That was one lone crazy person. Are there other members of Breivik's gang out there? Totally different from an organisation of many people (possibly growing).

By the way, I grew up in London in the 80s.

The IRA were bombing Britain all the time. There are still no trash cans in the London subway system today; they were taken out because the IRA might leave bombs in them.

The IRA even hit Downing Street and one of Thathcer's political conferences.

There might have been stepped up security in Northern Ireland itself, but security in London during that period was far less than during this stupid "War on Terror", and there weren't all these stupid "anti-terror" laws. The regular police didn't even carry guns back then.

Thatcher tried to use a regulation banning the voices of Sinn Fein from being put on air because they were advocating terror. The BBC just played the footage and used voice-over artists to say their words.

And this was how 80's Britain responded to the IRA, which was a large and well funded organization.

So I have an existence proof that you don't have to turn into a police state as a response to terrorism, because I grew up in a country that chose another option.

This is the third time this is posted to you...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_of_Terrorism_Acts

For the last time in the 80s it did not work like you are implying.

During the "War on Terror" an old man and anti-Nazi RAF veteran was arrested under "anti-terror" laws for holding an anti-Blair placard at a demonstration. During the IRA years, well ... Find me an example of "security" that egregious during the period I mentioned, I double dog dare you.

Stuff was blowing up all the time but the people simply did not get all paranoid. Business as usual.

By the way, your wiki link refers to laws that were put in place in the 70s. If I recall correctly, Britain tried full scale internment in the 70s and got bitch slapped in court by Ireland, and then stopped. That may be the reason Britain was acting in a saner way in the 80s, but I wasn't debating the history of it.

I was simply saying that 80s Britain was an existence proof of a society not responding to terrorism by turning into a police state. The IRA terrorism hadn't stopped in the 70s, by the way - it continued into the 90s making it far longer-lasting than Afghanistan.

And finally, the topic was Guantanamo Bay, where people have been held without trial for more than a decade. You are trying to compare that to British emergency powers that held people for one week?

You can post that wikipedia page a fifth and sixth time, it still won't change anything. It will just make you look stupider and more of a liar.

>>It will just make you look stupider and more of a liar.

My claim was:

The idea with terrorism against democracies is to scare the living daylight out of voters in a country. The politicians in those democracies want to win the next election do everything to stop the terror.

Afaik, most every democracy that had a serious terrorist problem over years threw out the law book [...]

You argue that the Brits of the 1980s weren't that scared, Blitz-style. That might be true (your personal experience isn't that big support) -- but it is not relevant for my point, which is about politicians' reactions to scared civilians.

But you know that, troll.

For British response: I posted a link to the law above. Google site:hrw.org yourself, for more -- it was definitely harsher than pure criminality would need.

Congrats troll, you got another answer. Now you can lie more about what I wrote, to see if you get another...

I don't need to lie about what you wrote, you are doing that yourself.

Firstly, you come out with this stuff whenever an even tangentially related topic comes up on HN. So you are not making an observation about political science, you are engaging in advocacy. You are saying "Hooray for throwing out the rule book! That keeps us safe and stops the towelhead terrorists!". Like you did here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4474143

Secondly, you are engaging in the no true scotsman fallacy whenever I give a counterexample. Breivik wasn't true terrorism because he was just one guy. Well that's irrelevant. The size and scale of any terrorist attack ever made up to now has been insignificant next to the damage to civil liberties from "security" or even to the death toll from road accidents. The difference is whether the population get hysterical, as you are advocating, or maintain their sense of proportion, as I am advocating. Marinus Van Der Lubbe was also just one guy, but we got Hitler and the Nazis being given emergency powers as a result of the Reichstag fire, because the Germans in the 30s ran around screaming about how the scary, scary legions of communist barbarians (well funded by their Russian backers) were a serious threat to all of civilization, just like you keep screaming about how the scary, scary legions of islamist barbarians (well funded by their oil-sheikh backers) are a serious threat to all of civilization.

Well we don't have to treat this crap as natural. Any sane society, like the Norwegians today and unlike the Germans in the 30s, can just refuse to be scared, and put checks and balances in place to curb the politicians, like the European courts curbed the British government.

Politicians taking away liberties under the excuse of "security" is the oldest fraud in the book, as anyone can see from Julius Caesar's comments on Sulla. Nobody who grew up in a country with functioning schools and books has any excuse for not knowing better.

Wow, you are totally shameless in lying about what I write!

>>You are saying "Hooray for throwing out the rule book! That keeps us safe and stops the towelhead terrorists!".

>>The difference is whether the population get hysterical, as you are advocating

I have written that terrorism against democracies is generally to influence/scare the population. See quote in what you comment on, troll.

You are fully aware that I have never discussed the motivation for (/morale of) that reaction, just noted that it is the usual outcome.

(I only read a few seconds until I saw a couple of quotes to show that you lie, troll.)

Breivik was a zionist nut job, there are many others out there that fit that classification, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Defense_League.

Similarly, Tim McVeigh was a militia nut job, there are many others like him out there, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Republican_Army

However, these are white people, so when they blow something up they are just "one lone crazy person".

