Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

I take it you're not stocked up on canned-food-and-ammunition for the catastrophe-du-jour?

Posted by Phil Fraering at April 5, 2007 03:56 PM

I think it should be called the fear-lawyer complex. Eisenhower's insight with his "military-industrial complex" speech was that those in charge of policy (the military) could develop all too cozy a relationship with those in charge of the enabling means (industry), leading to an unhealthy overconsumption of national resources, a self-reinforcing vortex of waste.

Arguably the media and government (at least Democratic government) and the trial lawyers (mostly Democrats) form a similar partnership. The media are the enablers: they push the message that the world is far to unpredictable and scary and big a place for any of us poor slobs to cope with on our own, so we need more laws, more lawyers, more government to save our pathetic asses.

The government and the trial lawyers then provide the product, the "protection" we need. It's even best if the media focus (as they do) on fears that are unreasonable and silly, because then government can "protect" us against them quite easily. If we all fear Alar (an insecticide) on our apples, Congress can easily "protect" us from that deadly danger. If we all fear the NSA tapping our phones that, too, is something Congress can easily fix. It's much harder for Congress to do anything constructive about the real threats to our lives, e.g. eating too much or the Chinese lying about bird flu.

Posted by Carl Pham at April 5, 2007 04:21 PM

John Stossel is basically correct. However, he could have pointed out that the war on terrorism is a big part of the fear-industrial complex.

Posted by at April 5, 2007 04:33 PM

However, he could have pointed out that the war on terrorism is a big part of the fear-industrial complex.

Oh, right, because the New York Times and Washington Post never tire of printing hysterical stories about how the Islamic terrorists are coming to get us and we really need to strengthen the Patriot Act and get serious about this "Global War on Terrorism" thingy.

Posted by Carl Pham at April 5, 2007 06:30 PM

Carl, Stossel's whole message is that you shouldn't just take in a qualitative impression of these dangers, you should look at the numbers. More Americans in history have died from home-grown terrorism than from international terrorism; and even the former is a low risk compared to Stossel's common-sense list.

Posted by at April 5, 2007 06:42 PM

The problem with the "terrorism-risk is overblown and you guys are fear mongers" argument is that for some events risk can't be quantified based only on past experience. It's more a function of future possibilities. For terrorism, any risk calculation must take into account the intentions and capabilities of our enemies. What was the risk of a 9/11-type attack on 9/10? What's the risk of a mass-casualty attack now? If you think that groups that hate us are likely eventually to obtain nuclear or other WMD, the latter question becomes worth considering. If you think that we do not have enemies or that our enemies will never obtain WMD then there is much less to worry about. Of course, if you believe that then there is still a possibility that you are wrong. I don't see much evidence that people who talk dismissively about "fear mongering" are willing to consider that possibility.

Posted by Jonathan at April 5, 2007 08:39 PM

Jonathan asked:
"What was the risk of a 9/11-type attack on
9/10?"

Somewhat higher than it was on 9/12... 9/11
seems to have been a one-shot operation, not a
sustainable capability; AQ evidently put in a
long period of planning and preparation to set
up a "that trick never works more than once"
attack - in fact it didn't even quite work once,
if you count the fact that the occupants of the
fourth airplane were alerted to what was going
on and attempted resistance...

I am sure that a lot of folks were a lot more
aware of the possibilities of such attacks after
9/11 than before, but it wasn't like something
suddenly changed at that point to make such an
event more possible or likely. The world wasn't
suddenly "more dangerous" after than before, but
a lot of people were more conscious of potential
dangers that had really been there all along.

Of course, then the Mainstream NewsMedia[tm]
decided that people wanted to read about how
afraid everybody was and started leading a
chorus of "protect us O mighty Government"...

Then you have politicians (more of them
Republicans then than now) going "look how afraid
everyone is - we know it's true, we read it in
the news - we dare not be seen to Not be Doing
Something, lest some future opponent ask if we
are not Leaving the Nation Unprotected from this
New Danger: you don't get or stay elected if you
leave openings for such questions to be asked!"

-dw

Posted by dave w at April 5, 2007 10:15 PM

It's more a function of future possibilities.

