Have you ever been through an event that drastically changed your perspective?

Of course people are going to change, it’s a big event that is obviously terrible. But…People do realize one of the tenets of terrorism is to make people think like you are now, right? That whole “letting the terrorists win” thing?

Is that all it takes? One event and you’re going to cave? Terrorists aren’t all just sitting on one spot, waiting to be caught. They are born everyday and this stuff will keep happening whether we torture or don’t torture, increase security or don’t increase security, unfortunately.

You want to stop terrorism? Let’s try to spread education, sanitation, clean water, etc. Not revenge.

@Blackberry Agreed. As I said, sober perspective reinforces my opposition to such tactics. When it comes down to it, I could not support any of the measures I mentioned. But I now understand that point of view in a way I couldn’t before today.

@FireMadeFlesh So we get all hyped up, people feed off of it, and once again war is “justified”, all over emotions. I get it, it’s ok and I feel the same way too sometimes.

I’ve been through this before. My sister walked out of a department store a few minutes before a bomb went off. The IRA blew up the centre of my hometown. Every Christmas there were warnings about opening parcels because there were bomb threats.

I’ve spent today crying and watching the news and I feel terrible that those people are still in that store and I hope when we wake up in the morning, they’re all safe and home with their families.

None of that has made me feel behaving in a barbaric fashion is okay. Sure I’m angry. Certainly if the police could have got a clear shot and taken this gunman out I wouldn’t complain, but I don’t want to see our government using this as an excuse to turn a blind eye to torture or as a reason to bring back state sanctioned murder. Previous governments have already turned a blind eye to things that make me feel ashamed. I don’t want to live in a country that accepts such actions. I don’t want the behaviour of people like this gunman or those like him to change me or my country that way. We’re better than that.

@FireMadeFlesh, You know what really changes my perspective? The #Illridewithyou campaign believed to have been instigated by a young woman Rachel Jacobs. Her actions and the support Australians are giving to Muslim people in our country by offering to ride with them on buses and trains if they feel insecure or afraid reminds me what fabulous people Australians are when they have the right leadership.

Developing an illness that caused me chronic pain for many years changed my perspective. Adults used to tell me don’t take your health for granted, and suddenly I really understood. I also understood what it is like to be in pain daily with no end in sight, which I really think unless you experience it you can’t know.

Having an ectopic pregnancy that my insurance didn’t want to pay for treatment and finding out the insurance price for the treatment was over $400, but if I paid out of my pocket it was less than $50 opened my eyes to the ways of our medical system.

The building of the house I am building now made me understand how a long marriage can fall apart. We haven’t fallen apart, but I get now how not being on the same page as your spouse and no easy way to resolve the situation can make you feel isolated, scared, angry, and resentful.

About the patriot act. I’m not sure why the world thinks all Americans just agreed with it like sheep. Certainly, here on Fluther many Americans have talked about having problems with parts of it, and we have Americans on both sides of many issues. I know the world tends to perceive us as overly religious, war mongers, who are too materialistic, but I don’t understand how people from around the world who actually interact with Americans regularly think we are all alike. That we all, 330 million of us, think the same on everything just because our government decides to do something.

My dad used to beat the shit out of my mom and sister and said he would kill her and us before he would allow a divorce. She felt like she had no option but to kill him before he killed us. And one night when she came home after my dad was beating the shit out of my sister for (getting fat) she shot my dad.

I was around ten years old and had to testify at my mothers sentencing and this was about the most fucking horrific thing a kid could should ever have to do. Our words decided if my mom you would be out in a month or if she would die in prison.

Here is the life changing part. If we had lived in a state sponsored murder state my ten year old testimony could have been the deciding factor between being a battered woman and murder.

One of the many reasons I am against the death penalty.

@Earthbound_Misfit I spent much of today talking to my British colleagues about the Troubles. I still struggle to comprehend that happening in a country with the wealth and prowess of the UK. My thoughts expressed above were momentary. I’d never turn a blind eye to anyone trying to make political mileage or trying to shift the balance of power because of this. It’s just hard to quell the anger towards the person or people responsible, and the associated ideology.

@JLeslie Great examples, thanks. I certainly don’t think you are all the same, or that you all agreed with it like sheep. Maybe it was the way it was reported in the media, but the impression I got is that the Patriot Act was rushed through while people were distracted by their shock and grief, and opposition to the Act only built to a significant volume after it was passed. But that is my impression looking back. I was still a kid when it all happened, and it was a few years until I started to understand.

