{"id":7396,"date":"2006-05-12T15:10:39","date_gmt":"2006-05-12T19:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7396"},"modified":"2006-05-12T15:10:39","modified_gmt":"2006-05-12T19:10:39","slug":"nothing-to-fear-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/nothing-to-fear-but\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing to fear but…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think everyone wants to better understand how two-thirds of the public<\/a> has no problem with a secret [tag]Bush[\/tag] administration program that collects records of our domestic [tag]phone calls[\/tag]. I talked about a couple of possibilities<\/a> earlier, but let’s also consider the importance of the “[tag]fear[\/tag]” element.<\/p>\n

Last night, for example, [tag]Fox News[\/tag]’ [tag]Neil Cavuto[\/tag] noted<\/a> the controversy and told his audience, “Yes, it is not great to necessarily hear they’re collecting our phone records, but it’s a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains.” It’s obviously a foolish remark from an unserious person, but it’s also a comment driven by fear — Cavuto is willing to give up civil liberties in the hopes that the government will keep him safer.<\/p>\n

Tapped’s Michael Tomasky suggests<\/a> the WaPo\/ABC [tag]poll[\/tag] results might be driven by Americans who are “still very, very scared of another terrorist attack,” and take a Cavuto-like attitude and say, “Hey, whatever it takes.”<\/p>\n

This is a good thing for us to be reminded of, I guess. I almost never think about the possibility of another terrorist attack, and it doesn’t seem to me that anybody I know does either. And I and most of the people I’m talking about live in a city that was attacked. But I can’t recall any friend of mine — both cultural elitists and<\/i> my “normal American” friends back in West Virginny — saying “Jeezus, I’m terrified they’re gonna hit us again, any day.” But I guess a lot of people do think that’s the case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kevin asks<\/a>, “Just how afraid are most Americans of another terrorist attack? That is, at a gut level, not an intellectual level.” I have to admit, I wonder the same thing. When I lived in DC, I thought about it a fair amount for months after 9\/11, but is there a genuine fear among Americans nationwide — far outside of DC and NYC — that causes two-thirds of them to say, “Go ahead, NSA, monitor my [tag]phone calls[\/tag]”?<\/p>\n

And if so, I also wonder where these people would draw the line. [tag]NSA[\/tag] [tag]eavesdropping[\/tag]? NSA cameras<\/em>? I think Tomasky’s right, too many people are willing to say, “Whatever it takes,” but is there any<\/i> limit in these folks’ minds?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think everyone wants to better understand how two-thirds of the public has no problem with a secret [tag]Bush[\/tag] administration program that collects records of our domestic [tag]phone calls[\/tag]. I talked about a couple of possibilities earlier, but let’s also consider the importance of the “[tag]fear[\/tag]” element. Last night, for example, [tag]Fox News[\/tag]’ [tag]Neil Cavuto[\/tag] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}