Hypothetical: You could wave a magic wand and 1000 wannabe terrorists would just keel over dead

[Electric Monk]

(by which I mean people who would gladly strap on a suicide vest or drive a car bomb against a "western target", but haven't actually committed any terrorist acts yet)

but in addition to killing them you would also kill their entire immediate families. Their parents, siblings, and children too, regardless of political affiliations, all dead.

Would you do it?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I'm not god and I'm not a country. So I cannot condemn and execute people.

[digonswine]

2. This poll would be more interesting without the families part.

N/T

[Matt_in_STL]

5. I agree

I was in this until we got to the families. Not sure why we have to drag them into it.

[sabrina 1]

30. Why? Every time we send a drone to kill a terrorist we kill

10 civilians/family members or just by-standers, for every terrorist. It would not be accurate without including that fact.

[leftstreet]

3. Or, maybe get the "west" to stop being a target

maybe

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

4. Aw, the 'thought crime' police. Unfair question....... but yes would have waived the wand at

Baby Hitler.. but that's HINDSITE............

[Common Sense Party]

6. Is this about drone attacks? n/t

[Javaman]

7. Sounds like the Gangis Khan magic wand. nt

[dkf]

8. I might have warned them all of what I would do giving family time to make a choice.

I would have no problem pulling the trigger on terrorists. Families give me pause.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. According to the OP, they're 'wanna be' terrorists, not terrorists.

[dkf]

13. If they have active plans to kill people then they qualify.

[bluetex]

19. Well....

In the "suicide terrorist" business, they're all wanna' be's.....

Then.....they become used-to-be's.

[LiberalAndProud]

10. Guilty of a thought crime and collateral damage to boot.

Count me out friend, count me out.

[Ian David]

11. What if we could just make their penises fall off? n/t

[Johonny]

15. or grow

He who controlled that wand could end the need for terrorists, open carriers, monster trucks and Frisbee dogs with scarves.

I was so angry I wanted to blow myself up for Al Qaeda, but then someone made my penis twice it's size and I'm thinking lifes pretty good right now.

[Ian David]

18. That's so crazy, it just... might... WORK! n/t

[JoePhilly]

21. LOL ... you win.

But why stop at 2x penis size ... wave the wand and make the terrorist's penis 10 or 20 times larger.

Profiling them would be much easier ... not just for the men, imagine a female terrorist with a giant penis ... those scanners would definitely spot a woman with a 20+ inch penis.

[Capitalocracy]

27. Honestly, all joking aside...

It could probably be solved with an Xbox, or a motorcycle, or a car, in the case of individual bombers. Apparently these are the sorts of things they are promised in heaven along with the virgins when they blow themselves up.

[MineralMan]

12. Other: I don't respond to ridiculous hypothetical questions.

[Cali_Democrat]

14. hmmmm.....

interesting....

[Motown_Johnny]

16. of course not. To do that would be as bad, or worse than what they might do

[zappaman]

17. sure

the world is overpopulated and wouldn't miss terrorists.

[Modern_Matthew]

20. I've never believed that there are that many in the world, anyway.

Or we'd be experiencing constant attacks, large and small. It has been 10 years with very few attempts...and all of them have been failures. It has all been grossly exaggerated to establish a police state and invade countries that had nothing to do with 9/11.

[JoePhilly]

22. On reflection (it is Friday afternoon), you need a new R&D group making your magic wands.

I mean, what is this ... the Terrorist Magic Wand Beta 1.0?

Didn't we do some field tests?

Heck, the ALPHA model should have been able to just ID the terrorist. What's the defect causing the beta version to kill the family members???

And then, who hard coded "1000" into the software? Look, you always make something like that a variable so you can test it.

In the early tests, you set it to 5 or 10, not 1000, particularly if you think your MagicWand(tm) might have defects that will kill innocent family members. You focus it so that IF family might be killed, the numbers are small.

The real issue is that your magic wand selects ACTUAL terrorists. Being terrorists, those folks are putting their own families at risk because our "magic wand" isn't fully developed.

And by now, they should know that.

[customerserviceguy]

23. Why include the families?

You may as well ask, "If you could invent a cure for cancer, that would require one random member of the sufferer's family to die, would you release that cure?"

Asking one or more innocent persons to die so that one guilty person can be wiped out is just a nonsense application of logic theory.

[Capitalocracy]

26. Because the OP is asking about drone attacks.

:popcorn:

[customerserviceguy]

28. OK, I missed that

Sometimes you have to read many threads down before you know what a poll is really all about.

On the other hand, if I live with a member of the Mafia, shouldn't I reasonably be expected to possibly get hit by some crossfire when the rival 'family' tries to muscle in? Shouldn't I figure out another place to live, unless I support my mafioso uncle or cousin's 'business'?

[Capitalocracy]

32. Ah, the Death Star argument

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGOVbXF7Iog

[Honeycombe8]

24. Silly question. That's like the movie Minority Report, where they kill you for your thoughts.

Or something like that. Tom Cruise movie.

And yet....four people said "yes" they would? Hmmmmmm.

[Electric Monk]

25. late night kick

current stats are:



Yes, absolutely (4 votes, 12%) Vote
Yes, I suppose (0 votes, 0%) Vote
I don't know / not sure (1 votes, 3%) Vote
No, I guess not (1 votes, 3%) Vote
No way / Absolutely not (25 votes, 74%) Vote
Other (please explain) (3 votes, 9%) Vote

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tesha]

31. If I wielded such a wapon and the 1,000 top terrorists in the world were instantly dead,...

...I'm pretty sure that a lot of the fanciest reserved
parking places at the Pentagon would be empty come
Monday morning.

But the world would be a much better place for it.

Tesha

[blondeatlast]

33. I honestly don't know, so "Other." nt

[ecstatic]

34. After some thought, I don't see how killing them would distinguish

me from them. Their plan is to kill "parents, siblings, and children" too--just people unrelated to them. That being said, I'd have to look at the numbers. How many people do they have the potential to kill?