If you're going to argue that future possibilities of terrorism could be very different and much worse than past examples, then maybe, but then you don't even know that that catastrophe will be Islamic terrorism. After all, right-wing American terrorists have killed more Americans than Islamic terrorists have. It's anybody's guess as to who that terrorist will be or what he will do. Probably boring, general security is the only solution. It is still true that the war on Islamic terrorism is a huge reaction to a specific hazard that has been pretty small by Stossel's yardstick.

Posted by at April 6, 2007 12:25 AM

Carl, Stossel's whole message is...[repeats the obvious]...

You idiot, what I said is that Stossel was writing about fear-mongering in the mainstream media, and your suggestion that a fear of terrorism is a "big part" of the phenomena is therefore inappropriate, because that's one particular fear that clearly isn't being pushed by our newspapers and network TV stations. If anything, they've been strenuously trying to convince us for the past five years that fear of Islamic terrorists is a hysterical paranoia cooked up in Texas by Bush and Haliburton to justify the world fascist state they'll be erecting any day now.

Whether fear of terrorists is a rational fear or not is utterly besides the point. Stossel's novel observation wasn't that we often do not evaluate risk accurately, but that our media continually encourage us to make that error, and do not (as you might hope they might) try to educate us out of it.

Good God, once again let me suggest putting the brain in gear before engaging the mouth.

Posted by Carl Pham at April 6, 2007 12:34 AM

Why is it the people most affected by the fear industrial complex (as stossel dissembles about, really read the whole thing, he don't have the nuts to call a spade a spade) don't have the money to honestly respond to that fear, before a new scare comes across the screen?

The left hates consumerism, but bitches about how normal people don't engage in THEIR kind of consumerism.

Most of my lightbulbs are CF's, hey, don't replace for 5 about 5 years? I'm all for that. Poison my nieces and nephews with mercury, oh, well, not so much.

Increased carbon emmissions? actually CO2 not CARBON, CO2 is not carbon, but hey, I ain't a ninja chemist like Al Gore, who's been studying chemistry on a level that mendel could only imagin since he was first elected senator of tennesee.

Oddly enough, lots of CO2 in the environment, absent the immediate volumes that are born of volcanic venting (usually including an assload of sulfurs, but who cares, it's "CARBON!" and CARBON IS EVIL) is the best way to promote plant growth.

remove co2/"CARBON" and you kill vegans.

All Gore hates vegetarians!

Posted by Wickedpinto at April 6, 2007 12:36 AM

What this really points out is that all high schools should have a manditory class on probability and statistics. Nothing too mathematical, just enough exposure to get people to actually feel the difference between odds like 10 to one and 100,000 to one. In 10 years, lotteries would be gone forever, the power grid would be entirely nuclear and the economy would be much stronger based on being free from laws based on statistical fallacies and scare mongering.

Posted by K at April 6, 2007 02:04 AM

What was the risk of a 9/11-type attack on 9/10?

Given that Osama had already tried to level the building in 1993 over support for Israel and ties with the House of Saud, pretty high.

Posted by Adrasteia at April 6, 2007 03:08 AM

Carl: "leading to an unhealthy overconsumption of national resources, a self-reinforcing vortex of waste."

To wit, "We must never let the weight of this [military-industrial] combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." Somehow I don't think Eisenhower's primary concern with the MIC was inefficient allocation of tax dollars.

Carl: "If we all fear the NSA tapping our phones that, too, is something Congress can easily fix."

Then why haven't they?

Carl: "Oh, right, because the New York Times and Washington Post never tire of printing hysterical stories about how the Islamic terrorists are coming to get us."

Yes, while it was profitable to do so. Then the "saturation effect" occurred, and they moved on. America was "under attack" by the "global terrorist network" for well over a year, and then of course Saddam Hussein, who apparently ordered 9/11, was just days from launching nukes at Chicago during the year after that...

Wickedpinto: "Increased carbon emmissions? actually CO2 not CARBON, CO2 is not carbon, but hey, I ain't a ninja chemist like Al Gore.."

You "ain't" much of a linguist either. Do you go around referring to the United States of America as "America"? I guess you're a ninja geographer.

K: "Nothing too mathematical, just enough exposure to get people to actually feel the difference between odds like 10 to one and 100,000 to one."

