The point of comparing death tolls is not to ignore the psychological impact, but rather to argue that the psychological impact should be the target of the remedies.
For a country like the United States, terrorism is an allergen, and the reaction to an attack is anaphylaxis.
When a person is allergic to bee stings, the best solution is to convince the immune system that bee stings aren't really a big deal and should not have such a strong response. This is hard, but it's the best possible way to deal with the allergy if you can accomplish it.
Imagine if somebody was stung by a bee, and then the subsequent allergic reaction nearly killed them. Imagine if you use their near death as a reason to to be hyper-vigilant against future bee stings. Imagine if your proposed hyper-vigilance involved numerous measures to boost the immune system response against bee stings.
This is, essentially, current policy on terrorism. It's unsustainable and outright dangerous. The only long-term solution is to figure out how to get the immune system to stop reacting so strongly i.e. figure out how to get people to react to terrorism in a way that is proportionate to the direct damage it causes.
I don't know how to accomplish that outright, but we could at least start by not having the government play along with it.
Amen - you don't fix people's irrational fears by encouraging and indulging them. That is, of course, unless you own a business selling anti-boogeyman traps.
For a country like the United States, terrorism is an allergen, and the reaction to an attack is anaphylaxis.
When a person is allergic to bee stings, the best solution is to convince the immune system that bee stings aren't really a big deal and should not have such a strong response. This is hard, but it's the best possible way to deal with the allergy if you can accomplish it.
Imagine if somebody was stung by a bee, and then the subsequent allergic reaction nearly killed them. Imagine if you use their near death as a reason to to be hyper-vigilant against future bee stings. Imagine if your proposed hyper-vigilance involved numerous measures to boost the immune system response against bee stings.
This is, essentially, current policy on terrorism. It's unsustainable and outright dangerous. The only long-term solution is to figure out how to get the immune system to stop reacting so strongly i.e. figure out how to get people to react to terrorism in a way that is proportionate to the direct damage it causes.
I don't know how to accomplish that outright, but we could at least start by not having the government play along with it.