Fear as a Weapon

Fear as a Weapon: "That we are a strong enough nation to defeat terrorism without fundamentally changing our nation is a message that Americans are clearly ready to hear. We are more than four years away from September 11, 2001, and despite the dire warnings of the Bush administration, people in rural Kansas and suburban Georgia and everywhere else are beginning to realize that on the list of problems and threats that endanger their children and impede their dreams, the potential of a terrorist attack does not predominate. In a rational world, risk is equal to impact multiplied by probability. As the Linguasphere Dictionary puts it: �In professional risk assessment, risk combines the probability of a negative event occurring with how harmful that event would be.� But the administration has spent four years urging Americans to ignore that way of thinking and instead assent to any government measure,no matter the costs of comparative harms, as long as it is pursued in the name of fighting this ultimate evil. "

If you have time, please read this article. Winston Churchill was right when he said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."