A statistical treatise on airline "safety" from terrorism

It is all security kabuki theater because of the attack nature of politics. The internal political goal is not to make the US safe or stop terrorism at all. The political goal is to unseat your rival, thus it is imperative that you any area that they are weak on and that people will easily be sold on. Has been that way in every political system since the dawn of time. I don't see it changing now.

What will put a stop to this is not the will of the people demanding reasonableness at the airport but the airline business itself complaining. When that industry comes under and even greater threat of being destroyed the CEOs will make their displeasure known via political contributions. Then and only then will the TSA lighten up. But have no fear the focus will then turn to those that cannot bring great financial resources to bear on getting the political machine off of their backs. That would be those of us in GA. To the delight of the airlines GA will bear the brunt of the security kabuki theater until it cannot sustain itself and the airlines benefit from the elimination of that mode of travel.
 
Terrorism, as a strategy, acknowledges the weakness of your team as compared to a much more powerful enemy, and thus seeks ways to commit acts that get "magnified" by popular response. The success of 9/11 wasn't the death of 3000 people, it was the advertising that the event garnered, the fear that it instilled, and the reaction that it inspired in the enemy, which proceeded to launch a couple of extremely costly wars which wrought more destruction on the country than the terrorists could ever dream of being able to commit on their own.

Captain Underpants's mission was a success from the moment he made it past security. It wasn't the home run he would have liked, but just getting onto the plane was enough to launch a renewed effort towards costly and unpleasant security measures, get the entire country squawking at each other again, get people shouting for security over privacy, and security over personal rights and the rule of law, and once again make people afraid to fly.

We have a ridiculous "nobody must ever die" attitude here, even though we live in a country where 7000 people die every day, many of whom had their lives cut short as a result of lifestyle choices they made. Every day 300 Americans die in accidents of various kinds, such as car crashes, falls, etc. Every day 50 Americans are murdered. But a failed attempt to set a fire in a plane with 300 passengers, in what was probably the most successful attempt against an American flight in 8 years, this gets us in a tizzy. It disturbs our fantasy that life is without risk.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
We have a ridiculous "nobody must ever die" attitude here, even though we live in a country where 7000 people die every day, many of whom had their lives cut short as a result of lifestyle choices they made. Every day 300 Americans die in accidents of various kinds, such as car crashes, falls, etc. Every day 50 Americans are murdered. But a failed attempt to set a fire in a plane with 300 passengers, in what was probably the most successful attempt against an American flight in 8 years, this gets us in a tizzy. It disturbs our fantasy that life is without risk.
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+1. You are much more likely to die of something mundane, like a heart attack, than in a terrorist attack... and you are equally as dead.
 
mantakos said:
Terrorism, as a strategy, acknowledges the weakness of your team as compared to a much more powerful enemy, and thus seeks ways to commit acts that get "magnified" by popular response. The success of 9/11 wasn't the death of 3000 people, it was the advertising that the event garnered, the fear that it instilled, and the reaction that it inspired in the enemy, which proceeded to launch a couple of extremely costly wars which wrought more destruction on the country than the terrorists could ever dream of being able to commit on their own.

Captain Underpants's mission was a success from the moment he made it past security. It wasn't the home run he would have liked, but just getting onto the plane was enough to launch a renewed effort towards costly and unpleasant security measures, get the entire country squawking at each other again, get people shouting for security over privacy, and security over personal rights and the rule of law, and once again make people afraid to fly.

We have a ridiculous "nobody must ever die" attitude here, even though we live in a country where 7000 people die every day, many of whom had their lives cut short as a result of lifestyle choices they made. Every day 300 Americans die in accidents of various kinds, such as car crashes, falls, etc. Every day 50 Americans are murdered. But a failed attempt to set a fire in a plane with 300 passengers, in what was probably the most successful attempt against an American flight in 8 years, this gets us in a tizzy. It disturbs our fantasy that life is without risk.
-harry
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what is so silly to is that all this effort will result in the terrorists just finding another way to mess with us. What is to stop them from flying into Canada and driving in the US, catching a flight and doing another stunt? NOTHING! And then what do we do? Start this security nonsense on all flight no matter where they originate?
 
Everskyward said:
+1. You are much more likely to die of something mundane, like a heart attack, than in a terrorist attack... and you are equally as dead.
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look at deaths from drunk driving accidents. You stand a greater chance of being killed by one of those jerks. Yet we do not require background checks, mandatory breathalyzers, etc. before one is allowed to drive.
 
As much as anything, however, this speaks to the tragic uniqueness of 9/11. Since the beginning of commercial air travel, a total of about 6,500 people have been killed as the result of Violent Passenger Incidents -- nearly half of those, or 2,995, came on 9/11 itself.
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I don't mean to be glib about the risk to the passengers on the jets themselves, but 12 out of every 13 innocent deaths on 9/11 were to people on the ground.
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Perhaps this is hitting the aviation terrorism problem right on the head. The whole thing turned around when it was people on the ground -- who weren't asking to fly anywhere -- who were killed. Somehow, it makes it OK to harass and irritate flyers in order to keep those on the ground safe. There are millions more of those (voters on the ground) than the others (voters who are flying).
 
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