Paul.L said

"This is the most inane question I have yet seen on OLO."

Fine, given that that's how you've chosen to start your argument, I won't bother to read the rest. Try playing the ball in future.

Sylvia.

Sylvia Else
What I said actually WAS 'playing the ball'. If I was 'playing the man' I would have said that the Author was 'stupid, insensitive or naive'. I pointedly didn't do that. I try not to throw personal insults at anyone all though I seem to get them all the time.

Instead, I ridiculed your question and your argument because I don't believe it was very well thought through. Your basic premise is that few people are injured/killed by terrorism therefore why make special laws. My point is that if you follow this through logically then your complaint about the laws themselves is irrelevant, since few people are affected by them. The position is even more irrelevant, since the damage to the ‘victims’ of these laws is minor when compared to the victims of terror.

What both issues are really about is potential. Potential for the laws to be applied to those they shouldn't. And on the other hand, the potential of the terrorists to bring about murder and mayhem, maybe on a scale we have not yet seen. It is a difficult situation to balance and it is not helped by those who regularly predict the coming of a police state.

During the spate of IRA bombings etc in the 70’s and 80’s the British introduced internment, judge only trials, and CCTV for every street corner. The British managed to avoid becoming a fascist state. They very successfully resisted the urge to lock up anyone who disagreed with them. I don’t believe for a second we will ever become a police state either. Now I don’t advocate anything as draconian as the British experiment but it does puts the current spate of doomsayers into perspective

Oh Dear oh Dear; I wonder what Young Dan has been smoking ?

I am afraid a Bex and a nice lie down will be insufficient to calm him down.
Do these people really believe all that stuff ?
I think there is a medical term for it, something more than paranoid.

Paul.L

Ridiculing a question or argument IS an ad-hominem attack, because it's intended to reflect on the person asking the question or presenting the argument. It serves no valid debating purpose.

Sylvia.

SylviaElse
I am sorry if I hurt your feelings. I did assume that those who put their opinions in public would have thicker skins. I am sorry that you can’t see the difference between a direct personal attack and an attack on one of your ideas. Anyway, it’s now looking to me like you just don't want to debate my ideas. Is that because you have a sneaking feeling that some of them actually make sense?

Paul.L

You have not hurt my feelings, but I find approaches such as yours very annoying. It skews the debate when you seek to ridicule an argument, because it amounts to ridiculing the person who presented the argument. You should be able to present a contrary view without resorting to such tactics.

Such approaches have caused mistrials. See

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWCCA/2006/334.html

for an example where a court of appeal set aside a conviction and ordered a retrial because of comments made by the prosecutor.

It comes as no surprise that you should characterise my reaction as an attempt to avoid debate. Indeed, I was rather expecting you to do that - it fits a pattern.

Anyway, I'm not going to waste any more of my posting quota on you