Do you worry about terrorist attacks coming to Minnesota?

Of course not. We’re too nice. Terrorism only happens in exotic, far-off places like Oklahoma City.

The only place that I could really foresee an attack would be in Duluth…after all it’s the worlds largest inland port, and is a stepping point for so many resources. To it’s benefit though, the harbor is very spread out and would be difficult to affect on a large scale. Other than that, I don’t see much reason for a large scale terrorist attack in Minnesota.

NOT IN THE LEAST. My understanding is that the chance of any given person in the U.S. being the victim of a terrorist attack is less than the chance of being struck by lightning.

I’ll save my worrying for bad things that are much more likely to happen, such as getting cancer or some other deadly disease.

No. The authorities in our state have a pretty good track record. They were the only ones to catch a 9/11 terrorist and they seem to be taking care of the terrorists that sent Minnesota boys to fight in Somalia. Finally, Minnesota has a great citizenry with a “let’s get involved mentality” versus “let’s get even”.

I worry a lot more about drunk or distracted drivers.

This is just the kind of question that is part of the problem. The more we are encouraged to live in fear, the more we circle our wagons, the more we circle our wagons, the more we exclude those we think are “different” from us, the more we exclude others, the smaller our world view. The smaller our world view, the more we feel justified doing violence to others in the name of security. The more we do that, the more enemies we make which leads to more violence, more fear, etc. Time to break the cycle, not encourage it.

No. I feel that worrying about things out of one’s control only needlessly increases the stress level of an already agitated and stressful society. Best case scenario: prepare for the worst, expect the usual, and hope for the best.

Mary Vrabel = head in sand mentality.

The terrorists have said the USA is “The Great Satan and must die.”

These people can pull off a takeover of four passenger jets and KILL 3000 people.

They are not the most friendly and tolerant people.

If we forget that and offer an olive branch they will use it to beat us with. Just imagine if they could bribe some nuke material from a guard in the Ex-Soviet union and detonate it in a major city.

I think the news coming out of Michigan should be proof enough that terrorists can be from any place and any ethnicity/nationality.

“An armed society is a polite society”

All of the people that keep saying that MN is nothing but flyover country or that we have no targets of value seem to have a pretty narrow view of where we live, and an extremely narrow view of the possibilities that exist for terrorism of all varieties.

The Twin Cities is home to a Federal Reserve Branch, an FBI district, Federal district court, and quite a few other government buildings. Many targets of opportunity for radical militia types. When is the next OKC bombing going to happen, and where? You can’t just assume that our quiet little corner of the country is immune to things like that.

Government targets aside, we have one of the largest airports in the country, the largest and most garish symbol of consumerism (MOA), a very large shipping sector, two nuclear power plants, and are home to a number of Fortune 500 companies. The list of potential targets is limited only by the ability to imagine them.

Out of all the states besides New York, it seems that only a few states pop on the news regularly when it comes to terrorist investigations and ties, and Minnesota is one of them.

It is completely naive to assume that we live in a bubble that is immune from terrorist type violence or activities. Does that mean that an incident is likely? Of course not, the chances are extremely slim. However, we can ill afford to walk around with an attitude that says it will never happen here, because that in and of itself may be the most inspiring and attractive target that exists.

No, I’m not afraid of terrorist attacks. The chance of a terrorist attack in the place that I am is very small. There are other risks to my life that are much more likely to occur.

That said, I assume that there will be an attack in Minnesota at some point in the future. People who think we can stop all terrorist attacks, foriegn based or homegrown, are fooling themselves. It surprises me that there aren’t more small scale attacks in unlikely places. That would cause real terror.

FDR was right: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I’m more worried about the crazy-making influence of the fear-mongers who capitalize on terrorism to steer public policy toward their own ends.