Hate Crimes: A Fact Post

Sure. So let's go back to the earlier question: When people say "more people die from having trees fall on them than from terrorism[1], so you shouldn't be bothered by terrorism any more than you are by falling trees", is that a reasonable argument or does it fail to engage with less-obvious harms caused by terrorism?

[1] I have not in fact checked whether this is true. It will certainly be true with all sorts of things in place of "falling trees" that most of us are mostly not very scared of.

I think the answer depends on what sort of botherment we're looking at. If someone feels visceral fear of violent death when they think about terrorism, it's really only actual deaths in terrorist attacks that are relevant, and the fact that they're rare compared with is good reason not to be so afraid. If they're arguing for (alleged) anti-terrorist measures like the TSA, then again it obviously doesn't make sense for them to say "we need to overreact to terrorism, because terrorism is bad on account of overreaction". I think these probably are what those "more people are killed by their own toothpaste[2] than by terrorism" memes are aiming at, so I agree that sarahconstantin's version of NatashaRostova's argument doesn't seem like it works well.

[2] I have not checked whether this is true, and it probably isn't. See [1] above.

But it's not all wrong. I will gladly agree that most of what the TSA does seems to be security theatre, but it would be quite surprising if literally everything we do in the name of preventing and obstructing terrorism were completely useless. So the right point of comparison is either with the harm terrorists would be doing if we didn't do anything to stop them, or with the harm they are actually doing plus that of whatever measures we could be adopting that would be equally effective with less impact on civil liberties, waiting times, not having our genitalia groped by security agents, etc. Unfortunately, I've no idea how to estimate either of those with any accuracy.

It is just our good friend incentives hard at work. People like getting elected. Being tough on whatever is popular. So you look tougher than the existing guy. Buy he got the job by looking tougher than the previous guy, and so it goes.

After a few iterations the system is at nonsense levels. Everyone has been even tougher than the last person, until rank madness is being paraded as the only acceptable alternative. Anything else would be surrender to the unpersons.

Now you've got endless waves of people ready to defend college ladies from stranger danger, while ignoring their relatives who will actually rape them. Endless bills to defend black folks from men in white hoods, while thugs in masks and men with badges actually kill them. Endless efforts to shield children from "bullies" while they are flushed through a system actively hostile to their development.

Bravery is rewarded, so people try to show it. You look bravest when you fight the scariest foe. Imaginary stuff is scarier than real stuff could ever be, so those who would be our defenders squander their energies wrestling shadows, even as actual harms come and go, undeterred. It is pitiful, but entirely understandable.