Land Of The Afraid

A reader writes:

This is the most salient thing you've written in some time.

The way our politics of fear is now constructed, there is no limit to the costs involved in nation-building in every conceivable failed state that could be a safe harbor for Jihadists. We cannot have the adult conversation about how much terrorist damage the US should tolerate compared with the costs of trying to control this phenomenon at its source. We are not mature enough as a country to have that conversation. And Obama has decided it isn't worth confronting that question now.

This is indeed what this is all about. To avoid a potential terrorist attack we are willing to invade countries and conduct wars to the end of time, if necessary. We are a country of cowards. And we're not too bright, either.

Not a good combination of traits. And soon enough we'll be bankrupt.  But it all goes to the point that we'd rather ravage the armed forces and bankrupt the nation than risk a bomb going off in a rail station in Philadelphia. We no longer are in a state where we can guarantee 100% that we can't get hit by a terrorist. That world doesn't exist anymore. The sooner we wrap our tiny little heads and hearts around that notion the better off we'll all be. Instead, i had to forfeit my bottle of Wisconsin horseradish mustard at the airport cause it contained more than 3 oz. of a condiment used to flavor links of compressed pig guts. I remember thinking back after 9-11 that things would, indeed, never be the same. It's a shame we were all stuck with the leadership of Bush, Cheney and Rove after 9-11.