It seems very likely that fast food is a far bigger threat to the average American than Osama bin Laden, measured in terms of risk of death caused by each
Seventy-two cheeseburgers in paradise? A couple of wisecracks come to mind. Okay ... they're not that wise. The first thing to mind is, "very likely"? I would think there's no doubt about it, all things considered. The next thing to mind is that a Mickey D's Double Quarter-Pounder most certainly is more dangerous to the average American than a dead man. But that's not entirely fair. I wouldn't declare Osama bin Laden dead and gone, but I'm starting to suspect something strange is up when the FBI gets down to using a Spanish politician's picture to provide an age-projection photo of bin Laden. Then again, if it turns out we are supposed to be terrorized by a ghost? I'm not sure what I could say that would state the problem any better than the proposition itself. ____________________ Notes: British Broadcasting Corporation. "Spanish MP's photo used for Osama Bin Laden poster". BBC News Online. January 16, 2010. News.BBC.co.uk, January 19, 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8463657.stm
Also: driving, flying, snakes, and any number of other things. The difference is that all of those things have benefits to the average American, as well as costs. We accept the increased risk of death in a traffic accident for the expediency of motor travel. We accept the increased risk of heart disease because fast food is cheap and convenient. But Al Qaeda doesn't exhibit any offsetting benefits to Americans.
When "victory" means the same thing for each side Anyone who doubts that the terrorists are winning ought to pause for a moment to think about the behavior of the allegedly terrorized. Over the weekend, Sen. Susan Collins released a five-minute video in which she sounded as though she were possessed by the angriest, most unhinged version of Dick Cheney. Collins recklessly accused the Obama administration of putting us all in serious danger by failing to wage War against the Terrorists. Most of what she said was just standard right-wing boilerplate, but there was one claim in particular that deserves serious attention, as it has become one of the most pervasive myths in our political discourse: namely, that the U.S. Constitution protects only American citizens, and not any dreaded foreigners. Focusing on the DOJ's decision to charge the alleged attempted Christmas Day bomber with crimes, Mirandize him and provide him with counsel, Collins railed: "Once afforded the protection our Constitution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist 'lawyered up' and stopped talking" .... This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Constitution generally apply only to the Government's treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false -- for multiple reasons -- yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in "War on Terror" propaganda. (Greenwald) Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald offers some simple points–albeit the detail may be a bit obscure and complicated for the terrorized—in response. For instance, there is Boumediene v. Bush, a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Military Commissions Act's suspension of habeas courpus. None of the Guantanamo detainees involved in that case were American citizens: If the Constitution applied only to U.S. citizens, that decision would obviously be impossible. What's more, although the decision was 5-4, none of the 9 Justices -- and, indeed, not even the Bush administration -- argued that the Constitution applies only to American citizens. (ibid) Even Justice Scalia acknowledged the point while leading the dissenting faction of the Boumediene court. Of coruse, we might also look back some one hundred twenty-three years to Yick Wo v. Hopkins, which— ... overturned the criminal conviction of a Chinese citizen living in California on the ground that the law in question violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. In so doing, the Court explicitly rejected what Susan Collins and many others claim about the Constitution. Just read what the Court said back then, as it should settle this matter forever ....: The rights of the petitioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they complain, are not less because they are aliens and subjects of the emperor of China. . . . The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: "Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court. (ibid) Greenwald also points out the very simple and observable fact of foreigners who aren't terrorists inside our borders: There are millions of foreign nationals inside the U.S. at all times -- not only illegally but also legally: as tourists, students, workers, Green Card holders, etc. Is there anyone who really believes that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to them? If a foreign national is arrested and accused by the U.S. Government of committing a crime, does anyone believe they can be sentenced to prison without a jury trial, denied the right to face their accusers, have their property seized without due process, be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, and be denied access to counsel? Anyone who claims that the Constitution only protects American citizens, but not foreigners, would necessarily have to claim that the U.S. Government could do all of that to foreign nationals. Does anyone believe that? Would it be Constitutionally permissible to own foreigners as slaves on the ground that the protections of the Constitution -- including the Thirteenth Amendment -- apply only to Americans, not foreigners? (ibid) The example of the Thirteenth Amendment is an excellent one, although in this case the slaves would have to be foreigners. However, the underlying error here is that the terrorized do not consider the implications of their frightened, oft-angry assertions. I think one of the easiest tests for people, if slavery isn't simple enough, would be to propose that any American corporation that moves its headquarters outside the fifty states—e.g., Halliburton, &c.