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0 points300bps12y ago0 comments

I disagree. For the majority of the United States, driving in a car is not a choice - it's a requirement to work.

Regardless:

In 2013, 1,660,290 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer.

In 2013, 580,350 people are expected to die from cancer.

Source: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurvei...

Did these people die by their choice also? Maybe they should have eaten more vegetables and exercised more? That's 116 times more deaths in one year than have died by terrorism in 148 years.

If we had 240,000 employees working on cancer prevention, screening, treatment and cures do you think we might be able to bring that cancer death number down by 1%? That would save 5,800 lives per year which is more than the last 148 years have killed by terrorism. (Department of Homeland Security has 240,000 employees, improving screening processes alone would likely reduce cancer deaths by 1% per year).

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5 comments · 2 top-level

Spooky2312y ago· 3 in thread

We invest billions to reduce driving accidents -- and have significantly reduced both accidents and fatalities as a result of accidents via investments in road engineering, vehicle engineering and rules.

We also invest billions in cancer research and prevention. That has reduced the death rate over 20% in the last 20 years. 152,000 lives were spared in 2009 (http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20130116/cancer-death-rates...)

300bpsOP12y ago

The Department of Homeland Security has 240,000 employees and a budget of over $60 billion. There have been 5,000 terrorist deaths in the last 148 years.

We invest billions to reduce driving accidents

The National Transportation Safety Board has 400 employees and a budget of $100 million. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has an annual budget of $815 million. There are approximately 30,000 deaths per year from vehicle accidents alone.

We also invest billions in cancer research and prevention.

The National Institute of Health has an annual budget of $30 billion. This covers every type of infection and disease, but approximately 550,000 people per year die of cancer alone. Approximately 600,000 people die of heart disease per year.

Can you see how these things are totally out of whack?

DISCLAIMER: This is a comment on a message board. This is not a PhD thesis. There are plenty of additional nits to pick and I'm sure there are plenty of comments nit witty enough to be posted in response. The bottom line is that terrorism is given resources far beyond the scale of the problem and that is indisputable.

raleec12y ago

If the crux of your argument is the number of employees and funding are disproportionate to the number of deaths, you have to extract the number of employees and monies dedicated to terrorism specifically (If any).

Most of the DHS employees are part of pre-existing agencies that were combined to form DHS.

"187 federal agencies and departments, including the United States National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the United States Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, the 14 agencies that constitute the U.S. intelligence community and Civil Air Patrol"

Edit: removed FBI reference, posted subsumed agencies as per Wikipedia...

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Spooky2312y ago

If you want to disclaim facts out of ignorance, go for it. If you spend 30 seconds researching highway death trends, you see that like cancer, there has been a significant reduction in highway deaths in the last twenty years, to the tune of 30% fatality reduction and 70% reduction per mile travelled. This was directly driven by federal investments.

The NTSB budget is a tiny piece of the pie. The US government has sent billions on vehicle safety, road engineering, road remediation, drunk driving remediation, etc.

You keep citing $60B (30% of which is the Coast Guard and Customs/Border Patrol) and 5,000 deaths since the civil war. You're out of touch. What is your threshold number where you care? Do we really need 30,000 people to die annually for you to care?

readme12y ago

No, it's definitely a choice. If someone doesn't want to drive they can move to a city. Taking the job that led you to require a car is a choice. Having a kid that led you to require that job that requires that car is a choice, too.

It's choices all the way down.

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