[dlikhten]

TBH I have been thinking about this since 9/11. I doubt it was that philosophical. They wanted to show that they could attack us. And they did. They had ZERO, no tech, no highly trained snipers and marines, very little funding (compare al-qaida's funding with the US Government's). It is us who did it all. We "refuse to be terrorized" but instead we give up liberties like they are tumors that we will gladly shed to increase our perceived chances of survival.

[slowpoke]

>We "refuse to be terrorized" but instead we give up liberties like they are tumors that we will gladly shed to increase our perceived chances of survival.

I don't know if it is appropriate here on HackerNews, but there's this one Philosoraptor (an image meme) which just perfectly sums this up in a single sentence:

  "If terrorists hate us for our freedom, does this mean
   they're starting to like us?"

http://i.imgur.com/XbmFg.jpg

[jstanderfer]

Agree. What's even stranger is how differently we treat different types of deaths. Anything terrorist related is something that needs to be prevented from happening again, regardless of the costs. Yet as many people die each and every month in auto accidents as died on 9/11 yet we all accept that as the cost of freedom the automobile offers us.