If Bush is so good on terror, why are we so scared?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

We are scared b/c the Bush administration loves to constantly remind us of the threat of terrorism without backing up their warnings with solid facts.

Face it, terrorism has killed only a handful of people in the past year.  It has killed less than 3,000 people in the past decade....and this was in the worst decade for terrorism in American history.  Americans should be much more frightened of car accidents, handguns, AIDS and many other causes of death, each of which kill hundreds of times as many people as terrorism.

It's just that terrorism is a political plus for Republicans, and people are poor evaluators of risk, so terrorism is all we hear about.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

We are scared b/c the Bush administration loves to constantly remind us of the threat of terrorism without backing up their warnings with solid facts.

Face it, terrorism has killed only a handful of people in the past year.  It has killed less than 3,000 people in the past decade....and this was in the worst decade for terrorism in American history.  Americans should be much more frightened of car accidents, handguns, AIDS and many other causes of death, each of which kill hundreds of times as many people as terrorism.

It's just that terrorism is a political plus for Republicans, and people are poor evaluators of risk, so terrorism is all we hear about.

Until they get a nuke of course. But that's ok keep underestimating the threat. And I think you need to re-read your facts. More then 3k died on 9/11.

3,000 is the most frequently referenced number, but I think it was actually slightly under rather than slightly over.

Everyone thought it was over 3,000 until they reassessed a couple months after 9/11 and realized it was actually under.  But it doesn't really matter to the overall picture.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

We are scared b/c the Bush administration loves to constantly remind us of the threat of terrorism without backing up their warnings with solid facts.

Face it, terrorism has killed only a handful of people in the past year.  It has killed less than 3,000 people in the past decade....and this was in the worst decade for terrorism in American history.  Americans should be much more frightened of car accidents, handguns, AIDS and many other causes of death, each of which kill hundreds of times as many people as terrorism.

It's just that terrorism is a political plus for Republicans, and people are poor evaluators of risk, so terrorism is all we hear about.

So,  when a terrorist organization declares war, attacks multiple US interests  and then actually strikes  US soil killing 3000, what is the appropriate reaction?
Hint- pretending that terrorism is just a fact of life, just as common as car accidents is not the right answer.  

I think our reaction in terms of going after terrorist in Afghanistan was entirely appropriate.

But I don't think it is appropriate to keep people in constant fear for an endless period of time for basically political purposes.  

Terrorists killed 3,000 people once.  
Handguns kill 30,000 people every year.  
Cancer kills over 300,000 people every year.

If we should be living in fear of anything, it sure shouldn't be terrorism.

Terrorism is a threat, but in the national scope of things, it is a minor one.  Maybe if there was an historic pattern of terrorism, like there is in Isreal, my reaction would be different, but one event does not make a pattern.  

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Some of you guys are just going overboard here.

I mean Terrorism hasn't just killed 3,000 people what about the people who were killed and the damaged caused in the U.S.S. Cole bombing, the suicide bombings, the first WTC bombing, the night club bombing. I mean yes Cancer is a threat but cancer can't buy a nuke off the black market, it can't sneak it into a country, and it can't blow it up and the last time I checked a gun and a car can't do that either. Terrorism also threatens the world and both the sponsors of it and the terroists themselves both must be dealt with

Assuming we are talking about Americans, all the other terrorist attacks combined have killed only a handful of people...not enough to raise the number much over 3,000.

Our government has never shown much interest in protecting foreigners on foreign soil.  If it did, our foriegn policy would be drastically different in any number of ways.

I suppose it is possible that terrorists could acquire and use a nuclear weapon on the US, but it is unlikely, and it has never happened before, so I think is inappropriate to just assume it will happen at some point when you are calculating the risks.  People love to concoct nightmare scenarios, but the job of the government should be to base their decisions on actual facts and not encourage the public's delusions.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Let me get this straight...the measure of a "threat" is based on how many people die from that threat??? That means that nuclear energy is nothing to worry about, right? So why don't we start building thousands of nucelar power plants so we can become self-reliant for energy sources and not have to "go to war for oil" like you leftists are prone to saying.

Using Nick and BetterRed's logic, automobiles or street gangs are a much greater threat to national security than nuclear power plants or global warming...I mean, how many people in the US have died as a direct result of radiation exposure because of accidents at a nuclear power plant?

