Saturday, July 07, 2007

Madness

What do a blogger who works for the London Ambulance Service, Perry de Havilland of Samizdata, a Libertarian blog, and Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, according to Normblog, have in common? You wouldn't think much. But they share an extremely worrying view of the present terrorist threat, as illustrated by these three quotes.

"I'm not scared of terrorism, no-one I work with is scared of terrorism. We recognise that the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is much, much smaller than the numerous other causes of death and injury that we face everyday. What makes us more nervous is considering what the British government might do in response to these pitiful attacks."


"Frankly I am more worried about the pervasive threat posed to my civil liberties by Gordon Brown than the more or less random threat to my life posed by Al Qaeda."



"It is nonsense to suggest that al-Qaida or similar movements present an existential danger. Rather, the use of an alleged existential danger to justify extreme policies is where the real threat to world stability lies."

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