You know, if you don’t have anything to say yourself, at least quote somebody.
That seems to be the tenor of a majority of blogs – and I don’t say that’s a bad thing. boing boing for example consists to a bigger part of quotes from other people or stories the original bloggers found in the vast reaches of the internet. So it saves me a lot of time to just look at boing boing and get informed (I know it’s biased and so I don’t take it as the sole source of my data stream.)
After that introduction is should be clear that today I don’t have any of my own thoughts but are intending to quote somebody. This somebody is again Larken Rose, who, in his latest news letter, has some eye-opening things to say.
I particularly like the thingy about the bathtub control.
Dear Subscriber,
I’ve been surprised by how blunt I can be, and still not offend most of you. So far my most effective offending-you message seems to be my message about how the Constitution didn’t work. (Around 40 people unsubscribed after that one.) But that’s still well under 1% of the list, so you people apparently have pretty thick skins. So I’ll try again:
If you live in the U.S. and worry about terrorism, you’re a gullible bonehead. It’s getting pathetic how easily the government and the media can lead the American public around by their emotions, in any direction they choose. “Oh my gosh, I’m scared of global warming!” “Oh my gosh, I’m scared of gun violence!” “Oh my gosh, I’m scared of terrorism!” The general public worries about and is scared of whatever they’re TOLD to be scared of. A particularly hilarious parody of this fact can be found here:
There you can see a string of politician rhetoric which is OBVIOUSLY designed to SCARE you. Politicians are constantly talking about terrorism, and how they neeeeeeed more power to combat it. But, even accepting on blind faith the government’s version of what happened on 9/11 (which I don’t), is fear of terrorism rational?
Statistically, no. I hate to mess up their mind control by citing facts, but the following site gives some basic statistics about causes of death in the U.S.
http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm
Assuming the stats in 2003 weren’t drastically different from the preceding years, here are a few facts that you should keep in mind:
1) In the last decade (1997 to 2007), you had about a 1/100,000 chance of being killed by a terrorist attack. (That’s the population of the country divided by the number of people who died on 9/11/01).
2) In the last decade, you were about 170 times as likely to be killed in a car accident as you were to be killed by a terrorist act. Let’s do a little graphic to illustrate the ratio:
Killed by terrorists (1997-2007):
*
Killed in car crashes (1997-2007):
************************* ************************* ************************* ************************* ************************* ************************* ********************(So are you 170 times more scared of driving than you are of terrorists? I am.)
3) In the last decade, you were as likely to drown in your bathtub as you were to be killed by a terrorist act. (Where is the clamor for “bathtub control”?)
4) In the last decade, you were twice as likely to die from cold weather as you were to be killed by a terrorist act.
5) Last, but not least, in the last decade you were more likely to be SHOT AND KILLED BY AMERICAN LAW ENFORCEMENT than you were to be killed by a terrorist act. Don’t believe me? Look at the bottom of that page, under the Orwellian heading “legal intervention.” (347 events per year adds up to well over 3,000 in a decade.)
(Yes, I know that using the word “you” is a bit of an over- generalization, since people in different categories obviously have different risks, but you get the point.)
People are constantly telling me how we neeeeeeed “government” to protect us (a topic I’ll discuss more soon). When the government, with the help of the mainstream media, is constantly telling you to be SCARED of things–except for itself, of course, which is what you SHOULD fear–and then painting itself as the solution to all those problems, it’s no wonder so many people think we need it. All our lives we’ve all been bombarded by the propaganda of tyrants, telling us that the world would be CHAOS if they aren’t given the power to protect us. Even a lot of pro-freedom people still have a ways to go to overcome that indoctrination.
Sincerely,
Larken Rose