Now, don't come back and tell me I said there was no risk in terror, or that we shouldn't fear it. Because what I am saying here- again- is that we should keep things in proportion to rational things, like numbers and odds, and not in proportion to feelings, which are irrational.
Color me confused, then, because this is exactly what you said:
It is irrational to focus on that which is unlikely to affect you.
If it is irrational to fear something which is unlikely to affect us, such as terrorism, then why fear it at all? If the concern is slight, fear is nonexistent. I have absolutely no fear that my high-rise will topple, though I have a very slight concern that under a certain extremely improbable set circumstances it might.
And it is absolutely not irrational to focus on the personally unlikely. It is rational, is it not, for me to focus on any number of issues that affect me only slightly, such as earth warming and a host of others.
The problem with your approach is that we act collectively, presumably for the better good. The fact that we might be affected only slightly by any one issue does not prevent us from considering and weighing it in making political decisions as if were momentous.
But you essentially, I think, agree with my point that most voters, especially those red staters much more unlikely to be affected by terror than coastal metropolitan blue staters, recognized that terrorism is unlikely to affect any one of them individually regardless of what fear-mongering was done by either candidate. At the end of the day, it is this recognition on the part of the voters that invalidates the notion that fear won the election for Bush. |
