The High Cost of Overreacting

I've said it before, but there is never any cost/benefit analysis to Absolute Safety. Ever. Why? Because freedom isn't free. And because shut up, that's why! And you don't want to get snuffed out in your bed at 3:00 am by a terrorist do you?!

I think someone once said something about all of this, years ago:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.
He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."
"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.
He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said.

We may have had Navy SEALs swoop in and shoot him in the face, but you can't argue that he didn't ultimately accomplish his goal. I know I'm not the first freedom hating, anti-American liberal to point this out, but it bears repeating as the ten year anniversary of September 11th nears tomorrow. We allowed two terrorists armed with box cutters and a plot that cost $500,000 to fundamentally alter the fabric of America and by extension, the world. We essentially reacted like Gotham City did in The Dark Knight at the hands of the Joker: "Look at what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets." We played right into their hands, launching two endless wars, one of which was completely unrelated to the attack on our soil, and spent billions and trillions of dollars in the pursuit of the laughable ideal of Absolute Safety. We circumvented civil liberties long enshrined by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution, to the extent that many who have grown up during the time of 9/11 now view this as normal. Even when bin Laden came out and publicly stated that this was his end game, we kept right at it anyway. And we continue to do so, and these same policies will continue into perpetuity. He got in our heads, altered our psyche, altered who we are as a people, even going so far as to justify torture as a means to an end, and gave birth to the insanity of the national security apparatus that has its tentacles firmly wrapped about America, ever wooing citizens to forego their civil liberties and basic governmental services commonly offered by other Western democracies so that we can plow billions into defense and security spending in pursuit of the specious goal of wholly preventing all future and potential terror attacks. All of this despite the overwhelming volumes of evidence that show that more Americans die in car accidents than they do as a result of terror attacks. Maybe it is time for no-drive lists and screening shoes and liquids before people get behind the wheel!

Contrast this with how Norway's prime minister reacted when recently confronted with a violent attack on his nation by an unhinged extremist:

Earlier Mr. Stoltenberg said the attacks were directed at Norway's "fundamental values" - democracy and openness - and that the response would be "more democracy, more openness." He said he expected people to participate more broadly in politics.
He added it was too early to consider new security laws.
"Now is the time for comfort for those who have lost family members [and] friends, and to help those who are still wounded," he said.
"Then afterwards, and especially after the investigation is finished, there will be a time for going through all the experiences, learning from what happened and then draw the conclusions regarding, for instance, security measures."
But the prime minister said the time would come when it was necessary to move on.
"We have to, at some stage, move back to some kind of normality, and also to convey the message of sadness with a message of something positive - and that is that we have seen a very united Norwegian people."

Any American politician uttering these words would be labeled a dirty hippie, pussy-ass coward and Unserious.

I'm not even going to go into the opportunity cost of $3 trillion dollars and what we could have done with that money. Just remember during all the flag waving and high-minded, freedom loving, America #1 speechifying that will take place tomorrow, it didn't have to be this way. We voluntarily embarked on a lifelong, national policy of absolute insanity in the wake of the death of 3,000 of our fellow citizens, co-opting their deaths and memories to subvert the rest of the nation into accepting endless wars and the perpetual empowerment of the security state. Their lives and legacies deserve better than this. 

UPDATE: ThinkProgress gives the thrust of my post a leg up, noting that in the ten years since 9/11, only 33 Americans have been killed as a result of terror attacks, while 150,000 Americans have been slain in murders.