What this comes down to is: In order to live in a society with the sort of freedoms we have beed accustomed to for the past few hundred years, we are going to have to live with 3000 lives more or less lost every decade or so. On the other hand, we could live in neat and orderly society. But I don't want to be caned for chewing gum in public. I'll put up with the occasional sticky wad under the bus seat in exchange for my freedom.
I think I'd go along with you and accept those risks in exchange for our freedoms and Constitutional tradition. Since that death toll is on par with the number of Native American/Alaskan/Eskimo/Inuit women who die in the same timeframe from injuries involving motorized land transportation, it's clearly a number that we can deal with.
Now if anyone says: "well, try telling that to the families of the victims of terrorism" I would have to counter that we don't feel compelled to put on sackcloth and ashes over all the far more numerous but less dramatic deaths that occur all around us all the time. Something like 3000 Americans die every year of peptic ulcers for God's sake. Their families are every bit as griefstricken as if their Mom/Dad/Wife/Husband/Child had been killed by a bombing or hijacking. I guess they had the decency to die one at a time in homes and hospitals so as not to upset everyone else.
We trash important parts of our Constitution and spend untold lives and treasure for 3000 victims of terrorism. If we genuinely cared about people, we'd be outraged by the fact that tens of thousands die each year in the US from inadequate health care. But try to get universal medical coverage and watch the firestorm of outrage. Increase penalties for distracted driving? No way, because freedom to text and drive! But Trash the Bill of Rights, not so much.
Am I suggesting we do nothing about the threat of terrorism? No, I'm saying that the countermeasures should be proportional to the actual risk, not to the headline value.
