenger can do is now restricted to damaging the passengers or the airplane with weapons or explosives.  Standard methods of checking for weapons and explosives (x-ray scans of luggage, chemical sensors, metal detectors, etc) should work well at preventing this form of attack.  You can bring useful objects that happen to be usable as weapons (scissors, etc) in checked luggage, since that will be inaccessible on the airplane anyway. 

Boom, done.  And all we had to do was install locks on the doors, and bump up the weapons checks a little. 

[kaijyuu]

I can't tell if you're being satirical or not, but I'll assume not.


First off, airplane controls pretty much already are completely incomprehensible to anyone who's not a pilot. Have you seen those things? Like, 300 different buttons and dials.

Secondly, the 9/11 hijackers were trained pilots, though not for jets that size. Still good enough to direct them toward buildings though.

Thirdly, pilots have to leave their seat to go to the bathroom, meals, etc. There isn't a toilet there and eating over the controls is a Bad Idea (tm). IIRC at least one commercial jetliner has crashed before because someone spilled coffee on the controls.

Fourthly, any physical barrier that a pilot can get through, a hijacker can get through. They're already in control of the plane, so they're in a position to demand keys/etc, and as such locks would be useless.

[Hitty40]

Sigh. Like I've said before, I just can't wait until someone decides to bomb Congress for the crap they do. First it was censoring the Internet, now it's this.

FUCK YOU, CONGRESS.

[kaijyuu]

Bombing congress would make them enact harsher laws for national security, not more lenient.

Unless you're advocating outright, bloody revolution, in which case I hope you realize the full extent of that.

[Hitty40]

Bombing congress would make them enact harsher laws for national security, not more lenient.

Unless you're advocating outright, bloody revolution, in which case I hope you realize the full extent of that.

I've considered it. Without bombing Congress of course, more like storm the White House.

[DJ]

Make sure to wear a Guy Fawkes mask while you're setting the charges, for good luck.