I did not say it is not a big problem. I said it is not that big a problem. Where that means–compared to what other countries suffer, compared to other dangers we face, and compared to our totally disproportionate tweaking of the response.

more excusable than unintended recipents of us attacks

Who said it was more excusable? Did I say it’s more excusable? Don’t put words in my mouth. I came up with a list of concrete things we could do to make terrorism less likely. The moral calculus there was thoroughly grounded in a realpolitik calculus. A little bit of apology goes a long freakin’ way.

I have friends in the disaster preparation community–friends who deal withthe fires and earthquakes we will DEFINITELY suffer from, friends who would be among the first responders should a terrorist attack happened–and they are SO frustrated with the extent to which ANY disaster preparation funding/money has to be totally geared around terrorism–which is statistically still so incredibly unlikely–that it’s really just sort of sapping their will to continue. Ever hear of a great American called FDR? The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Our obsession with terrorists is their biggest victory.

unchecked idealism is creeping into our chapatis…

I don’t know about yours, dude, but my mother worked that idealism in with the flour and the water.

Saheli,

Quite well said.

but what do you propose we do?

Oh I’ve got lots of ideas

1) scanning all the checked luggage and checking people randomly 2)Spend more money on funding the Coast Guard and the Port Authorities better, and less on war. 3) Spend more money on all-purpose first responders like MMRS and less on war. 4) Actually act like we’re sorry when we kill innocent people by mistake. 5) Try harder not to kill civilians with the excuse of “whereas . .. that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated” that’s really just about completely wrong. 6)Relax and realize that terrorism is not, actually, that big a problem in the United States–that other countries that deal with it a lot more than we do are not all that obsessed with it–and we’d be a lot better off worrying more about things like hurricanes and earthquakes, and that general disaster preparation works quite well for terrorism preparation as well.

Uh, Taz, I think we basically agree. I may have just phrased it badly. My whole point was that we should do that, not just be satisfied when browns are treated alright.

HA. What political organizing world do you live in? Currently, even though our “affluent society” has a lot of resources, the only way we use our pull on the hill is to take pictures with Congress people, not to bring our issues to light. As it stands in the 2.2 millions South Asians in the US, I think the only paid lobbyist on Indian issues on the Hill is through the AAHoA (? The hoteleers Association), and personally speaking, I have more in common with the white punk rockers and black union organizers then them. And I will create the coalitions with the union organizers and punk rockers to help push for issues important to me, not to plow over them to get into the door first.

I guess my point is I think it needs to be rephrased- we are not “rallying because we are brown, to cohere to the rest of the movement to maintain civil rights”– We are rallying because we are Americans that believe that “all men are created equal,” and we have rights. And these rights were abused to us because we are brown, and if there are people with history in the civil rights movement that we can partner with in coalition to continue to fight to protect our civil rights, than by all means.

Call it the idealistic me, but I do beleive in the Constitution, Bill of rights, the Naturalization Act of 1946 that gave Asian Indians the right to vote, and the 19 Amendment that gave women the right to vote, the 1970 26th Amendment that changed the voting age to 18 from 21- These were all things that secured for me what it means to be an American- and as long as I see this violated, even in just one person, especially in the basis of race, I’m going to fight it.

Razib – routinely trot godwin-esque lines about “it is like the jews in germany.”

Um, weren’t you the first commentor on here, and didn’t you bring ut up first?

As for the misplaced comparison with ‘jews in Germany’, sure browns are not Jews. But then, its USA we’re talking about not Germany either. I mean Germany was never a globally recognized beacon of freedom where the next decade would be built by today’s immigrants. US was/maybe is. So I think the situation that exists today is quite bad.