> Will you vote for the candidate that will protect our drinking water no matter what?
I think you are making a straw man argument. Perhaps I haven’t been clear enough about this, but I’m not saying terrorism is the biggest existential threat or that it’s the only issue that matters or that it’s worth sacrificing our freedoms for or that certain groups should be discriminated against. I’m just saying that its something that should be taken seriously. Every political candidate takes it seriously and I think for good reason. I’m also not advocating some of Trump’s extreme rhetoric. I didn’t even vote for him. I also don’t believe that I’m personally being terrorized. I don’t think about this stuff on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want my government to think about it.
> What attacks are terrorists becoming "increasingly competent" at, exactly?
The obvious one: aircraft as a weapon. Then there’s Chemical/biological. Historically, used by sovereign militaries and now starting to be used frequently by terrorist organizations. ISIS recently started using chlorine and possibly mustard gas. The fairly recent poisoning of schoolchildren. The recent use of other poisons such as rat poison. Another big one is Cyber attacks. Recent ISIS attacks on power grids show show increased capabilities. The department of homeland security thinks this is a new major threat to US infrastructure. BTW, the FBI and Homeland Security have published a detailed list of possible attack vectors which includes a lot more than the few I’ve mentioned here. As far as nuclear attacks go, terrorist organizations like al Qaida have expressed their desire to obtain these weapons specifically to attack the US. Shouldn’t we do every reasonable thing within our power to stop them?
I think you are making a straw man argument. Perhaps I haven’t been clear enough about this, but I’m not saying terrorism is the biggest existential threat or that it’s the only issue that matters or that it’s worth sacrificing our freedoms for or that certain groups should be discriminated against. I’m just saying that its something that should be taken seriously. Every political candidate takes it seriously and I think for good reason. I’m also not advocating some of Trump’s extreme rhetoric. I didn’t even vote for him. I also don’t believe that I’m personally being terrorized. I don’t think about this stuff on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want my government to think about it.
> What attacks are terrorists becoming "increasingly competent" at, exactly?
The obvious one: aircraft as a weapon. Then there’s Chemical/biological. Historically, used by sovereign militaries and now starting to be used frequently by terrorist organizations. ISIS recently started using chlorine and possibly mustard gas. The fairly recent poisoning of schoolchildren. The recent use of other poisons such as rat poison. Another big one is Cyber attacks. Recent ISIS attacks on power grids show show increased capabilities. The department of homeland security thinks this is a new major threat to US infrastructure. BTW, the FBI and Homeland Security have published a detailed list of possible attack vectors which includes a lot more than the few I’ve mentioned here. As far as nuclear attacks go, terrorist organizations like al Qaida have expressed their desire to obtain these weapons specifically to attack the US. Shouldn’t we do every reasonable thing within our power to stop them?