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more on TSA Says It Can Decide Who Can Learn
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 19:07:52 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Russell Nelson <nelson () crynwr com> Date: October 24, 2004 12:28:24 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Cc: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com> Subject: Re: [IP] TSA Says It Can Decide Who Can Learn For publication
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
It doesn't threaten *you* -- probably. By the time they come for your school and your students and your subject, nobody will remember who Rev. Martin Niemoller was.
Or what the Maginot Line was. The Maginot Line was, in itself, successful. It kept the German from crossing at the same place. However, since it didn't make the German attack through the Ardennes Forest more expensive, its end result was nil. It was, in its day, the same security theatre that we're seeing acted out in the USA today. Should we seek to secure airplane flight? Maybe. Maybe not. The more interesting question, to me, is "Why are people satisfied by security theatre?" Every security professional either laughs or cries when they go through airport security. It seems to me that, if experts are being ignored, then the incentives must be set up wrong. If a private company had to stand by its promise "We'll get you there safely", then perhaps they actually would. I think that the whole terrorism thing has been greatly overblown. Why are we scared by a few thousand terrorist deaths when Americans kill 50,000 of our own citizens every year, year after year, in automobile accidents? When we kill 24,000 people per year using guns? When 36,000 people are killed by influenza? I know that nobody will listen to me, but I think we ought to regard terrorism as yet another inescapable hazard of life, like tornados and hurricanes, deal with the risk in proportion, and stop talking about "winning the war on terror". We lost the war on poverty (many people are still poor), and the war on drugs (many people are still using, buying, and selling drugs). What reasonable person expects us to win the war on terror? "It's better to get mugged than to live a life of fear" -- Freeman Dyson. He's been mugged, so he ought to know. -- --My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com | Violence never solvesCrynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | problems, it just changes
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- more on TSA Says It Can Decide Who Can Learn David Farber (Oct 24)