That might help, but probably not by much. The dangers we face today are all so statistically distant compared to mammalian evolutionary pressures that the same rules just don't apply. We're still fighting battles our prehistoric ancestors won.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 6, 2007 05:07 AM

I think that the article was a pretty good attempt at irony on the part of Rand. Given the amount of fear mongering he helps foster in the non-msm about a statistically non-existent threat like terrorism, it's really an excellent example of irony.

Posted by Jardinero1 at April 6, 2007 06:58 AM

That's one particular fear that clearly isn't being pushed by our newspapers and network TV stations

It most certainly is. The correct statement is that it's a story line that you take completely for granted when you see it in the media. Just last weekend, Amanpour on CNN spent a full hour on "The War Within". It was an hour of fear-mongering over radical Islam.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/siu/shows/war.within/

Frankly, without heavy media coverage, I wouldn't expect you to argue the question. People generally don't develop strong feelings about particular issues without encouragement from some quarter.

Posted by at April 6, 2007 07:49 AM

My take is that the number of deaths isn't in itself an indication of the amount of effort that should be devoted to reducing deaths from that cause. Terrorism is unusual in that it targets innocent parties (ie, civilians who otherwise play no part in the conflict) and is solely the result of malicious intent.

More effort should be devoted to stopping this sort of act because it is likely that successful terrorist acts will encourage more terrorist acts. There are also ample rewards to many if not most terrorist acts. So a strong disincentive (eg, hunting down and killing those who commit terrorist acts) needs to be in place to keep that variety of terrorism from growing.

I think the emphasis on WMDs and the like is excessive. Terrorists have demonstrated willingness to use such tools, but they have yet to acquire them (beyond trivial cases like the recent chlorine gas attacks in Iraq) or use these weapons effectively.

Finally, we should keep in mind that there are many groups out there who are willing or at least tempted to terrorist activities. The focus on Islamic groups is IMHO unhealthy. They aren't the only terrorists. And in the long term they might not be the most dangerous terrorists out there either.

Finally, I don't know how terrorism is being counted here. But I gather that Islamic terrorists have probably killed more US residents than "right wing" terrorists or any other identifiable group. 3,000 people is a pretty big number.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at April 6, 2007 10:58 AM

The argument that terrorism is a "statistically non-existent" threat is an interesting one. So let's apply it to other things: global warming has so far not unequivocally killed anybody. So the current threat is ~0 and the future threat is only hypothetical and many decades in the future when I am statistically dead anyway. Cool! No problem there. And Soviet nuclear warheads never killed even one American citizen - so the statistical threat was zero and that whole Cold War thing never existed, statistically speaking. Man, this brilliant new analysis is changing my whole world view!

Chuck

Posted by Chuck Zdeb at April 6, 2007 11:38 AM

Stossel may not have focused on terrorism, but he does call it out in the first graph:

"For the past two weeks I've written about how the media -- part of the Fear Industrial Complex -- profit by scaring us to death about things that rarely happen, like terrorism, child abductions, and shark attacks."

As to whether terrorism is something worthy of enough to concern to warrant government intervention, that's something we each have to decide for ourselves. Because it involves a individuals or groups intentionally harming others, IMO it's a different kind of risk than accidental deaths from pool drownings or cancer and less appropriate top rely on statistics (how many people have been killed?) to analyze it's importance.

Posted by KeithK at April 6, 2007 11:42 AM

So let's apply it to other things: global warming has so far not unequivocally killed anybody.

First, the main issue with global warming is property damage, not deaths. Second, "equivocal" deaths should be taken just as seriously as "unequivocal" ones, provided that you count them properly. For instance, the main risk of death from smoking is not lung cancer, it's heart disease, but it is never "unequivocal".

Stossel may not have focused on terrorism, but he does call it out in the first graph

Fair enough; he didn't mention it much, but he did mention it.

less appropriate to rely on statistics

It's always appropriate to rely on statistics. The only question is which statistics and how to interpret them.

Posted by at April 6, 2007 05:00 PM

It most certainly is. The correct statement is that it's a story line that you take completely for granted when you see it in the media. Just last weekend, Amanpour on CNN spent a full hour...