@johnpowell That is truly awful. I don’t know what to say, except I’m really sorry to hear that.

Certainly the country’s shock was used to get the act through. I would have to agree with that. It helped pass the act before it was really discussed to any length. We can’t ignore much of the act is still intact even now, so I am not trying to say “America” isn’t willing to give up privacy and freedom for safety. Look at the UK. They went through years of terrorists threats and acts and from what I understand London has a tremendous amount of cameras catching everyone’s every move.

I’ve been through some crap in my life, and I was watching TV live when the second plane hit and when the towers collapsed, but it didn’t change my perspective. Right is right, torture is wrong, and detaining people like that is wrong. @Earthbound_Misfit hit the nail on the head. Good leadership. We didn’t have that when this happened. Two wars later, casualties all over the place, ISIS, etc. Yeah the world is a better place for our actions.~ @Blackberry also had the answer. Make peoples lives better and the world becomes safer. The Patriot Act was rammed through with hardly any review. No one had the balls in Congress to more than quietly protest the act.

@johnpowell Yea there’s nothing to say there except I hope you can somehow be at peace emotionally and mentally from that. I’m sorry man.

@JLeslie Come get some nice medical marijuana here in CO :) I hope your pain stops soon some day.

@Adirondackwannabe I saw the towers fall on TV, but I was also a teenager. If I was an adult when that happened it definitely would have affected me more.

Maybe my view is tainted and pessimistic but I don’t think “education, sanitation, clean water” ,“make lives better” etc. will do it There are, and will always be, religious nutjobs wanting to make a statement.
Think of the Boston Marathon Trash-naev bothers who had been living and going to school in the US at a college and friends who opened their arms to them. They had everything listed above. Yet the trash boys struck at a soft target injuring innocents. They had equipment and components to do other devices and were capable of buying much more.
Does anyone here think they would have stopped at that one event had they not been caught?

The world will always have people having more than they need and those wanting what other have.

I never criticize without offering a solution, no matter how outlandish it appears at first so here is my alternative.
I believe women can help solve much of the worlds ills. If they stop mating and having children with abusers (religious, militant or otherwise) the population of poor, enslaved, uneducated people would drop in a generation or two. They need to be taught that every abuser falls asleep at some point and that might be a good time to rectify the situation.
My heart breaks for the 250 girls kidnapped from the Catholic school and sold as slaves, (sorry, “wives”) to members of the Islamic group, “Broken hymen”. I can’t imagine the unspeakable indignities and tortures they are going through. Now imagine what an empowered 15 year old could do when her rapist (sorry, “husband”) falls asleep.
If people were taught to fight back at the appropriate time, there would be fewer victims in the long run. Fewer abusers, fewer victims, fewer future children of abusers.

Interesting angle. I’m not sure all of the women could find the strength to do that but if it eliminates a few it’s a start. I was thinking improve the lives of people to reduce the pool of nutjobs. But really, we don’t even need religion in the mix. Columbine, the CT shooter, they were just nutjobs. @Blackberry I was an adult when we watched it and it was terribly sickening. It was complete silence in the office where I was watching.

@FireMadeFlesh The cops went in. It’s over, for now.

I’m thinking how nice it must be to live in a country where an event like this still has the power to shock. I feel numbed by the continued gun violence in America and it doesn’t really matter much if it is perpetrated by a terrorist or an Adam Lanza – it just affects what we have to take off at airports.

Certainly, 9/11 made me feel vulnerable and afraid but I never supported the war in Iraq or torture techniques or all of the Patriot Act.

(As a side note, I found it incredible that I heard about this as it was happening from an Australian Jelly and when I turned to CNN, there was no reporting of it at the time.)

Personally, the event that changed my world view the most was being walked out on. That viscerally made me unsure of how I was going to cope when the person who represented safety and stability to me declared he was moving out.

But I understand what you are saying @FiremadeFlesh about an event making you empathize with feelings you hadn’t before.

The hostage situation no matter how horrible or how many lives were at stake, in way compares to 9/11. Our entire society was at stake. No airlines were flying, the stock market closed, people all across the country lost their life savings. We were the most powerful country (both economically and militarily) on earth and we were hit with impunity. We didn’t know where the next hit was coming from and had no way to stop it. Think about Hiroshima and what the Japanese might have been willing to do after the bomb was dropped to try and stop the next one.

I am not justifying the Patriot Act nor the EITs but the game changes when your entire society is at risk. We tend to forget, it was more than just 3,000 lives.

