WTF? Over
The courts of the United States have lost their connection to reality.
Digby has a a post on a WaPo article reporting a decision of a panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which it is stated: “Terrorism is the modern-day equivalent of the bubonic plague: It is an existential threat…”
The defendant, Tarek Mehanna, was convicted of providing material support for Al Qaeda by posting articles on a web site, and making pro-al Qaeda speeches.
Calling terrorism “an existential threat” blows the doors off exaggeration, blasts by hyperbole, and vanishes into the abyss of absurdity. The bubonic plague killed tens of millions of people, but in the last fifty years all of the ‘terrorists’ in the world haven’t accounted for a year of US traffic deaths. Israel loses more people in cars than from terrorists.
Global climate change is an existential threat, it actually is capable of wiping nations off the map. Terrorism is annoying, and nowhere near the danger that people face from severe weather. Paranoia in judges on the US appellate courts is not comforting.
November 14, 2013 4 Comments