—ought to be denied any freedom of speech: No advertisements, no press conferences, nothing. If you're a foreigner, you don't have rights, right? Greenwald also offers a slightly more complex argument about the nature of the Constitution, although this is basic fare to anyone old enough to have actually received some education on the subject in school: to see how false this notion is that the Constitution only applies to U.S. citizens, one need do nothing more than read the Bill of Rights. It says nothing about "citizens." To the contrary, many of the provisions are simply restrictions on what the Government is permitted to do ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . or abridging the freedom of speech"; "No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner"). And where rights are expressly vested, they are pointedly not vested in "citizens," but rather in "persons" or "the accused" ("No person shall . . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"; "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . . . and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense"). The only way to argue that these rights apply only to Americans is to argue that only Americans, but not foreigners, are "persons." Once one makes that claim, then one is in Dred Scott territory. If foreigners are not "persons," then what are they: sub-persons? Non-persons? Untermenschen? There are, of course, certain Constitutional rights that are clearly reserved only for citizens -- such as the right to vote or to hold elective office -- but when that is the case, the Constitution explicitly states that to be so ("The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States . . . ."). Indeed, the Fourteenth Amendment, in the very same clause, demonstrates the distinction between "citizens" (which only includes "Americans") and "persons" (which includes everyone), and proves that the former is merely a subset of the latter: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (ibid) And Greenwald points to other Constitutional issues involving the application of "person" and "citizen", such as Article II, Section 1, which defines presidential eligibility. But we should pause for a moment to drive the point home, because while the Fourteenth Amendment is a strong argument, it is a limitation on state governments. The Cornell University Law School explains: The 14th amendment is not by its terms applicable to the federal government. Actions by the federal government, however, that classify individuals in a discriminatory manner will, under similar circumstances, violate the due process of the fifth amendment. See U.S. Const. amend. V. Most people are more familiar with the common context of Amendment V known as "pleading the Fifth". But there is more to than that: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Some would consider the "War on Terror" to be a proper excuse to suspend the Constitution under the Fifth Amendment, but this perpetual war lacks any legal hallmarks of a war. We might as well use the "War on Poverty" or the "War on Drugs" as a similar excuse to throw away the Constitution. Except, of course, people weren't so frightened of poverty, were they? Think of it this way: This weekend, I'm going to see one of my favorite artists play a show at a small club in Seattle. In theory, any terrorist wishing to strike against American decadence or immorality would have an easier time killing more people at this performance than by bringing down an airliner with a bomb. It's been this way for a several years, now. The era of drugs and fireworks at a Judas Priest show brought stricter security to concert performances than the War on Terror. The terrorists don't even need to be successful anymore. Enough Americans are scared witless that they don't need to blow up a club show on Friday, a college basketball game on Saturday, or a megachurch sermon on Sunday. In sports terms, they're not even sening their first team against us. The bench is enough to keep us occupied. It would be funny, I suppose, if it wasn't tragic. ____________________ Notes: Greenwald, Glenn. "Susan Collins spreads central myth about the Constitution". Salon. February 1, 2010. Salon.com. February 1, 2010. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/01/collins/index.html Legal Information Institute. "Equal protection: an overview". (n.d.) Cornell University Law School. February 1, 2010. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Equal_protection United States Constitution. 1787. Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School. February 1, 2010. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/index
First, the cost-benefit analysis isn't even done, so it can't be a serious question of the cost benefit analysis. Second there are many causes of death that a cost benefit analysis would favor, that we ignore. Slipping in the bathroom is far more dangerous than al Qaeda as well, and a $1.99 set of adhesive "no slip" bathroom stickers mailed to each American could stop that. No one is proposing we spend a billion dollars to make bathrooms any safer. As there is no utility to having a slippery bathroom and no disutility to the bathroom qua bathroom in being less slippery, it would seem that this should be a no brainer. We're so crazy over terrorism that we invaded Iraq to prevent it and have spend a lot of money there. Again, I al Qaeda draws our attention because they seem more threatening than a wet and slippery bathroom. Even typing that, a part of me thinks "of course they are", but the analysis has to conclude that the risk posed to me, or to any individual, by terrorists is far less than by the humble bathroom.
Avoidance of overreaction out of panic brings a great many benefits to Americans. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that various anti-terrorist panic reactions had killed as many people as snakes, in the US.
