4 ms·

Few states will countenance speed limit reductions that would reduce auto deaths that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, but we'll allow our basic

Few states will countenance speed limit reductions that would reduce auto deaths that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, but we'll allow our basic rights out the window to prevent what looks like a rounding error on that? This absurdity is actually what's responsible for any of terrorism's effectiveness. It's basically a hack designed to provoke an absurd overreaction. On that count, it succeeded with flying colors in 2001 - I'm hopeful that we've learned enough in the intervening years (both in terms of the war and police state) to prevent repeating our mistakes.

caskance 11y ago
Most people value the ability to drive 5 mph faster more than they value the right to not be constantly monitored by the government. Sorry you had to find out this way.
- rmxt 11y ago
  Do you have statistics that actually justify your statement? For some reason, I doubt that there has ever been a poll that directly seeks to determine whether more people care about speeding, or about surveillance overreaches. Without such a poll, this is just a meaningless appeal to the masses.
  - caskance 11y ago
    A poll would merely tell you what people say they value. What people actually value is apparent from reality.
    - rmxt 11y ago
      So your point is unfalsifiable? If you don't have evidence and accrued data, then your assertion seems like a point without value then. ("Sorry you had to find out this way.")
      - caskance 11y ago
        That's not what unfalsifiable means. If it were false, we would see evidence, such as speed limits being lower and actually respected, and strong widespread opposition to government surveillance. I think the word you're looking for is "unfalse".
        rmxt 11y ago
        "not able to be proven false, but not necessarily true." You are unable to provide evidence, i.e. data, to support your claim (yet again). I cannot prove a statement false if there is no evidence to call into dispute. You do not have any concrete information that supports the notion that more people, in a direct comparison, would care about speeding, as opposed to government surveillance. Your statement is an unfounded assertion, not an accurate measure of what is just, valid, and/or righteous. Without evidence, your statement merely explains what you want, not what society as a whole is looking for, or what policies should be put into place.
        caskance 11y ago
        I already gave you my evidence - the current state of American speeding enforcement and surveillance. If you don't like it, that's not my problem. And no, this has nothing to do with what I want. I'd love the opposite to be true. I am just not so out of touch with reality to believe that it is.
        rmxt 11y ago
        What you are calling "evidence", I am calling an unfounded assertion. You insist that polls aren't/can't be valid indicators of public preference, and you don't have hard data regarding the preference "in reality" for being able to speed over government surveillance. It's not that I don't "like" your evidence, it's that you haven't presented any. Then, still without evidence or justification, you imply that others are out of touch with reality for not seeing things from your point of view. ("Sorry you had to find out this way."; "I am not so out of touch...") How delightful. Perhaps you'd be more persuasive if you actually demonstrated how the current state of surveillance reflects public opinion and desires rather than just declaring that as self-evident.
exstudent2 11y ago
Not to mention the fact that Isis killed 224 people when they bombed the Russian plane on Oct. 31st and no one seemed to care. When they kill 100 indie rock fans in Paris though, it's time to repeal personal liberties as fast as possible? Why is this incident different than the Russian bombing? Neither incident should influence policy since as you say, while horrible, there are a lot of other things killing orders of magnitude more people that don't get "addressed" the same way this is. People need to stand strong and resist the urge to be reactive.
- 7952 11y ago
  > Why is this incident different than the Russian bombing? Well its quite well known that certain events create more "buzz" than others. The plane crash is mostly limited in impact to the bereaved who are probably mourning rather than tweeting. At least in the UK the travel chaos afterwards caused more "buzz" than the actual event itself, perhaps because angry tourists are more likely to tweet/Facebook. The attacks in Paris directly affected thousands who will have all communicated that experience directly to friends and on social media. It went on for hours and was watched by million. For most people it did have more impact, however shallow that may have been.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    I think this is a direct effect of how large the media portray an event to be. MH17 was a much larger 'event' in the media than the Russian plane crash recently (probably due to a bomb placed by IS). The number of casualties were roughly equal. So I don't think it has as much to do with the event itself rather than with the degree to which the media put it on the front burner and what the nationalities of those involved are. A rule of thumb seems to be that the further east something happens relative to Greenwich the smaller the font will be. Ditto South of Spain. To the media some lives are fairly clearly more valuable than others.
- eric_h 11y ago
  Well, excepting the "freedom fries" nonsense from a while back - the French have never really been portrayed as an enemy of the United States. Russia (and Putin especially) most certainly has. I'm guessing that generally the American population is discounting the deaths of innocent Russians to the same degree that it's discounting the deaths of innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, Syrians, Palestinians, Yemeni, etc., etc., etc.
tajen 11y ago
Terrorism in France: 159 casualties since 1 year. Car accidents: 300/month. Suicides: 200/week. Tobacco: 200/day [1]. And France is sending a nuclear aircraft career on the Mediterranean, bombing a foreign country and further depleting our economy. Given the first profiles of terrorists show European-grown desperate adults, if anything were to be done, it would be to build more schools, have more job opportunities for everyone and more hope for everyone growing up here. [1] http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/05/14/2104320-tabac-78-000-morts-en-france-par-an.html http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/05/14/2104320-tabac-78-...
- gwright 11y ago
  This type of comparison is quite common and I admit to simply not understanding the associated logic. The implied message is that terrorism should be shrugged off as part of everyday life, at least until the implied risk catches up to these other daily risks. I don't think accepting 200+ intentional civilian deaths per day is a winning argument.
  - tajen 11y ago
    It sounds like we're succombing fast to the fear of terrorism. I cannot understand declaring war: It's reducing our civil liberties, bombing a foreign nation, spreading new hate and new orphan children, and accelerating our own economic crisis. Isn't that the dismay that terrorists want? If we were purely rational on number of casualties, we'd be working on preventing our own 2-nd generation immigrants from considering becoming terrorists, using better education system and economic development. Or we would just proportionally jail all smokers who kill as many people per day as terrorism in a year. So we're not acting rationally, or the rationality of fighting back is taking over the consideration of the cost, and I'm not understanding why that's so important.
    - gwright 11y ago
      Rejecting the notion that we should do nothing is not the same thing as agreeing we should 'go to war'. Personally I think the tactical approach (border checks, security checks, pervasive surveillance, drone attacks, special ops, etc) has huge costs ($$$ and in lost civil liberties) with little or no return on the investment (and arguably a net loss). The core conflict is one of ideas: liberal democracy vs sharia, individual rights vs. communal strictures, equal rights vs patriarchy, and so on. Curiously, the belief in individual freedoms, tolerance, and in particular prohibitions against government preferences towards religion make it extremely difficult for the government to actively oppose ideas that are based on religion -- even when those religious ideas are diammetically opposed to the foundational principles of the system of government. Even in public debate, where the actions of the government aren't in play, we have a difficult time with the notion of public criticism of religious beliefs, never mind criticism of extreme religious beliefs. Even stranger, in some circles it is completely acceptable to harshly criticize Christianity, for example, but it is off limits to be critical of radical and extreme Islam. Strange. We have to figure out how to engage in the realm of ideas over decadal time spans if we ever want to justly declare 'mission accomplished'.

