What is everyone really afraid of?

[napi21]

I gotta tell you, the last person on earth I ever thought would be afraid of anything was my BIL. He's a veteran Marine pilot, and served 24+ years in the Marine Corps. and served initially in Vietnam. He retired several years ago and he and his family live in Va. now. They visited here 2 weeks ago and as usual, he & I got into an argument. He's a strong Pub, but also convinced that there will be a President Hillary! Some of his arguments actually make a little sense, but then he started talking about why everyone should be AFRAID! He talked about how scared everyone was when those 2 random shooters were running around the DC, Va, MD. area, just randomly shooting people just because they could. Both he and his wife talked about how scared people were, and that all the stores were EMPTY because people were afraid to go out of their houses. He talked about how easy it would be to create real terror in the US by ANYBODY! It seems he's not so much afraid of muslims or foreign terrorists, but ANYBODY who's pissed off enough to do a series of stupid things.

O stopped arguing with him because there's no way to win an argument that ANYBODY from any party could possibly protect us from all risks. There are always going to be crazy people, and lots of them live right here in the US.

It's just mind boggeling to me that such a strong willed guy could be so intimidated.

I would have loved to say to him, "I am not going to be afraid of anything or anyone! If some nitwit bombs the mall while I'm there, then I guess that's the way I'll die, but I won't let anyone alter the way I live my life!"

[midnight]

1. Sounds to me like Bil is your son? Did you express the fact

that you found it mind boggeling that such a strong willed guy could be so intimidated? Because I think that it is the issue that pops out at me after reading your post. There is a man in my neighborhood. I saw him kick down my "bring the troops home sign". Then I saw him run away. I really didn't notice him before in my neighborhood, and have only seen him twice since then. It sure makes you wonder why he had to run away doesn't it? He sure was scared. Probably because he knows he broke the law.

[Matariki]

5. For her BIL to also be her son, he'd have had to marry his aunt.

:shrug:

[napi21]

10. My SON???? Where did you get THAT from? No, not hardly!

The BIL (brother in law) iI speak of is married to my husband's sister. He's only 4 years younger than I am. He's really a good guy and I've always liked him. He's a very worthy opponent in an argument...unless it's about politics! They do have a lot more $$ than I can ever hope to have, so maybe his political support of the Pubs is linked to that. I just found it amazing that a guy who fought in 'Nam, flew fighter jets, lived in Japan for 6 years, and has a strong willed personality, would be exhibiting such fear.

[FREEWILL56]

16. Really and especially after bush said it is ok to go to the malls and shop.

Yes it could be anybody and the ones that I'm thinking of are those pukes that hijacked the government and are going around invading and threatening everybody while doing similar injustices to their own citizenry. He should be scared, but for different reasons.

[flashl]

19. The people who was NOT living in fear during the DC, MD, VA sniper shootings ...

were blacks in DC, MD, and VA who live in neighborhoods without effective policing. Neighborhoods that most Americans would consider a war zone without the benefit of any support from their elected officals.

That's real evidence of two Americas one where bullets are flying everyday and the citizens have adapted, their children are suppose to still go to school and excel.

The other America where they lock their doors and stay in the house.

[Breeze54]

2. Crazy people scare me and if someone was running around

with an M16, like in MD, I wouldn't be out shopping either!

Of course no one can protect us from everything but if you

know there is a fucking nut loose, why risk it? :shrug:

Now, that seems crazy to me. Like going to classes at TX AM

even though there is a guy in the tower with a shotgun!

:silly:

But I'm not afraid to go out shopping anywhere, at anytime

except when there are nuts, as described above! ;)

On Edit:

What I'm really afraid of is not having the money TO go shopping! :P

[mrcheerful]

6. Then I take it you don't live in or near the inner city where theres a different gang on every

street and young drug dealers are packing. Reality time, getting into your car and driving to the store is far more dangerous then all the nuts or gang bangers in the country. What ever happened to "Give me Liberty or give me Death"? I have no time living whats left of my life cowering in fear that I might get killed. Really just how many people have got out of life alive? You know as a child they tried to scare me with Nukes, they tried to scare me with deformed babies from using drugs, they tried to scare me with crime and violence in the streets, well guess what? I do not fear death, life is far more scarier.

Opppppppps, sorry misread what you posted. I am so sick of the cowards calling themselves americans today. What ever happened to the land that produced generations of people who would look death in the eye then spit in that eye?

[Breeze54]

7. I used to live in a gang territory but what

does that have to do with anything? :shrug:

People can be killed anywhere. that is true.

