The Numbers Don't Lie: It's Irrational to Give Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-numbers-dont-lie-its-irrational-to-give-up-this-much-liberty-to-fight-terror/276695/




The image is still powerful, isn't it?

So is the anger, and the memories.

Most Americans don't just remember where they were on September 11, 2001 -- they remember feeling frightened. Along with anger, that's one emotion I felt, despite watching the attacks from a different continent. That week, you couldn't have paid me to get on a plane to New York City or Washington, D.C. Even today, I'm aware that terrorists target exactly the sorts of places that I frequent: I fly a lot, sometimes out of LAX; I've ridden the subway systems in London and Madrid; I visit Washington, D.C. and New York City several times a year; I live in Greater Los Angeles.

But like most people, I've never let fear of terrorism stop me from enjoying life's opportunities and pleasures. I wouldn't have my current job if I hadn't moved to New York City for graduate school in 2005, and then to Washington, DC. a couple of years later. It isn't that I never thought, or worried, about the fact that those cities are prime targets of terrorism. Rather, my intellect got the better of my fears, something that happens every time I get on a commercial airliner and remind myself that it's far safer than making the same trip by car; or every time that I jump into the Pacific Ocean, knowing that, as terrifying as sharks are, it's unlikely I'll be killed by one.

As individuals, Americans are generally good at denying Al Qaeda the pleasure of terrorizing us into submission. Our cities are bustling; our subways are packed every rush hour; there doesn't seem to be an empty seat on any flight I'm ever on. But as a collective, irrational cowardice is getting the better of our polity. Terrorism isn't something we're ceding liberty to fight because the threat is especially dire compared to other dangers of the modern world. All sorts of things kill us in far greater numbers. Rather, like airplane crashes and shark attacks, acts of terrorism are scarier than most causes of death. The seeming contradictions in how we treat different threats suggest that we aren't trading civil liberties for security, but a sense of security. We aren't empowering the national security state so that we're safer, but so we feel safer.

[graham4anything]

1. The french drive smart cars. The Americans drive gas guzzlers.

Yes, we need the security.

and we need a train system

And the system has worked, as there has been no major interntational terror in the US on trains and planes since 9-11.

(and the thing in Boston was done by the two thrillkill fame seekers(one of which its said helped in the triple murder a few years earlier), they were not international terrorists, and they didn't even know what day they were doing it,
as it was said that July 4th was their target date.

You don't dismantle the police department, because someone broke someones taillight.

[xchrom]

2. Kick

[truebluegreen]

3. This:

We aren't empowering the national security state so that we're safer, but so we feel safer.

[Myrina]

4. Any potential terra-ist who's using standard unencrypted channels is too stupid to be successful

The NSA PRISM crap isn't about 'sniffing out terra plots'. Its about watching US.
And it's 100% wrong and against everything this country was supposedly founded on.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. That collective cowardice is of course being seeded as a control mechanism

by those enjoying the $1 trillion per year surveillance state budget.

Fuck 'em!

[Logical]

8. But people falling for it is just as bad. Stupidity rules in this country! n-t

[xchrom]

6. Kick

[Logical]

7. Too many people are scared of terrorists for no reason. Too many people are easily manipulated. n-t