Sekuritee Maks Us Saefer
As some of my (very few) readers know, I'm sick of the paranoid, xenophobic, troglodyte voters in my country throwing away our freedom in exchange for vague promises of protection from the "threat" of terrorism (a/k/a "The Boogey Man", a/k/a "The Man in Brown"). It's bad enough to trade freedom for security in the face of credible threats since our freedom is arguably at the heart of what it means to be an American. To threaten that, to diminish that freedom, is to attack what makes us Americans. This isn't the land of the free and the home of the brave just in words. If you're from the land of the safe and the home of the spineless, you're badly lost and I'd prefer it greatly if you didn't try to make my home look like yours.
It's even worse given that the threat in question, being killed by a terrorist, is a very small one. "Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts." http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n3/v27n3-5.pdf
Surely, if we're bold enough to face the miniscule threats of wild deer, electrical storms, and peanuts, we can stand up to one statistical equivalent thereof. Terrorism is not some Cthulonic threat to our nation or world. It isn't the issue of our day/times/generation. It isn't even close. It's less of a threat to you and your loved ones then going for a drive.
But what REALLY sucks is that in the process of trading substantial amounts of my freedom for security from a de minimus threat, the systems being put into place in Britain, the U.S., and other western nations through ICAO, CREATE botha false sense of security and means for evasaion of other security. http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,1950226,00.html
In a nutshell, because of the TINY chance that some clown might try to harm a small group of us, we have made it harder to fly, harder to get a passport, harder to go to school, spent billions on security infrastructure of dubious value, and wound up providing a security measure which is so easy to exploit that it makes it easier for those same clowns.
It's even worse given that the threat in question, being killed by a terrorist, is a very small one. "Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts." http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n3/v27n3-5.pdf
Surely, if we're bold enough to face the miniscule threats of wild deer, electrical storms, and peanuts, we can stand up to one statistical equivalent thereof. Terrorism is not some Cthulonic threat to our nation or world. It isn't the issue of our day/times/generation. It isn't even close. It's less of a threat to you and your loved ones then going for a drive.
But what REALLY sucks is that in the process of trading substantial amounts of my freedom for security from a de minimus threat, the systems being put into place in Britain, the U.S., and other western nations through ICAO, CREATE botha false sense of security and means for evasaion of other security. http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,1950226,00.html
In a nutshell, because of the TINY chance that some clown might try to harm a small group of us, we have made it harder to fly, harder to get a passport, harder to go to school, spent billions on security infrastructure of dubious value, and wound up providing a security measure which is so easy to exploit that it makes it easier for those same clowns.
posted by Minotaur at 11:10 AM
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