[Osx-nutters] Are you safer?

[Chuck Bennett]

On Oct 13, 2006, at 12:03 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote:

> On Oct 13, 2006, at 6:20 AM, Chuck Bennett wrote:
>
>> The U.S. has a violence problem.     Where I will most likely  
>> always disagree with some on the list is that the violence problem  
>> is a 'gun' problem.  As you point out, compared to countries with  
>> similar economies etc, we have a problem.
>>
>> I think it runs far deeper than than that but I don't even pretend  
>> to have an answer for it.  For sure, a lot of the violence has it  
>> roots in drug related crime either directly
>> or as a derivative side effect, but that speaks more to the stupid  
>> way we wage a "war on drugs" than anything else.   (Aside) I  
>> suspect that Nancy Reagan's oft mocked "Just Say No" program  
>> prevented more drug use than 10,000 DEA agents.
>
> Given that, and our health problems which dwarf violence as a cause  
> of death, why do you think that  the political process devotes so  
> much energy to the threat of Islamic terrorism when objectively the  
> risk is so small? I do get part of it. Dramatic tragedies like 9/11  
> focus attention precisely because they are dramatic and rare. We  
> tolerate a level of fatalities per passenger mile on the highways  
> that we would never accept in commercial air traffic or passenger  
> rail service simply because airline and railroad crashes kill more  
> people at once and therefore attract  more attention. I also get  
> that hostile acts are more attention riveting than accidents or  
> natural phenomena.
>
> But even given all that, it seems that Bush comes out with his 'I  
> made you safer' argument and no one  in the opposition is willing  
> to point out that we were pretty safe already. If  Bush claimed  
> credit for the fact that there have been no attacks by  white lions  
> on American soil since the Siegfried and Roy incident would  the  
> dems simply argue that his policies were enraging the white lions?

It would seem so.   The comptroller of N.Y.  estimates that the total  
cost of 9/11 to N.Y alone is around 83 Billion Dollars.
<http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/bureaus/bud/reports/impact-9-11-year- 
later.pdf>   The short term effects on the US was something like 1/2  
Trillion dollars.    Even if you discount the human costs,
that kind of attack has to be dealt with and a message sent and here  
is why.

Financial markets hate instability, and the "I made us safer"  
argument is very important from that point of view alone.   Indeed  
'all' of us are pretty safe but  if a dirty bomb goes off on Wall  
Street, the risk to someone in peoria will be completely irrelevant  
compared to the absolute impact on the country.

>
> I'm asking Chuck because I think he was the one who brought the  
> 'safer' issue up on this list but, of course, I'm interested in any  
> responses.


I don't think I brought it up either, but I did take issue with the  
Dems argument that we are not safer.

Are we safer from the kind of Terrorists that attacked us 'here' on  
9/11?   I think the answer is absolutely yes.

  We were being attacked before 9/11.  The first World Trade Center  
attack meant to bring them down and failed.     Bush was not  
president then.   Bush's response to 9/11 might have enraged even  
more Terrorists and I'm sure they are off in some cave seething hate  
but they obviously haven't been able to act on it here since 9/11.   
We couldn't say as much before 9/11.

As you point out, in absolute terms there wasn't much change either  
way, but the value of what they desire to attack makes the seemingly  
disproportionate attention completely justified.

Financial reasons aside, I don't think you can look at absolute risk  
when it comes to being attacked by some group.

Less people died at Pearl Harbor and we went to war with Japan.

Terrorists see  a lack of response as weakness and continue going for  
the bigger and bigger attacks. (or repeating the same one until it  
works)    After all.  Why not, if no one is going to stop them they  
have every reason to assume that we are too weak to respond.

When the gang attacks your next door neighbor, you don't dare take  
the stance that since gang violence makes up only a small part of the  
risk picture, that you don't need to do anything.  You might be next.

The better response is to track down the gang and kill or capture as  
many of them as possible.   Think of it as a public duty.  (this IS  
why we have police and armies)  The advantages are that it gets rid  
of the immediate problem, stops repeat offenders and sends a message  
to other gangs in the area that there are  "softer" and easier  
targets elsewhere.

We pretty much stomped a mud-hole in UBL's ass and walked it dry.    
Even UBL admitted that he did not expect much more than a few cruise  
missiles in response.


To argue that we can live with a certain about of terrorism the same  
way we accept highway fatalities is  way to morally gray for me.     
It implies that we are powerless to make an impact on our own safety  
when it comes to people that would harm us.

I'd much rather that Terrorists and the states that harbor them worry  
about a disproportionate response than no response at all.

Chuck