[wildmusings]

>that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. has little long terme consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions

9/11 was an extra 20% on top of US murders in 2001. The Paris attacks also clock in at an extra 20% of the murder rate in France. Larger versions of sophisticated ambushes like the ones in Paris or Mumbai could very conceivably run up death tolls in the thousands. These people would kill millions of us if they could, so why exactly should we let down our guard?

Not to mention that murder is not the totality of terrorism's effects. When people critical of Islam are repeatedly targeted by terrorists, we all lose our freedom to speak our minds. We live in societies almost completely free of political violence, which has allowed an amazing flourishing of industry, technology, and culture. Terrorism is a huge threat to that. Europe in particular has a serious problem on their hands, given how many European-born Muslims are alienated from and hostile to Western society.

>is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of policies, laws, politics and visions.

Huh? Isn't this true for any societal issue?

[jjoonathan]

There's a difference between "letting down your guard" and being selective about the policies you're willing to adopt to effectively fight terrorism. Unless you're willing to defend the patriot act, wars on terror, the parts of the TSA that are obviously just security theater, police militarization, etc as reasonable, then you have to accept that we overreacted. Those parts of our reaction are emphatically not part of our "guard," and getting rid of them is not in any way lowering our guard. Quite the opposite due to their propensity for misuse.

[wildmusings]

I agree with some of what you're saying, and there's a whole separate debate to be had there. Today, in this thread, I'm only interested in refuting this idea that terrorism is an overblown threat. It absolutely is not. If anything, the threat is being understated by the current administration in the US, using arguments along the same lines as sametmax's.