You guys should actually THINK before you make ing ludicrous posts where you claim that street gang violence, or some other social ill, is a bigger threat to national security than terrorism. Basing a THREAT on the number of people who have died from that threat is structural logic that I would be embarassed to use in SECOND GRADE.

I'd still like to see Nick or one of the other Left Wingers explain to me why it's in any way logically coherent to base the magnitude of a threat primarily on the number of people who have been actually killed by that threat. Please explain to me why this kind of logical structure is more than one step above people who sleep in cribs and still sh*t in their pants? What are you guys, six years old?

I think we should incorporate economic damage, injuries, and all other measurable losses into the equation...but I think deaths are by far the greatest loss in any of these situtations, so lost lives is a decent estimate of the total magnitude of loss.  Car crashes and disease result in economic loss as well, so I think it balances out in the end.

What measure for the magnitude of various problems confronting American would you prefer to use?

And why do you feel the need to resort to vulgar personal attacks in an otherwise civil discussion?

It seems like many Republicans, when questioned about the "war on terror", just start hurling insults.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Stupid leftists.

We aren't fighting an earthquake or a hurricane.  We are not trying to stop something that mindlessly kills at random for no reason and will just fade aaway if we are caring enough.

We are fighting a war against a deliberate enemy who deliberately targets large population centers stategically, not randomly, and this makes it a greater threat than cancer or auto accidents.  It also makes it a more reasonable target than cancer or auto accidents.

Terrorism, more specifically Islamism, can be defeated.  Auto accidents and street crime cannot be defeated, only minimized.  For this reason, it makes more sense to fight something you can actually stop.

I agree that we can't stop auto accidents or crime.  But if we find that accidents and crime are causing a hundred times as much damage as terrorism, then reducing them by just 1% is as good as stopping terrorism entirely.

Can any Republican please give me an estimate on what they think the costs of terrorism are, compared to other social problems and why?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Nick,

The insults are made to stress the incredibly simplistic logic that leads to someone saying, with a straight face, that lives lost are the best measure of analyzing a potential threat.

If you can't see WHY that is overly simplistic...I'm not sure what to say other than to try and walk you through it step by step. To summarize the intrinsic flaw in such logic, please consider that it is "outcome based" thinking. You are working backwards from a result to asses a situation that took place under different circumstances BEFORE the result took place.

For example, using your logic...if no person has ever been eaten by a Polar Bear in the United States, then it would be more dangerous to encounter a mosquito than a polar bear because mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus and that HAS resulted in death. So using your logic, it would be safer for me to shake hands with a Polar Bear than to have a cookout where a mosquito was present.

And I notice you did not tackle my examples of nuclear power or global warming either, but they too betray the logical flaws in the argument you and others make. The proper assesment of a THREAT is not the result of that THREAT, by then it's too late to do something about it, the true measure of a THREAT is the POTENTIAL damage caused by a worst case scenario or plausible scenario between best case and worst case.

By the way, you commented that we should incorporate economic damage and other measureable losses into the equation...I find that rather inconsistent with your Left Wing views...for example, using that logic, it is perfectly acceptable when a Car Company decides to make a neconomic decision that it is cheaper to pay off the wrongful death lawsuits rather than incur the expense of a vehicle recall, right?

I agree with most of what you are saying, but I don't really see how we can measure potential costs except as a function of past costs.  

If terrorism was actually a grave threat to our society, I think we would have already experienced another attack.  On September 12, 2001, it was rational to believe that terrorism was a huge future threat...for all we knew,  it could have been the start of monthly or even yearly attacks.  But three years later with no further attacks, I think we have to downgrade the potential future costs considerably.  How many years have to pass before we can conclude that 9/11 was a one-time event that we don't have to live in constant fear of any more?

In the car recall example, I think this decision is acceptable, assuming the company is measuring overall costs to society rather than simply costs to the corporation that will instead be borne by consumer.  But generally, if a safety feature costs more than the benefit it confers, then that safety feature should not be included in the design.  This also assumes that the public has full information about the costs and benefits of the feature or defect.

I haven't commented on global warming because I don't know the statistics well enough to make an informed conclusion about the relative danger.  
And I don't really have a problem with nuclear power.