Absolute wannabe amateur pussy, bet he shat himself senseless when the cops stormed the joint, fucking loser.

My take is that as awful and sad as these situations are there really is no new news, no new violence, no new anything under the sun. There has been terrorism since the crusades and Kublai Khan. There is nothing new, just variations of the same ol’ same ol’.
The biggest change I experienced was choosing to check out of all media after 9–11.

Gorging on tragedy does nothing to rectify what’s done. Tis the way of the world and nothing has changed in 1000’s of years, and is unlikely too as long as humans exist.
Iis what it is.

I personally wasn’t shocked by 9/11. Not in the way that most Americans always felt safe and like no one would date hate us or harm us in such a way. Being Jewish I know full well people can hate you and want to kill you for nothing. For just being born. I grew up knowing if it can happen in civilized democratic Germany it can happen anywhere. Add in attacks on the US like our military ship of of Yemen, the terrorist event in the world trade centers prior to 9/11, other western countries attacked by terrorist.

Why does anyone think it can’t happen at any time anywhere to anyone. I’ve said before when I married in ‘93 and took my husband’s last name I thought to myself now I am the first few dead in the hijacked plane. We have a very Jewish middle eastern name. Those Arab Muslim hijackers would see it on a manifest and I would be a target. I didn’t need 9/11 to know that. Not that I am saying all Arabs or Muslims are hijackers, that’s ridiculous if anyone thinks I am even hinting at it. I am only talking about actual hijackers. I have always had Arab, Persian and Muslim friends. It upsets me to no end that events in the last 15 years cause people to associate Muslims so strongly with terrorism, because my personal experience has always been very positive.

@Blackberry The worst of it ended years ago. The chronic daily pain had lasted 8 long years. About 2.5 years ago I had my golf cart accident so now I have a different set of pains and limitations. The one I was referring to for this Q was the 8 year one, thankfully it’s much better.

I love you @LuckyGuy, I want to say that upfront, but I object to the suggestion that the ills of the world will be cured by women making better choices and despatching those who abuse.

Those 250 young women are powerless within a male dominated society. And to suggest that a woman in such a society murder her husband, what do you think would happen to her then? She would be charged with murder and executed. Women are executed for ‘allowing’ themselves to be raped in such countries. Fathers kill their daughters to rid themselves of the shame she has brought on her family by being raped. Such cases are at the extreme end of abuses women can experience, but men standing up against abuses against women wherever and however they occur is what will prevent them. Whether it be by refusing to share pornography produced through the exploitation of women, or calling out those who share demeaning and derogatory jokes about women, to challenging the man who verbally or physically abuses his wife – men have the power to reduce the abuse of women.

Certainly women should make good choices, but they need to feel confident that their family, friends, their society and the system they live under will support them and protect them when they do stand up against their abusers. I don’t think you can say that situation exists in the US and I don’t think it exists in Australia or in Saudi Arabia or Iraq. We have a long way to go in terms of providing safe environments for women before we can say women should or can solve this problem and are responsible for stopping the abuse of women.

I also agree with @Blackberry that communities take the power away from terrorists by ensuring our young people are educated and supported. By being inclusive, not exclusive. By not allowing events such as this Sydney hostage taker to make us rise up and turn against Muslim people en masse. Rather we need to follow the example of the young woman who prompted the #Illridewithyou movement. By providing a wall of support, love and care for the ‘others’ in our community, we build a defence against the hate propagated by terrorists and those who exclude the vulnerable within society. Their messages mean nothing if their hate messages, often directed to the weak, the young and the vulnerable, reach people who feel they are part of and belong to both their immediate and broader community.

Thanks everyone for your responses. It helps immensely to discuss this with friends.

@LuckyGuy As always, thanks for your thoughts. I think @Blackberry‘s suggestion of education, sanitation, and clean water is very sensible, but it will never eliminate terrorism. Many captured suicide bombers admit that they attempted their attacks because of their extreme poverty, and the hope for a better life in Paradise. Education and economic reforms could reduce the size of the ignorant population from which they recruit. But it isn’t the whole solution.
Your solution I also think is only partially correct. I would not shed a tear for an abusive man killed at the hands of the abused woman. But men aren’t solely to blame for these problems. The Nigerian shopping centre attack earlier this year was led by a woman. Several young girls have escaped Australia recently, without their family’s knowledge or consent, to become ISIL brides. I don’t think a gender based approach is appropriate.