When 19 brown people bring down a couple of trade towers, suddenly it becomes "totally different"?

To be consistent with your logic, the Clinton administration should have carpet bombed Elohim City and suspended human rights in Oklahoma, including keeping innocent people locked up without trial, until they got every last Klan nut/ Church nut/Gun nut out there.

Breivik was a single crazy -- not a set of organized terror groups with thousands of members (and hundreds of millions of dollars in finances) which regularly execute complex simultaneous bombings, etc, etc.

That makes the existing alQ 2001 at least a million times larger problem than Breivik in his cell 2013.

AGAIN, Breivik is only a member of a group in his own mind -- and in your mind. (I seriously wonder if there are more similarities.)

Usually at this point, I write "But you know that you're arguing nonsensically, troll".

I can't do that in your case, so instead:

I hope you're just a sad loser failing to troll and not such a hatemonger that you make bad arguments just to get some support for your conspiracies.

Edit: Clarity.

You assert Breivik was a single crazy but you ignore the fact that his kahanist buddies in outfits like the JDL are well funded organized groups.

You also ignore that in terms of the domestic terror threat, according to the FBI organized jewish loons are a larger threat than yemeni moslem loons - and that jewish loons aren't being locked up indefinitely

http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-2135229.html

You also ignore that when the US was in a similar situation, during the McVeigh episode, the US did not respond towards the militiamen by locking them up without trial. They used normal law enforcement procedures. And McVeigh was not a lone wolf. That lot are organized and well funded

But if you didn't ignore these parallels, you'd be forced to see that there is an alternative called "the rule of law". And you wouldn't like that. You prefer the policy "lock up the towelheads and throw away the key".

And you call me a hatemonger.

Just so I get your position right:

1. Al Qaeda can be described as 19 brown people -- not thousands of members (and hundreds of millions in finances) with repeated attempts at mass murder through terrorism.

2. If the Western world wasn't racist -- Breivik should have gotten as much attention as al Q, despite his whole gang (he, himself) being in jail.

3. This attention of Breivik is merited because: Two groups of crazies in USA, which did some terror a few decades ago, might have similar opinions as Breivik (according to you).

(One of those groups even have a different religion and the other group's members could hardly find Norway on a map.)

I'm sorry, my position is still that you're either a really pathetic troll or some sick hatemonger. But I did stop laughing, your existence is too depressing.

And no, Al Qaeda is not some James-Bond baddy organization with hundreds of millions in finances, you pulled that out of your ass.

Al Qaeda is a common name used by lots of different little local terrorist groups to make themselves seem menacing. eg if the Al Shabab boys in Somalia want to make themselves seem badass, they call themselves "Al Qaeda in Somalia"

But facts don't matter to you because you are a complete fraud.

So we'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and pretend that you are talking sense. We'll pretend that you were referring to Osama Bin Laden's organization in 2001. His actual organization, not the one in your fever dreams.

That organization had hardly any people outside of Afghanistan. And didn't use much money. Their entire budget for the attack was 19 air tickets and some box cutters.

The facts about the attack are also that it was small. Large for a terrorist attack, but small in the grand scale of things. 2 or 3 buildings knocked down, and about 3000 people killed.

We'll throw in the US embassy bombings and the attack on the USS Cole as well.

And you are saying this grand total justifies extraordinary rendition, suspension of habeas corpus and the Geneva conventions, the Patriot act etc etc etc. while the Korean war didn't?

Mao's China and Kim Il Sung's Korea put together, with their legions of commandos (and now their nukes) were a threat.

Are you trying to say a few thousand suicide bombers are a bigger threat? Such a bigger threat that we have to give up civil liberties for them that we did NOT have to give up when at war with China?

Are you really that stupid?

I skimmed enough to see that you didn't argue against my description of your position.

So I take it the description was accurate.

I note that you lie about what I wrote, which was: All (functioning) democracies tend to ignore human rights and laws when its citizens are threatened with terrorism.

I removed the rest and references. You phantasize something without me having to help anyway...

No you idiot. I was replying to rmc when he said Breivik was a lone nut job. I gave another example of McVeigh, who was definitely not a lone nut job, and pointed out that the same rule applies. And so the McVeigh example invalidates rmc's point by itself. Are you really that stupid that you keep missing the point?

You suggested that others should do as Norway did, re Breivik.

So, as usual, it was pointed out to you that Norway was a very different situation since Breivik was in jail, there is no big organisation that promise more terror.

Then you went troll and described 9/11 as "19 brown people" and started talking about unrelated crazies on another continent of Breivik -- decades earlier.

Edit: That you lie about what you wrote yourself means that you're an unusually sad troll and not a mental case. That makes me happy, believe it or not. Please get a life instead. If you go to a gym/psychologist it should be ok in the end.

ucee054 made the same claim re Breivik a year ago when I posted the same argument -- he didn't answer that same point then either.

ucee054 earlier also argued for jewish conpiracy theories, etc.

Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059752

Edit: Brevity, spelling error, link.