"Terrorism" has been around for centuries. What do you think a lot of the revolutionaries did to the British? What do you think Guy Fawkes day is about? What do you think coup d'etats essentially were when ever the government is overthrown? We just freak out about it much more today than they did, and justifiably so to some degree if nukes are involved.
But look at it this way. About 3000 people died during 9/11. In that same year, 42,611 people died in car accidents. Yet we waged a multi-trillion dollar war about one and don't even bat an eye at the other. Isn't that kind of ludicrous if you step back and think about it?
Lets say a plane crashes and everyone on board dies. If it was the fault of the pilot, people will forget about the story next week. If a terrorist caused it, people would be shitting themselves for months and maybe years. I think in terms of the actual risk terrorists pose that we worry far too much about them. We allow them to change our way of life when the risk they pose in even a lot of the most extreme circumstances is not that great if you quantify it in terms of the loss of human life.
Car accident numbers:
http://www.unitedjustice.com/death-statistics.html
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