caskance 11y ago

Most people value the ability to drive 5 mph faster more than they value the right to not be constantly monitored by the government. Sorry you had to find out this way.

rmxt 11y ago
Do you have statistics that actually justify your statement? For some reason, I doubt that there has ever been a poll that directly seeks to determine whether more people care about speeding, or about surveillance overreaches. Without such a poll, this is just a meaningless appeal to the masses.
- caskance 11y ago
  A poll would merely tell you what people say they value. What people actually value is apparent from reality.
  - rmxt 11y ago
    So your point is unfalsifiable? If you don't have evidence and accrued data, then your assertion seems like a point without value then. ("Sorry you had to find out this way.")
    - caskance 11y ago
      That's not what unfalsifiable means. If it were false, we would see evidence, such as speed limits being lower and actually respected, and strong widespread opposition to government surveillance. I think the word you're looking for is "unfalse".
      - rmxt 11y ago
        "not able to be proven false, but not necessarily true." You are unable to provide evidence, i.e. data, to support your claim (yet again). I cannot prove a statement false if there is no evidence to call into dispute. You do not have any concrete information that supports the notion that more people, in a direct comparison, would care about speeding, as opposed to government surveillance. Your statement is an unfounded assertion, not an accurate measure of what is just, valid, and/or righteous. Without evidence, your statement merely explains what you want, not what society as a whole is looking for, or what policies should be put into place.
        caskance 11y ago
        I already gave you my evidence - the current state of American speeding enforcement and surveillance. If you don't like it, that's not my problem. And no, this has nothing to do with what I want. I'd love the opposite to be true. I am just not so out of touch with reality to believe that it is.
        rmxt 11y ago
        What you are calling "evidence", I am calling an unfounded assertion. You insist that polls aren't/can't be valid indicators of public preference, and you don't have hard data regarding the preference "in reality" for being able to speed over government surveillance. It's not that I don't "like" your evidence, it's that you haven't presented any. Then, still without evidence or justification, you imply that others are out of touch with reality for not seeing things from your point of view. ("Sorry you had to find out this way."; "I am not so out of touch...") How delightful. Perhaps you'd be more persuasive if you actually demonstrated how the current state of surveillance reflects public opinion and desires rather than just declaring that as self-evident.

