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Your view is exactly the kind of fear I'm referring to.

Re. Tylenol, 7 people died in an isolated area, and the response was national legislation and money and materials spent tamper-proofing every drug made since then. People are still scared of Halloween candy being tampered with (which in and of itself has never been recorded as happening). By that logic, we should have outlawed cars years ago; more than 7 people die every day in accidents.

Re. military action, the occupation of Iraq had little to do with stopping "terrorists." If you recall, we invaded because of our fears of WMD's--which of course, turned out not to exist. You would also do well to recall that we have had terrorist attacks since we invaded: remember the shoe bomber, or the underwear bomber, who both successfully smuggled explosives into a plane after military action had begun? Only their own incompetence and the alertness of the passengers prevented tragedy--the military had nothing to do with it. To suggest otherwise is, frankly, simple ignorance.

Finally, I'm reminded of a Simpsons quote: For $100, I can sell you a rock that prevents tiger attacks. It really works: I've never been attacked by a tiger since I bought my own rock!

"Re. military action, the occupation of Iraq had little to do with stopping "terrorists." If you recall, we invaded because of our fears of WMD's--which of course, turned out not to exist."

No, we invaded Iraq for oil and because a certain Commander CodPiece was a bit too big for his britches. Remember all those oil contracts that were put into place before we invaded? WMDs were an excuse, not the reason.

Many years later, the US is still bleeding money and lives because of this idiotic decision.

No, look at the Vice President and whose pocket he was in. Guess who the largest percentage of contracts for Iraq was? Iraq War was a jobs program for the industrial war machine framework. Not oil..gov contracts worth billions

"Re. Tylenol, 7 people died in an isolated area, and the response was national legislation and money and materials spent tamper-proofing every drug made since then."

This needed to be done, otherwise someone would be able to do it again. It's not like it hasn't happened. This fear is based on a real case where real people died. Just like the security the US has in its airports. Which is interesting, because there hasn't been any successful terror attacks since 9/11. I would say that their job is being done quite well.

"People are still scared of Halloween candy being tampered with (which in and of itself has never been recorded as happening)."

I will agree with you here, this is a ridiculous fear, which is based more on myth than an actual case.

"By that logic, we should have outlawed cars years ago; more than 7 people die every day in accidents."

They do, but we need cars. We don't need non-tamper proof Tylenol. Although it may never happen again, there is an obvious flaw in the way Tylenol was bottled and that flaw needed to be fixed.

Of course, if they didn't fix this flaw, there would be a fear of Tylenol and people wouldn't buy it..and if it happened again, Tylenol would get sued from anyone that died (then what would we say..stop being afraid?). Fixing it is the smart thing to do.

Should we not wear seat belts either? The chance you will get in a car accident on the way to work is fairly low. Is this just "fear"?

We take preparations all the time, even if there is a small chance that something bad will happen. This is because when something bad does happen, it means death. It seems you don't value human life as much as the US government if you are willing to take that risk (and force everyone else to take that risk).

When Y2K happened, there were a ton of systems fixed (I worked on a few myself). After the new year, many people thought that nothing happened, so why did we make such a big deal about it? If nobody had taken the precautions and fixed these systems, there would have been problems. You (and anyone else against security) are comfortable. You don't see any direct threats and feel that security and precautions aren't needed as a result of this comfort.

Having lived both in the U.S. and abroad (I have dual citizenship), I have to say I agree with the original comment. Americans are afraid, and the culture of fear predates 9/11 by a wide margin.

If you want to estimate how many attacks have been prevented by your paranoia, take a look at how many attacks have succeeded in countries with far laxer security. I think you'll find there's not much of a difference, you are paying dearly for not much at all.

Of course, America may have an above-average number of enemies, which might justify tighter security.

But if that is the case, it is worth asking why - and if the root cause can be addressed by diplomacy or (GASP) better behavior on the global stage, then maybe that would be a good alternative to sacrificing your own civil liberties?

Just a thought. :-)

> Of course, America may have an above-average number of enemies, which might justify tighter security.

This is a common belief, which does not make it false.

I'm sure America would be willing to step down to the extent someone else (a European coalition?) would be willing to step up.

Just a thought.

> I actually would love for the US to stop all military actions and then have a major terrorist attack. I know I would be the first to blame all of the people who said we were too "paranoid".

So you'd happily see thousands of people killed as long as it proves you right?

Classy.

> So you'd happily see thousands of people killed as long as it proves you right?

Recent American politics in a nutshell, I'm afraid. Football with words, but also stealth bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

"Classy."

It would shut everyone on HN (and the US) up that seem to think that we don't need TSA security.