I came across a very interesting piece of writing by Russ Nelson in which he writes about why it is not correct to assume that: “You can’t blame authorities for trying [to stop terrorism using methods which are not constitutional].”. I must admit that in some ways his view on things makes sense. However, I can not imagine that it is easy to stop thinking about counter fighting terrorism once one as been close to an attack.

A little quotation, just to be sure it will not be taken offline.

Yes, I can. They know that what they are doing is a senseless waste of taxpayer dollars. Being terrified by terrorism is exactly and precisely the goal of terrorism. It is clear to anybody with two brain cells to rub together that individuals have substantial ability to kill many other individuals. It is clear to anybody with three brain cells to rub together that if you stop them from doing one thing, they will move on to do another.

How do you stop terrorism?

By not being terrified. By not overreacting. By not giving up essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety. By not wasting treasure on useless tactics.

We are a country which kills 20,000 of its own citizens yearly with guns, and we don’t ban guns. We are a country which kill 50,000 of its own citizens yearly with cars, and we don’t ban cars. Heck, 30,000 US citizens kill themselves each year on purpose.

If terrorists came to America and killed 1,000 people a year, it wouldn’t even begin to show up on the causes of death. We can safely ignore terrorism. Rational public policy would have put the money spent combatting terrorism into something more sensible, like a billion for energy research, another billion for alternative energy subsidization, another billion for mixed-mode transportation.

The above was published on Dave Farber’s IP list. I received several “attaboy”s and one comment saying “Anyone with a single brain cell would agree that we need to stop terror.” I disagree. Do we need to stop earthquakes? Hurricanes? Tornados? Volcanos? Blizzards? Or do we need to survive them?

Found via maol.ch.