exstudent2 11y ago

Not to mention the fact that Isis killed 224 people when they bombed the Russian plane on Oct. 31st and no one seemed to care. When they kill 100 indie rock fans in Paris though, it's time to repeal personal liberties as fast as possible? Why is this incident different than the Russian bombing? Neither incident should influence policy since as you say, while horrible, there are a lot of other things killing orders of magnitude more people that don't get "addressed" the same way this is. People need to stand strong and resist the urge to be reactive.

7952 11y ago
> Why is this incident different than the Russian bombing? Well its quite well known that certain events create more "buzz" than others. The plane crash is mostly limited in impact to the bereaved who are probably mourning rather than tweeting. At least in the UK the travel chaos afterwards caused more "buzz" than the actual event itself, perhaps because angry tourists are more likely to tweet/Facebook. The attacks in Paris directly affected thousands who will have all communicated that experience directly to friends and on social media. It went on for hours and was watched by million. For most people it did have more impact, however shallow that may have been.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I think this is a direct effect of how large the media portray an event to be. MH17 was a much larger 'event' in the media than the Russian plane crash recently (probably due to a bomb placed by IS). The number of casualties were roughly equal. So I don't think it has as much to do with the event itself rather than with the degree to which the media put it on the front burner and what the nationalities of those involved are. A rule of thumb seems to be that the further east something happens relative to Greenwich the smaller the font will be. Ditto South of Spain. To the media some lives are fairly clearly more valuable than others.
eric_h 11y ago
Well, excepting the "freedom fries" nonsense from a while back - the French have never really been portrayed as an enemy of the United States. Russia (and Putin especially) most certainly has. I'm guessing that generally the American population is discounting the deaths of innocent Russians to the same degree that it's discounting the deaths of innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, Syrians, Palestinians, Yemeni, etc., etc., etc.

tajen 11y ago

Terrorism in France: 159 casualties since 1 year. Car accidents: 300/month. Suicides: 200/week. Tobacco: 200/day [1]. And France is sending a nuclear aircraft career on the Mediterranean, bombing a foreign country and further depleting our economy. Given the first profiles of terrorists show European-grown desperate adults, if anything were to be done, it would be to build more schools, have more job opportunities for everyone and more hope for everyone growing up here. [1] http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/05/14/2104320-tabac-78-000-morts-en-france-par-an.html http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/05/14/2104320-tabac-78-...

gwright 11y ago
This type of comparison is quite common and I admit to simply not understanding the associated logic. The implied message is that terrorism should be shrugged off as part of everyday life, at least until the implied risk catches up to these other daily risks. I don't think accepting 200+ intentional civilian deaths per day is a winning argument.
- tajen 11y ago
  It sounds like we're succombing fast to the fear of terrorism. I cannot understand declaring war: It's reducing our civil liberties, bombing a foreign nation, spreading new hate and new orphan children, and accelerating our own economic crisis. Isn't that the dismay that terrorists want? If we were purely rational on number of casualties, we'd be working on preventing our own 2-nd generation immigrants from considering becoming terrorists, using better education system and economic development. Or we would just proportionally jail all smokers who kill as many people per day as terrorism in a year. So we're not acting rationally, or the rationality of fighting back is taking over the consideration of the cost, and I'm not understanding why that's so important.
  - gwright 11y ago
    Rejecting the notion that we should do nothing is not the same thing as agreeing we should 'go to war'. Personally I think the tactical approach (border checks, security checks, pervasive surveillance, drone attacks, special ops, etc) has huge costs ($$$ and in lost civil liberties) with little or no return on the investment (and arguably a net loss). The core conflict is one of ideas: liberal democracy vs sharia, individual rights vs. communal strictures, equal rights vs patriarchy, and so on. Curiously, the belief in individual freedoms, tolerance, and in particular prohibitions against government preferences towards religion make it extremely difficult for the government to actively oppose ideas that are based on religion -- even when those religious ideas are diammetically opposed to the foundational principles of the system of government. Even in public debate, where the actions of the government aren't in play, we have a difficult time with the notion of public criticism of religious beliefs, never mind criticism of extreme religious beliefs. Even stranger, in some circles it is completely acceptable to harshly criticize Christianity, for example, but it is off limits to be critical of radical and extreme Islam. Strange. We have to figure out how to engage in the realm of ideas over decadal time spans if we ever want to justly declare 'mission accomplished'.