Yeah, well, you're full of shit. Even the CNN story you cite is the opposite of what you've said. Here's a few quotes from it:

What struck us most was how deeply the Iraq war has radicalized today's generation of young Muslims in Britain. Whether extreme or mainstream, they are angry about the war, angry that their country so devotedly follows U.S. foreign policy, angry at what they see as a worldwide war against Muslims and Islam.

This isn't warning us of the threat of Islamic terrorism. It's the same old tired MSM lie warning us of the dangers of cowboy Bush. It's suggesting that the only angry Islamic feeling out there is what has been caused by the Iraq war. Stop the war and there won't be any more terrorism. (9/11 was just a weird aberration, or payback for supporting Israel, or because somebody didn't get a hug, or was insulted by a Pat Buchanan speech.)

There there's this:

In our investigation, we found shocking evidence of the bigotry, intolerance and hatred preached by some Muslim fundamentalists in the UK.

Quickly followed by this:

We found a deep sense of Islamophobia on the rise here in Britain and across Europe. The European Monitoring Center, which tracks religious and ethnic bias, says Muslims regularly face abuse, threats, attacks and misunderstanding. And as we discovered talking to a cross section of Muslims around Britain, many of Europe's 13 million Muslims said that since 9/11 they have been made to feel like terrorists. More than ever they feel like second-class citizens in their own countries.

What's the message here? Why, that Muslims are really feeling no different than non-Muslims. It's just a generalized breakdown of multicultural sensitivity, you see. If everyone just calms down, gets to really know each other, it will all work out.

And ending with this:

Increasingly we found mainstream Muslims are realizing that they can no longer be quiet, but they have to stand up to have any hope of winning back the debate from the extremists who dominate it now.

Message: all we need to do is help the "mainstream" Muslims, practise more cultural sensitivity, and all that nasty hurt and rage will dry up. There aren't, really, any "terrorists", there are just young men who are angry about how they've been treated. Sort of like pre-civil-rights blacks. These so-called acts of "terrorism" are just cries for help, statements that they're tired of the lynchings and prejudice and won't take it any more.

This isn't a call to arms, this is a marriage counselor's plea for mutual understanding and empathy. It's not the least like the kind of story the media does about the threat from pesticides. It doesn't tell you to be afraid and take defensive action. Quite the contrary, it tells you your fear and defensiveness are what are causing the problem, and if you just lighten up and take a young Muslim to lunch all will be fine.

Posted by Carl Pham at April 6, 2007 06:46 PM

"First, the main issue with global warming is property damage, not deaths. Second, "equivocal" deaths should be taken just as seriously as "unequivocal" ones, provided that you count them properly."

Way to dodge the question, which still stands: If Islamic terrorism is statistically non-existent (despite 9-11, Beslan, Bali, Madrid, London, every day in Baghdad, etc.), then how is global warming any kind of threat when no deaths or property damage can even be attributed to it (making it a statistical nullity)? Please do explain how "the statistics" show that concern over global warming is not alarmism, but that worry about terrorism is. Count the global warming deaths any way you want, since zero is still zero.

Posted by Chuck at April 6, 2007 07:55 PM

Since Carl managed to write those key words "marriage counselor" I feel I have to provide a link to this woman's blog called neoneocon in case people don't know about it. A bit of a flippant introduction so my apologies to the author of an interesting blog ^_^

As for fear I find that the anti-war herd is obsessively fearful of fearmongering to the point that their fear of fear is far greater than anyones fear of terrorism. At least they seem to be the ones who usually bring it up as some kind of supposedly intelligent anti-war argument.

I guess they might have read Dune one time too many and got stuck on "nothing to fear but fear itself" in all the wrong ways.

Sooner or later they're likely to realize both that fear can have a positive role as the cause of perfectly normal selfpreservating behaviour and that what motivates many to support the war often isn't fear as such (at least not in the way they think about it) but hope. Perhaps those things are crucial parts to a more balanced point of view, I don't know.

I'll leave phoney statistics and "risk management" to those who errantly think they can calculate their future lives free of worry (I don't think they really understand what statistics, risk management, or "fear" is about).

