The stats are just proof of how successful the war on terrorism has been! Now stand in line and let the high-school dropout security contractor cup your balls like a good American.
I have this policy of refusing to go through backscatter machines... while I'm not particularly convinced that the radiation is harmful (although it might be), it's on principle that I don't think I should have to give away naked pictures of myself to get on a plane.
Anyway, this inevitably leads to an extremely invasive patdown by an annoyed TSA agent. I also have a policy to have as much fun as possible during patdowns, so I grin ear to ear, whistle loudly, and try to imagine that I'm getting a free massage.
The look on the uncomfortable TSA agent's face as he goes about his search is all the victory I need.
Should we be trying to dismiss terrorism by suggesting it is as equally threatening as bath tubs?
Lets pretend I'm a terrorist who is trying to make a point. You're telling me I should be ignored because I haven't killed enough people. Logically (or as logically as one who has justified terrorism can be), I need to kill more.
Is this the goal we're trying to achieve?
I'm not suggesting that billions haven't been misspent, but if this argument catches fire, it will be added to the wiki entry for Pyrrhic victory.
Even assuming that the message to terrorists is the only basis for our policy decisions, you can slice and dice this anyway you want. Consider the converse argument:
By spending millions of dollars and wasting thousands of man-hours of the citizenry for every single American ever killed by terrorism, aren't we sending the message that all it will take to completely cripple the US is to kill 25,000 of its citizens?
> aren't we sending the message that all it will take to completely cripple the US is to kill 25,000 of its citizens?
We peace-minded Westerners are an incredibly naive bunch. The world is a brutal "eye-for-an-eye" place -- has been and will always be.
Terrorism has impact not only in the number of people killed, but also (1) probably much larger economic impact (people minimizing travel or any other activities that involve risk, even if they are not conscious they are doing so because of terrorism), (2) acts of terror that go unpunished will usually raise the position/status of the terrorist who committed or organized those acts in the internal power hierarchy he's embedded in (that's how fame, or rather "infamy" works), which in turn could lead to an extremely precarious and expensive situation of having to deal not just with a lone terrorist group but with an entire terrorist government, (3) if there is one thing most people want from their governments, it is protection against external threats, and failure to act can be perceived as failure to protect, which in turn will increase risk-avoidance and thereby have an economic impact (see first point).
Saying that nothing should be done when terrorists strike is like telling a kid who is being bullied to simply ignore bullies and expect bullying to stop -- it's something that's never said by someone in the position of being bullied, but always by someone who is not impacted by it. In addition, such a statement rests on the false premises that (1) bullying is mostly harmless (it isn't), and (2) that bullies are primarily interested in seeing a response from the bullied kid -- and that they are not bullying him/her for some other purpose (such as scapegoating, or deriving pleasure from the act of bullying itself).
Why yes I think we should make an effort to (relatively) ignore the things that kill fewer people. We have some inborn biases to give disproportionate attention to some rare threats (terrorism, penis amputations) and to ignore others that are truly dangerous (worn-out tires and fatty burgers).
Are you proposing that terrorists are currently satisfied with the number of people that they kill, but that they would be motivated to kill more if we started ignoring them? That makes no sense to me. I'm pretty sure that terrorists are already killing at the highest rate they can manage.
