Quote Originally Posted by OgenRwot View Post
I will not live in fear. I will not spend today holed up in my house just waiting. I will live my life to the fullest and carry on with my daily business.

For the past several years I've had a constant heightened level of awareness. But that's because I have a better chance getting mugged on the light rail than getting blown up by a terrorist. You can't really prepare for a suicide bomber but you can prepare for an attempted mugging.
This. People are really really bad at judging what's a threat. Things that are very common (car accidents & heart attacks) are so common they're seen as ordinary and thus not as much of a threat as something that's widely seen on the news, like a school shooting or terrorist incident. You are more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist. Statistically. You're two orders of magnitude more likely to be killed or injured in a car accident. Buckle up every time you drive. Like people who are afraid of flying, you should be afraid of your drive the the airport and back. It's much more dangerous.

Second point Ogen correctly makes is the terrorists aren't really capable of doing that much damage to us. Our over-reaction to the events of 9/11 caused far, far more damage than four hijacked airliners. Their goal is to use our fear and stupidity as a "force multiplier" -- to get us to give us our liberties ("PATRIOT Act"), to give up on our rights ("Freedom of/from religion", "Taking pictures from public property", etc)

H.