"Other bad things are happening" has never been a convincing argument in any arena, regardless of the statistics. I agree with you that there is a very serious

"Other bad things are happening" has never been a convincing argument in any arena, regardless of the statistics. I agree with you that there is a very serious qualitative difference between traffic accidents, spousal murders of passion, and gang-related murders on the one hand, and acts of terror based on ideals and intended to intimidate us on the other. However, any time you have a limited set of resources and a practically infinite number of possibilities on how to allocate them (which is pretty much always the case), rigorous statistical risk/reward analysis is the only sensible way we know of to make good decisions. I agree that qualitative differences must be taken into account, but I think current policy is far too reactionary and sensationalist (furthermore, it doesn't fill me with too much confidence). 9/11 was not what some blogger referred to as a "sucker punch" - it was a big deal worthy of reorienting the foreign policy precisely because of the qualitative difference you mentioned. Some incompetent schmuck with some flammable (not even explosive) material in his underwear - I really don't need to hear about that on TV.