"What ever happened to "Give me Liberty or give me Death"?"
That was a political statement, not an "I can survive the streets of the USA" statement.

------------

"I have no time living whats left of my life cowering in fear that I might get killed."

There 's a difference between 'living life cowering in fear'
and walking into an area that has a known and active sniper

-------

"I do not fear death, life is far more scarier."

How would you know? :shrug:

You aren't dead.

[mrcheerful]

13. How would I know? Maybe I have faced death a few times and survived?

Or how about the fact that my life has been nothing but different degrees of pain? Do I take care and am aware of everything around me? Hell yeah, which might explain why I survived near death experinces that others haven't. When I drive a car, I do not talk on a cell phone, nor do I fiddle with the radio or look at passengers while talking to them, my focus remains on the road and I am alert to everything on the road as far as I can see.

I have lived in the inner cities and never had a problem with gang bangers, though police were a different story, ever have a cop pull you over and demand what you were doing in "that" area because you don't belong there, a block from your home?

Fear of what might happen never enters my mind and believe me I been in places where you never knew what was going to jump out at you every time you left your house. Like the night my cycle broke down in a bad area and I ended up getting a broke nose and my head split open because I had nothing in the saddle bags worth stealing. Or how about the night that I was working at a gas station on third shift and got robbed at gun point, only to find out the person who held me up had shot and killed the last person he had held up, then work for another year at that job? Or how about the time a car crossed 5 lanes of road striking my cycle, and while waiting for the ambulance and police to show, some guy mugged me? Or the fact that getting hit by a car on the cycle I survived? How about the time a woman pulled out of a bar parking lot and made a left turn in front of me from 10 feet away? Or how about the time I was hunting with a friend and wounded what I was hunting, I handed the gun to said friend and went into the brush to find the animal, when the animal bolted my friend pulled the trigger and shot me in the leg. Or how about the night I drove through the city at 125 mph with a car chasing my cycle and shooting at me? They mistook me for a rivel cycle club member.
I'm 50 years old and guess what, life has been very dangerous from what I seen so far.
Then theres the drug and alcohol abuse I survived. Ever see someone drop dead from the drugs he had and you took off with the drugs and used them yourself? Or had driven yourself home after a bender and you don't remember driving home the next morning?

Yeah right I'm scared of what might happen and I'm scared to die.

[Breeze54]

14. I've also faced death situations.... had a gun pointed at my chest;

had a major car accident, been beaten up and robbed, had an escaped murderer
lurking outside the store I worked in at 2 AM! (He was arrested) And other
near death, pretty hairy experiences... but I'm still cautious. There are
everyday risks and then there are known lethal risks that I choose to avoid.
You may have faced death but you don't know what awaits you when you die.
Not until you are dead and pushing up daisies. Even then, you may never know.
I'm older than you :P and life can be very dangerous and we have no control over
fate but we do have control over taking risk and or not. If you put yourself in
a dangerous situation, then expect a problem. I choose not to do that, if possible.

[FREEWILL56]

18. That's interesting as I too have faced death numerous times.

I know what you are saying about the living part as living with pain is something many don't understand and that death is peace from pain. No, I don't have a death wish either as I too am a fighter and would be dead if I wasn't. Strange as our age is similar too. Though I don't go provoking situations, I also don't fear that walk in bad neighborhoods. Call me stubborn, but I just won't be pushed out of being able to walk as I've always done. They seem to sense you have no fear or you are crazy and don't want any part of you. I don't fear the death part as I had said, but when confronted, odds are you won't die thus getting you more pain so I don't provoke. Living with more pain is something I wish to avoid, but I know as I get older it will increase just by getting older.
edit to add:
I too had a gun in my chest, but I can say I was so bad one time from a different instance that the doctors didn't know if they could pull me through. No, I didn't have any visions of heaven or hell or bright lights, etc., but I still believe in that stuff. I just can't report it to you as an experience of my near death. I can tell you that the closer to death I got, the more peaceful it felt so I fought to cling onto life even harder. I can say that staying long term in hospitals is royal hell.