Posted by Habitat Hermit (smoker) at April 7, 2007 02:34 AM

fear can have a positive role as the cause of perfectly normal selfpreservating behaviour and that what motivates many to support the war often isn't fear as such (at least not in the way they think about it) but hope.

Well said!

Posted by Carl Pham at April 7, 2007 02:53 AM

Habitat: "As for fear I find that the anti-war herd is obsessively fearful of fearmongering"

That's like saying the Simon Wiesenthal Center is obsessively hateful of hatemongering.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 7, 2007 06:44 AM

Thank you Carl.

Brian the point is that hyping a fear about people acting out of fear is in itself actually fearmongering. A lot of anti-war "arguments" and slogans look very silly from such a point of view.

Brian have you ever seen anti-war protesters brushing aside any support of the war as something only frightened simpletons swallowed by a "fear culture" could do? Ever seen the same people display or talk about their fear of "such people"? Isn't this a big part of how they manage to justify to themselves and their own that war supporters are supposedly far worse than they are? Isn't it at the core of the "Bush = Hitler" mentality?

There are people who are against the war yet avoid the above but if one is caught up in it I'm sure it's very hard to see or understand the point of view that they themselves are actually swept along by fearmongering.

Posted by Habitat Hermit at April 7, 2007 05:35 PM

So which is the more valid fear - that some time
in the future, some other 9/11-style "terrorist
attack" might hypothetically be made, or that the
US is, at present time, in actual fact, by
conscious choice at the national policy level,
embarking on a course of "perpetual warfighting?"

I remain deeply skeptical that "war", as
understood historically, is a valid paradigm for
the present situation... it implies that all we
need to do is roll up our sleeves, moblilze the
military-industrial complex, recruit enough of
the citizenry into the army, and make enough of
the poor SOB's on the Other Side die for their
country to solve the problem... otherwise we are
merely using "there's a war" to provide an excuse
for the government to be In Charge in ways that
go beyond its legitimate democratic mandate -
which in the long run will be more erosive to
what the USA _was_ supposed to be about than
any physical attack that might be made by "The
Terrorists"...

The Constitution, in its Preamble, states that
its purposes include "to provide for the common
defense" as well as to "promote the general
welfare", "form a more perfect Union" between
the states, etc.: it was intended to govern the
conduct of national affairs in time of war as
well as peace, and any government that, led by
a Chief Executive who was sworn in with a
promise to defend the Constitution, takes the
position that "war" justifies overriding its
spirit in the name of expediency is commiting the
worst sort of treason, by giving aid and comfort
to the "enemy within" that would rather abridge
our freedom than shoulder the task of defending
a free country as it is.

The "enemy within" includes to the generals
during the Vietnam War who took the position
that enduring public opposition to their
policies was just "the price we have to pay for
living in a free country". It includes to that
revered national icon, Abraham Lincoln, who
suspended the right to habeus corpus during the
War Between The States.

Applicability to present circumstances is left as
an exercise for the reader.

-dw

Posted by dave w at April 7, 2007 07:19 PM

I'm still waiting for someone to explain who those "home grown terrorists" are that are killing more than 3000 Americans?

Are we counting Indian raids? Bloody Kansas? Reconstruction? What about pre-colonization conflict between the Native Americans?

I think most people here are interested in the current likelihood of terrorist activity and its results (the most important of which is not murder but rather frightening a population into political or economic conessions; it is not, after all, called murderism).

Posted by jrandomamerican at April 7, 2007 10:01 PM

Hermit: "Brian the point is that hyping a fear about people acting out of fear is in itself actually fearmongering."

You're begging the question. To point out a fallacy doesn't require engaging in it, nor does accusing someone of emotional manipulation imply being guilty of it one's self.

Hermit: "A lot of anti-war "arguments" and slogans look very silly from such a point of view."

How exactly is it "silly" to note the fact that advocates of the war have, from the very beginning, substituted appeals to irrational fear for reasoned arguments? Could that reasonably be construed as evidence they never had anything better to work with?

Hermit: "Brian have you ever seen anti-war protesters brushing aside any support of the war as something only frightened simpletons swallowed by a "fear culture" could do?"

Yes, and that's the generous interpretation. The alternative is to imagine that someone is either clinically insane, and incapable of telling reality from fantasy, or a sociopath incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.

