Had an interesting discussion a couple of days ago. I spoke with a fervent conservative about the war. I'm against the war and have been since day one (I marched in protest before the war began, in fact), so I was interested in why he was for it. He was interested in what the basic differences were between liberal thoughts and conservative thoughts, too. We arrived at the conclusion that he, as a conservative, was much more worried about what terrorism could do to the homeland; I, as a liberal, was much more concerned with what the government could do to the homeland in the name of fighting terrorism.

As I've mentioned here in the past, my view is that Bush has now killed more of our volunteer US soldiers than the terrorists have managed to kill in their largest attack against us; meanwhile, Bush taps our phones, we have to submit to security checks and showing our papers when we travel by airplane (not nearly as bad as Nazi Germany, but reminiscent of it nonetheless), and freedom of speech was hindered for a while. ("Protesting the war makes you a terrorist.")

His view was that, if we didn't have troops over there fighting in Iraq, we would have attacks here instead of there, and more lives would have been lost. He mentioned that 3,000+ deaths is tiny in comparison to the Vietnam war, or WWII, or even the Korean war. Finally, he said that he hadn't been affected personally by any of the freedoms that had been removed. The Patriot act is supposed to be temporary, too.

So, in the end, he thinks that a) the consequences of terror are much more than I think they are for the mainland US; and b) the consequences of giving up essential freedoms for a little temporary safety are not nearly as bad as I think they are. _
respond?