The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror

[kpete]

Last edited Mon Jun 10, 2013, 06:13 PM - Edit history (1)

The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror

Of course we should dedicate significant resources and effort to stopping terrorism.
But consider some hard facts. In 2001, the year when America suffered an unprecedented terrorist attack -- by far the biggest in its history -- roughly 3,000 people died from terrorism in the U.S.
Let's put that in context. That same year in the United States:

71,372 died of diabetes
29,573 were killed by guns
13,290 were killed in drunk driving accidents

That's what things looked like at the all time peak for deaths by terrorism. Now let's take a longer view. We'll choose an interval that still includes the biggest terrorist attack in American history: 1999 to 2010.

Again, terrorists killed roughly 3,000 people in the United States. And in that interval,
Roughly 360,000 were killed by guns (Actually, the figure the CDC gives is 364,483 -- in other words, by rounding, I just elided more gun deaths than there were total terrorism deaths).

Roughly 150,000 were killed in drunk driving accidents.

more:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-numbers-dont-lie-its-irrational-to-give-up-this-much-liberty-to-fight-terror/276695/
and:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/10/1215074/-Yawn-you-f-king-idiots

[indepat]

1. Had the available counter-intelligence resources been employed more effectively, maybe

the number of terrorist-related deaths would have been lower.

[obxhead]

10. Had the available counter-intelligence resources available not be IGNORED

the number of terrorist related deaths would have been far lower.

[RC]

11. Had Gore gotten sworn in as President, there would have been 3000 less terrorism deaths

in this country

The outgoing Clinton Administration knew almost everything, except where. The even knew the time to less than a week. They gave this information to the incoming bu$h administration... And they shelved it, unread.
But they apparently knew anyway, because Richard Bruce Cheney was running war games on the morning of 9/11/2001 that paralleled what the hijackers were doing.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[idwiyo]

3. I'd like a proof that NSA run survalance managed to stop just one terrorist attack.

I will be waiting a long long time because there is no such proof.

[YoungDemCA]

4. The proof is classified

Because if it was leaked, then teh terrorists would be on to us.

Wait..what?

[idwiyo]

6. You forgot that actual EXISTENCE of the proof is classified too. :)

[JDPriestly]

9. That's the peculiar thing about this whole program.

Seems obvious to me, and Greenwald concurs, that the first people to figure out that the surveillance is going on would be the terrorists. All but the most primitive of them would know how the world works to that extent.

We don't think about these things because we don't plot mayhem (which is why we don't need to be under surveillance).

The program is a failure from the get-go for that reason. They did not spot the Boston bombers. They only could catch very stupid terrorists. I suppose that is worth something but certainly not the money we are spending on this and similar programs. The terrorists probably figured out long ago that the internet is not a good way to communicate.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. You simply cannot do a proper power grab via a "war on drunk driving".

It has to have a catchier, more threatening to everyone title. Perhaps a "war on terror"? People will fall all over themselves to beg you to shred the Constitution and the founding principles of the country and throw endless money if someone did that.

[WillyT]

7. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Coyotl]

8. To do a proper comparison, we need to begin with the Sandinista terrorists, 1980 and Reagan.

The terrorist meme was in heavy use back then already, when those slimy Sandinista bastards were sneaking North towards Texas (the perfect stand-ins for hating all Hispanics enough to create 10 million non-voting liberal, lower-than-minimum-wage workers).

[MichaelSoE]

12. thank you

On the day of 9/11 I turned to my wife and said' "This is not good."

I said it not because the towers were coming down but because I feared exactly what happened in the aftermath.

Sure it was shocking and sad that all those people died at once but when they estimated the total dead and the cries of revenge were swelling, I had the thought about how many people die from tobacco, car accidents, gun accidents, etc. No one seems to be shocked as they all don't happen at the same time and at the same place.

At no time during the entire 9/11 episode did I fear for my life. At no time did I fear for the USA. As Bushco ramped up the plan for "justice", the dread began to grow.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

13. And so many on this board even are willing to look the other way if a D is in the White House...

Case in point, this recent Pew poll.