Ha. The same way you can eradicate illegal trade in animal parts, right. You can slow but never stop it, because as the risks go up, so does the price and the profits, and somebody's always willing to take the risk.
Prohibition didn't work for booze or gambling, and it won't work for anything else that large chunks of the population want to do.
Agreed. In that the way I mentioned it, I meant you could "technically" eradicate it (e.g. the documentary I saw on methamphetamine use in Thailand: the stuff's still used, sold, and made, but no one will admit to it openly and that's possibly even more dangerous) but you could never truly eradicate it.
Terrorism, IMO, is even more of a slippery beast than "drugs" because it's based in ideas and an ideology connected to deeply felt religious beliefs. And while you may eventually be able to convince someone not to smoke pot or drop acid on pain of death, forcing them to give up their religious beliefs, no matter how "crazy," turns them into a martyr and the person doing the forcing into a persecuting inquisitor. To totally eradicate terrorism or its possibility of occurring, we'd have to control thoughts and expressions of dissent and so on to the point where we'd completely destroy everyone's freedom, and doing that would inspire rebels who are, you guessed it, terrorists in their own way.
That's why I really think we as a world can't declare a successful war on and can never be rid of terrorism, because we *can't* rip out and stomp on the roots of it without destroying a lot of healthy and normal things like free speech, freedom of association, political dissent, political rebellion, and so on. It's a quite tangled mess that goes a lot deeper than the "terrorist or freedom fighter" debate.
Sorry for the rant. *laughs*
Quote:
Hiro and Ando were by far the highlights of the show. They and Peter Petrelli were I think the only characters who came across as actually real. And Charlie, oddly, for someone who was in it so little, and much kudos to the actress for it.
Word. Honestly, this is my problem with anything that has a ton of "main" characters (from fics suffering from OC overload to Chrono Cross to whatever) is that usually only a few characters, if any, get any development or anything past being a trope or stereotype or one-trick pony, and the rest can barely be dignified with uniqueness. Better two, three, four well-written characters than enough to populate a small island with who are written badly.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 05:16 am (UTC)Prohibition didn't work for booze or gambling, and it won't work for anything else that large chunks of the population want to do.
Agreed. In that the way I mentioned it, I meant you could "technically" eradicate it (e.g. the documentary I saw on methamphetamine use in Thailand: the stuff's still used, sold, and made, but no one will admit to it openly and that's possibly even more dangerous) but you could never truly eradicate it.
Terrorism, IMO, is even more of a slippery beast than "drugs" because it's based in ideas and an ideology connected to deeply felt religious beliefs. And while you may eventually be able to convince someone not to smoke pot or drop acid on pain of death, forcing them to give up their religious beliefs, no matter how "crazy," turns them into a martyr and the person doing the forcing into a persecuting inquisitor. To totally eradicate terrorism or its possibility of occurring, we'd have to control thoughts and expressions of dissent and so on to the point where we'd completely destroy everyone's freedom, and doing that would inspire rebels who are, you guessed it, terrorists in their own way.
That's why I really think we as a world can't declare a successful war on and can never be rid of terrorism, because we *can't* rip out and stomp on the roots of it without destroying a lot of healthy and normal things like free speech, freedom of association, political dissent, political rebellion, and so on. It's a quite tangled mess that goes a lot deeper than the "terrorist or freedom fighter" debate.
Sorry for the rant. *laughs*
Hiro and Ando were by far the highlights of the show. They and Peter Petrelli were I think the only characters who came across as actually real. And Charlie, oddly, for someone who was in it so little, and much kudos to the actress for it.
Word. Honestly, this is my problem with anything that has a ton of "main" characters (from fics suffering from OC overload to Chrono Cross to whatever) is that usually only a few characters, if any, get any development or anything past being a trope or stereotype or one-trick pony, and the rest can barely be dignified with uniqueness. Better two, three, four well-written characters than enough to populate a small island with who are written badly.