? Unless you can think of some likely benefit to Americans that AQ's existence and activities is likely to produce sometime in the near future, I'd say the analysis is fairly conclusive. Who's "we" here? And there's nothing to prevent any given individual from purchasing such a bathroom set-up, if they feel their risk calculus warrants it. That the government doesn't take the initiative to force everyone to do this, in an inefficient way, doesn't add up to an indictment of our handling of the systemic issues that are inherently the province of government. And given that there is no need for coordinated government response to residential bathroom slipperiness, it is indeed a no-brainer that we don't need such a program. Meanwhile, we've long had extensive government regulations aimed at ensuring bathroom (and other floor) safety in public and commercial facilities where individual agency is insufficient. You may have seen those yellow "caution wet floor" signs before? Or you may live in a city that installs rubberized traction surfaces at all traffic intersections? If you're a business owner, you may have been sued (possibly maliciously) by someone who slipped on the floor of your facility? My parents were subjected to multiple such lawsuits back when they operated a business facility open to the public. There's a lawyer where I live that is famous for making a living by cruising from town to town and filing blanket (and typically baseless) safety and access lawsuits against every storefront he encounters. I don't think you've thought this through. And, indeed, that may have been a waste of resources, as far as the terrorism aspect is concerned. The inefficiency of a previous response does not address the calculus of the threat directly: it mostly goes to the question of how to improve the efficiency of the response. Now, if you could demonstrate that responses to Al Qaeda are inherently counter-productive, that would be a different story. I think that if you do the accounting properly, you'll find that our society actually has devoted more resources to dealing with slippery floors than Al Qaeda. There's the myriad layers of government regulations dealing with the issue (planning and zoning requirements, provision of sewage infrastructure, workplace and commercial safety regulations, the various enforcement agencies associated with all of this, the liability lawyers, the insurance adjusters and claims responders, judges and juries to hear the cases that go to court, mediators for the ones that don't, etc.). We've been spending big piles of money on this for decades before AQ was around, and still will be decades after they're gone. And that's just at the institutional level. There's also a thriving individual market for bathroom safety, particularly amongst the elderly. This extends from simple anti-slip mats up through custom shower/bath installations and even entirely redone bathrooms. Indeed, and we should not tolerate counter-productive reactions. But that doesn't add up to a benefit derived from AQ; were they not around, we'd be spared the costs of even calibrating our reaction in the first place, not to mention the costs of sub-optimal reactions, let alone the direct costs imposed by AQ.
And that is the point: we don't. Despite the fact that bathrooms are more deadly than al Qaeda by far, we do not treat the risks of bathrooms as exceeding those of al Qaeda. It's not a question of whether the government spends the money or private citizens do, the point is that the public is happy to spend it in one case where the risk is limited (through increased taxes that the government uses to conduct airport security that adds virtually nothing to overall safety) and yet the public ignores the less interesting issue of bathroom safety, despite its relatively trivial costs. That is the evidence of risk misassessment. Again, perhaps our response to al Qaeda is appropriate, given the risk...but in that case our response to bathroom safety, and many other things that could be made significantly safer for less money (and without interfering with the utility of the underlying activity) is dramatically lacking. I think it is clear is that emotion, and certain not reason and a fair assessment of the expected costs, is clearly tipping the scales in favor of a dramatic al Qaeda response than is rational, certainly when it comes to airport security. That is not surprising, as we're only human, and we've been told to be very afraid by politicians for the past 8 years.
I'd ask you to re-read my previous post, where I explicitly dispute that premise. We have been spending rather large sums of money - both at the government and individual levels - on bathroom safety for more than a generation now, and are set to continue this expenditure indefinitely. How this total would compare to the expenditure of the War on Terror would take some serious accounting (more than I'm prepared to attempt), but the idea that it doesn't exist is false on its face.
There is no benefit from unsfe drivers, either. But we accept the risk of them, within reason, because we want the benefits of accepting the risk of them. There would be a great deal of benefit to accepting the risk of AQ terrorism, at some reasonable level.
Catching a cab I don't know. Ever made a dinner reservation by the skin of your cabbie's paint job? Okay, okay. I know. But, as with terrorism, many such issues as the risk of bad drivers do have long term considerations that people don't like to look at. One of the long-term "benefits" of Al Qaeda° is that, in mobilizing poor, frustrated, and disempowered people to commit all sorts of heinous acts of violence, the Boys of Bin Laden have left an indelible mark on the historical record by which we can better understand the relationships between economics, politics, and crime. One of the difficulties their position creates, though, is that people are unwilling to do the right things if "terrorists" also advocate such outcomes. ____________________ Notes: ° long-term "benefits" of Al Qaeda — One could also argue the "benefit" that cigarettes brought. We now have a pretty good idea of how unhealthy smoking nicotine really is. I mean, really. How many people are going to have to fall over dead from lung cancer before we ban cigarettes? Likewise, though, when the complications of poverty manifest themselves, we never make a similar toll of life and death. When we look into the face of injustice, we never really stop to consider how many lives it costs. Someday, humanity will have enough of a record that only the most fanatical of capitalists will be able to justify the maintenance of a poverty class. And when that day comes, Al Qaeda's "contribution" will be accounted for. Of course, the flip side is that, had we done the right thing at the outset—albeit generations ago—maybe we wouldn't have had to collect those "benefits". Remember: It's only superstition if we don't like it. What gratifies us as Americans should never be subject to the same scrutiny as the argument against our superstitions sacred and inerrant principles of freedom and justice.