@janbb Maybe that’s why the airports in the US were so unpleasant when I passed through. This really does shock us here – we haven’t had a gun massacre since 1996, and even the local gangsters usually shoot aimlessly at houses. Civilians are rarely caught in the crossfire between criminals. I shudder to think what may have happened if he had access to an AR-15 rather than a shotgun.

@JLeslie I guess it is a matter of awareness. I read about these things, so I knew about the NSA surveillance before Snowden, and I knew about KSM being waterboarded 183 times before the CIA torture report. But those events brought publicity. Likewise many of my Australian friends seemed to think the ISIL or Al Qaeda brand of terrorist would never hit us here. They thought it was only a problem in other countries. I think it is the sudden publicity, and the feeling that it is closer to home than ever before that makes it so shocking.

Is it definitely Al Qaeda or some other organized group? Or, was it some lone lunatic? I haven’t kept up with the details of the story, except that I heard two people were killed and also the man who took the hostages.

In America my point would be summed up by saying isn’t it nice to be a white Christian male in America. To not feel vulnerable. Whether it be organized terrorism or some idiot who likes to harass women or worse.

I never understood why we needed the patriot act to tap phone lines and do surveillance. It seems to me if there is cause we always could get a judge to sign off.

The man was an Iranian cleric who came here in 1996. Seven years ago he sent abusive letters to the families of dead soldiers who served in Afghanistan. He has also been charged as an accessory in the brutal murder of his ex-wife (apparently his girlfriend murdered her). In addition, he has a stream of indecent and sexual assault charges against him. He was in court last week trying to have the charges laid against him in relation to the poison pen letters overturned. His attempt was unsuccessful.

He has been gaoled previously and apparently suffered abuse while in prison. On the news it said it had to do with excrement being spread around his cell.

There have been no suggestions he has any formal links to terrorist organisations. He has been described as ‘isolated’ from the community by his legal representatives. One of them said they weren’t surprised at his involvement in this situation. The man sounds as though he was unhinged and angry. The police were well aware of him and he was out on bail.

A cleric that had his girlfriend kill his wife? And a sex offender? I’d say religion had no part in this one. He’s friggin nuts.

I’d agree @Adirondackwannabe. There’s more about him in this article about him.

Well we have our own religious nutjob, protesting at military funerals. I think he’s Baptist?

@Adirondackwannabe and @Earthbound_Misfit I read a book once written by a hostage negotiator under the alias of Ben Lopez. He described this type of individual as a “pathology in search of a cause”. I’d agree with that assessment. I doubt he had any formal links, but the likelihood that he drew inspiration from radical groups means the situation needs to be considered in a wider context.

I agree @FireMadeFlesh however, while I don’t think we can ignore those influences, I think there is danger in becoming sidetracked or bogged down in possible terrorism/ISIS connections. As soon as that flag was raised, that was the focus of this incident. And while yes, he was influenced or inspired by the activities of radical groups, he wasn’t acting for such a group. I think his motivations were much more selfish.

I am going to have to say that the events of 911 forever changed my perspective. I live in a fly over state, was enjoying my morning coffee and had the news on TV, announcers were reporting about a fire in one of the towers, and then I saw the 2nd plane fly into the other tower and when I saw that, I knew it was a deliberate act. Later, as the day unfolded and the towers fell, I cried and felt, for lack of a better word, personally violated. I was forever changed.

@Earthbound_Misfit I love you too. Like I said, I never criticize without offering a solution – no matter how outlandish. Absolutely, those 250 innocent girls would be dead if they sliced off the offending hobbits while the owners slept. The owners might even bleed to death.
No matter how it ends the result would be fewer religious nutjobs, fewer children brought up believing in the principles terrorism, fewer mouths to feed in regions rife with starvation, unemployment, and an unlimited supply of weapons, fewer girls turned into sex slaves and baby making machines.
That outlandish proposal makes more sense to me than the let’s play nice suggestions.

As a side note (but sort of similar) do you know why the US made it illegal to pay kidnapping ransoms? Because if someone pays it, their success encourages other perpetrators to commit similar acts. That is why so few Americans are kidnapped. The perps know they will get no money and will be hunted down like rats in a dump.
The recent successes of ‘broken hymen’ will encourage them to do it again – and again. They have learned to only take 30 or so girls at a time so they can fly under the world-wide outrage.radar.
Just imagine what the next group would think if they heard that some of the girls fixed their captors permanently. They might not be so willing to participate. At the very least they would have trouble sleeping nights.