Hermit: "Isn't this a big part of how they manage to justify to themselves and their own that war supporters are supposedly far worse than they are?"

The vast majority of war opponents hide from the implication, for their own peace of mind. Growing up in this country, the realization that a solid quarter of the American people are actually, legitimately evil is very painful, and most people who recognized that didn't really want to think about the consequences if that segment of the populace came to power.

Then it happened, the Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the White House, and I swear to you I looked at everyone who was with me and said "We'll be at war within two years." Anyone with any semblance of character judgment knew that by the end of the election, if not the beginning. And the hardest thing to accept was that some people probably voted for Bush precisely because they realized it too.

Hermit: "Isn't it at the core of the "Bush = Hitler" mentality?"

No, his policies are at the core of it. The regime's approach to the world was unbridled belligerence and imperial arrogance, its human rights record that of a third world dictatorship, and its strategy on all questions was and is to assert absolute power and accept no legal restraint whatsoever without laborious and bitter struggle.

But that is not why people compare him to Hitler. Germany was a learned, philosophical, and accomplished society that had contributed much to the world, but from it arose a man who reflected none of it, pandered to the absolute worst and basest of human nature, became the unifying symbol of the vilest strains in their national character, and turned a culture of reason and productivity into a vortex of horror, hate, and madness in a few short years. The ANALOGY to Bush, not EQUIVALENCE, is obvious.

Moreover, what reminds people of Hitler is the bald-faced rejection of all moral, legal, ethical, and even empirical restraints on power. When Bush or one of his Inner Circle breaks a law, they don't merely break it, they effectively deny the law even exists, and respond as if their actions are *inherently* beyond the reach of law. This is not typical even among dictators, most of whom are common thugs--rather, the Bush regime is populated by full-on psychopaths for whom any form of external restraint is inconceivable.

Hermit: "There are people who are against the war yet avoid the above"

Yes, for their own peace of mind. In war, it helps to think of the enemy as evil, even when it's clearly not; but in domestic politics, when you have to walk past the other side on the street, most folks really need to tell themselves the psychos calling for mass murder and terrorism are just misguided. That's why Germans tolerated the rise of the Nazi Party; that's why Muslims tolerate fanatics in their midst; and that's why people in this country "respectfully disagree" with crazed murderers and their responsibility-dodging voters.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 10, 2007 08:45 PM

Brian I pointed out that not everyone against the war is doing it and while you agree on that point at the end of your post (with plenty of added bile) you still manage to start your post by ignoring it in order to simply argue. On its own that says a lot about both your post and your arguments.

I see all the behaviour I mentioned right there in your post. You can argue against my points but when your arguments themselves serve as excellent examples of the points I'm making it's hard to think of a way to progress since I'm obviously not achieving real communication.

I understand that you can't see it that way but I wish you could (and that's not the same as asking you to agree with me).

When people get to the stage of calling me evil or similar then I know all parties are better off not continuing. It can't really be called a debate any longer and I'm sure everyone can think of lots of better things to spend their time on.

Still I'd like to say a few things in closing.

I'm pretty sure we disagree on what constitutes irrational fears etc. but one of my main points is that I've met very few pro-war individuals that seem to be acting because they're consumed by fear. There are plenty of worried individuals for sure (and I'm one of them) but whatever hyperbole one finds usually is just that, hyperbole, and if one digs a bit deeper one almost never finds outright fear in the sense of the word as used by those against the war.

Brian says:
"Yes, and that's the generous interpretation. The alternative is to imagine that someone is either clinically insane, and incapable of telling reality from fantasy, or a sociopath incapable of distinguishing right from wrong."

I wonder exactly what part of that paragraph you think has anything at all to do with rational debate. Especially since if I was a US citizen I would have voted for Bush both times, and you must have known in advance that I support the war.

By the way I don't have any illusion that this sort of irrational entrenchement you're engaging in doesn't happen on all sides of the argument, of course it does, but that's in no way an excuse for anyone.

Then again I'm supposed to be the evil & deranged one and maybe I am since I treat your post with a civilised reply rather than the pure contempt it deserves.

Posted by Habitat Hermit at April 11, 2007 08:43 AM

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