[mrcheerful]

20. Same here its just that as my mate told me after I wrote that said, I fear nothing nor no one

especially the unknowns in life. The T-bone accident in the 90's got me a 3 week stay in the hospital and a year and half of laying at my aunts home because I couldn't fiend for self, only going to the doctors or hospital for skin grafts. The city I lived in you had to drive through the bad area's and you learn not to draw attention to self as much as possible. I tend to dress down and don't wear flashy things, a $10 wrist watch tells time just as well as a $1,000 wrist watch. Like you I avoid putting self in harms way but when trouble comes my way I become alert and calm, then try to find my way out of that situation as it unfolds. Maybe its the risk taker that I am that makes me that way. Or maybe it was something that I was born with that caused it, as I get older I find myself accepting more pain and death is a release from said pain, all I know is each year the weather changes hurts more then the year before. I know when I started riding motorcycles that it wasn't if I tangled with a car but when, then I learned ways to ride that would increase my chances at surviving a cycle accident. Thats what really gets my dander up, people who fear the unknown. Either live life or hide, I choose to live life. When we are confronted with fear it sets off a chemical reaction where we either fight or take flight, the real trick is learning when to fight and when to take flight. Our life experences help us learn the when.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

3. That's the way I look at it...

if something happens, well, it was my time to go. Doesn't mean I go through life with my head in the clouds; I'm careful, but I don't live in a constant state of fear. Having lived in the DC area during the sniper attacks, I can say it was terrifying. I remember thinking "Osama who?"; I just wanted to get a f-ing tank of gas without getting shot. Those poor people.

It must be exhausting to live in constant THREATDOWN! mode, but that's a defining characteristic of your average Republican and their political and religious leaders know how to exploit it. Suckers.

[WCGreen]

4. I always thought that...

But hell, there have been over 100k gun murders since 9/11...

And we worry about terrorists...

We let them take away our rights little by little and yet there are areas of this country that are as lawless as anyplace in Baghdad...

It makes you wonder...

Perhaps it was because the terrorists hit a spot that was populated by the well off, the people who were supposed to be above all that, no pun intented...

It wasn't a mess of poor people shooting' up their own neighborhood...

It was the very center of commerce and trade that was hit...

The that were killed weren't suppose to be murdered...

The guys in the DC area scarred me to death...

I thought for sure there would have been copy cats all over the place...

And why hasn't a terrorists just walked into a gun show, bought some rifles and started randomly shooting in an upper middle class neighborhood or better yet, a shopping center...

That is what is really scary cause then the whole country would just shut down cause those are the people that ain't suppose to get slaughtered...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. It's unfortunate that we cannot rec individual posts...

Because I sure as hell would give you one for this post...

Beautifully said, Chris...as usual...

:patriot:

[zagging]

9. Hmph

Maybe he knows something you don't.

[napi21]

11. You don't understand. I don't care! I'm going to live my life as I wish.

I try to be nice to everyone, help everyone I can, and stay out of dangerous situations, but no one can eliminate all the nuts of the world! There are places in North Ga. I will not go at night because I read the paper, and I know it's gang time there. I just don't belong there then. I don't mean to say I take unnecessary risks, but I won't be mentally intimidated! I too grew up with the threat of nukes from Russia, and the hide under your desk plans. I wasn't afraid then, and I'm not going to be forced to be afraid now.

[zagging]

12. I have a serious dislike of definitive statements

Especially from someone who has modified her life so as to not go into places where there might be danger. It's easy enough, but there are 6 billion people in this world, and a good 5 and a half billion of them don't have that luxury.

[dailykoff]

15. At least one victim was an FBI intelligence analyst:

On October 14, at 9:15 pm, 47-year-old Linda Franklin, an FBI intelligence analyst who was a resident of Arlington County, Virginia, was shot dead after she finished shopping at a Home Depot in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside Falls Church. The police received a supposedly very good lead after the October 14 shooting, but it is later determined that the witness was inside at the time and was lying. The witness was subsequently arrested for interfering with the investigation.

Witness was lying, hmmmmm. A couple other fiftyish victims aren't identified by their jobs:

Two days later, on October 9 at 8:18 pm, 53-year-old Dean Harold Meyers was shot dead while pumping gasoline at a station in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas.

Again, two days later, on the morning of October 11 at 9:30 am, 53-year-old Kenneth Bridges died while pumping fuel at an Exxon station off Interstate 95 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near Fredericksburg.

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

Very strange episode altogether. The whole thing makes me go hmmmmmmmmmmmm.... what was the motive supposed to be again?

[flashl]

21. Agree. My innate spider senses strongly suggest there is something amiss.

[Swamp Rat]

17. BOO!

[lonestarnot]

22. Heh! Boo Boo. Lookin' for a picanic basket?

[Vinca]

23. What am I really afraid of? That I'll get sick.

18,000 uninsured die in the United States every year and no one knows how many who are insured and denied procedures die as a result of that. Tell your brother-in-law I'll take the whacko snipers over a slow, agonizing death any day.