Risk vs. reward? Do you think this is a good trade? (This isn't an indictment, just a question!) And I don't quite get this. Could you clarify this a bit?
Right now we spend billions to reduce the risk of death from something on the order of 1 in 30 million to 1 in 50 million. How many billions of dollars is that worth exactly? This is the same culture where many people don't want to wear bicycle helmets and frequently do not buckle their seatbelts when driving short distances. I would suggest you read The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb, or Against the Odds: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter Bernstein to get a grounding on just how awful human beings are at implicitly calculating probabilities and risk. Otherwise, I find your arguments unpersuasive, as I am sure you do mine. Right now, you seem to be very committed to an irrational risk calculus, but that doesn't make it any more rational.
One-way assholes In a pure and isolated consideration, no. In a relative consideration, it's an interesting way of looking at it. There are plenty of things that hurt Americans, but we're more interested in addressing the ones that let us kill people, and the darker the skin the better. But that whole post is essentially mocking the state of the discussion. We're in this bizarre risk assessment discussion that, while I don't object to it, constitutes a somewhat amusing deflection of the issue. Americans need to understand: They're fucking idiots. They let a bunch of half-wit suicidals beat them. For Americans, there are many ways of looking at any issue, but more ways of looking at certain issues. I'm just picking on the fact that we pitch our intelligence to the rubbish tip over certain things. Let's try the short version. (There is a long version, but even by my standards, it starts to wander in search of a finer point to stick with.) Hop on over to the thread, "Pakistan: The cost of 'success'", and look at some of the responses. Spidergoat responded by pointing out that the Taliban kills innocent people, too. Right. And that's why they're evil. Does that mean the U.S. is evil? Ah-ha! That's not an issue you should point at Americans. It's different when we do it, because we say so. Then again, Al Qaeda and the Taliban can say the thing for themselves. Baron Max asks, "Were those 140 people really innocent?" GeoffP responds that it is a valid point. Okay, fine. Let's try that principle in a similar application: It is inappropriate to say that Al Qaeda killed nearly 2,800 innocent people on September 11, 2001, because we cannot know that those 2,800 people were really innocent. Take that one into the political arena, and see what it gets you. Bullshit is only bullshit if the people we don't like say it. When we say it? Pure gold, baby. (I might also point out the response in that thread about the reliability of the Pakistani government's numbers. Well and fine. Let us not pretend that any numbers floating around the American press are any good, either. Our government and media alike are quite unreliable in that context. But, as with other arguments, that's not really going to fly in the political arena. They are, to borrow a stupid phrase, "one-way only" arguments.)
Ahh, got it. I haven't kept up with the discussion here, so I was not clear on the appropriate context.
Depends on the type of unsafe driver. Drivers that are simply careless, sure. But drivers that speed? There's a definite benefit to that. It's not a coincidence that speeding enforcement in most places is arranged to allow a certain amount of speeding. More than that, because we want the benefits they provide directly - faster traffic flow, in the above example. This isn't just a second-order calculus concerned with enforcement costs: certain states have deliberately raised the speed limits to levels that many states consider unsafe, in order to attract greater freight traffic. Don't we already do that? I'm all for scrapping jokes like the color-coded population-terrorizer system, or the retarded airline security measures, etc. etc. etc. because those are ineffectual pretenses that mislead people about the level of risk they are accepting. But at the end of the day, the question of AQ is fundamentally different that of traffic fatalities. The latter is a question of minimizing the costs while maximizing the benefits, while the former is simply a matter of minimizing the costs. The one is a first-order cost/benefit calculus, while the other is second-order.
I would submit that the damage done by terrorism cannot be accounted in the same way as that done by road accidents. In the first place, you're only counting lives, while AQ terrorism has an infrastructure damage component that is highly significant. The amount of infrastructure destroyed in 9/11 alone was valued well into the billions, after all. More than that, however, terrorism has a political dimension that road accidents does not, and so that aspect of the calculus must be addressed as well. I'm familiar with that stuff, and I make no assertion that all of our society's risk/reward trade-offs are optimal, or even close to it. That doesn't mean that we aren't spending huge piles of money on addressing slippery surfaces, or that AQ terrorism is less of a concern than traffic accidents simply because of the odds of a given citizen dieing from them. I have seen no evidence that you have comprehended my arguments, and so place no weight on your assessment of them. Fuck you.
If the terrorists were winning why is it that they have not attacked America directly by now? If they were winning why do they keep dying every day?
Presuming facts not in evidence? Measuring their standards according to your need? That's almost funny. Stop trolling.
Whether we already do that depends on one's notion of "reasonable". I say we don't - and for evidence I point to the fact that we have not and are not scrapping the airline "security" and other societal bs, and we are still fighting extraordinarily damaging and all but useless wars on the justification of protecting ourselves from AQ terrorism.
