I refuse to let them win…

With the recent news that yet another terrorist plot has been thwarted, I am happy to report that I have taken on a new attitude about the whole thing… I don't give a rat's patoot anymore.

As I was laying out last night in my hot tub, trying to catch a glimpse of "falling stars" from the ongoing Perseids meteorite shower, my wife mentioned that she had just heard that you would no longer be able to carry liquids of any kind in your carry-on luggage when you fly, because of the recent plot they broke up this week.

"That's nice," was all I could think of to say, as my eyes strained to pierce the too-light city sky that was keeping me from seeing any shooting stars.

As I saw my first light trail out of the corner of my eye, I realized that I had not thought about terrorism all month, in fact, almost hardly at all in the past year. It occurred to me, that since the days following 9-11, I had not really felt threatened, and for the most part, never gave it much of a thought, even while visiting New York City a year ago.

While I am certainly aware of the growing number of terrorists in the world, and their intention to wreak havoc upon all Westerners, I just don't think about it seriously. Here's why. I realize that the chances of being killed by a terrorist for the average American citizen living outside of key metro cities like New York, London, and Madrid, are about the same as having a fragment of a meteorite land on me in my hot tub some clear, dark night. It is just mathematically improbable.

But here we are, five years later, and every minor thug that is arrested, every plot to blow up a plane or a tunnel or a train that is foiled or carried out, propagates a massive rash of reports from the news channels, filled with experts like former terror czar Richard Clark, reminding us that we are not safe in a million different ways, from the threat of terror.

Our ports and borders are vulnerable. Our tunnels are vulnerable. Our airports are still vulnerable. Our building, libraries, public offices and mass transit vehicles are all vulnerable.

They are vulnerable for one very good reason…WE ARE NOT WILLING TO LIVE LIKE CRIMINALS IN A JAIL OF OUR OWN MAKING!!!

When we continue to over-react to the threat of terrorism, the terrorists win. When we continue to spend billions of dollars a week, to fight an idiotic battle to free people who will never understand what real freedom is about (as in not killing one another over religion), the terrorists win.When we continue to place the entire country under a variable system of terror alerts, when the likelihood of a terror strike in any place but major metro areas is completely unlikely, the terrorists win.

I will no longer play this game. I will no longer acquiesce when asked to give up my right to ignore the terrorists of the world.

I am FAR more likely to die from an accident, ranging from traffic to household falls to drowning (including my hot tub) if the stats are correct. In 2004, that last complete year of statistics, there were more than 263,000 accidental deaths in the United States. If I have an accident and don't die right away, there is a reasonable chance that my hospital stay may kill me, as more than 93,00 people died last year due to erroneous, deadly infections they contracted while staying in a hospital.

In the past 5 years, there have been fewer than 5,000 people killed WORLDWIDE by terrorist attacks, unless you count the hundreds of thousands of people who have died at the hands of rebels in Africa, and we almost never pay attention to that region of the world.

You simply have to ask yourself, "Why would terrorist attack me here in ______ (insert your home town)?" The simple reality, is that unless you live one of the obvious targets of terror, namely a large, universally recognized urban city that is known to be an icon for Western civilization, the answer is, "There is no reason…I should stop worrying…oh look! Did I just see another shooting star?"

Even for those of you who live in major, urban "target cities," the statistics are on your side. Take into account that the 3,000 that died on 9-11, were part of a city that has almost 3 million people moving in and out of it every single day. The same with London. The same with Madrid. You are far more likely to be killed by a taxi (driven by a foreigner) than you are by a terrorist, no matter what the color of the "Terrorist Alert Warning" is on any given day.

I am not happy about the new flight regulations. I am not happy that it will make my wait and travel experiences all the longer and unpleasant. I am not happy that I will have to pay the airlines for water, because I can't bring my own. I am not happy that I have to pack all of my toiletries in my check-in luggage, as I have had some bad experiences with the condition the security folks have left my bags after checking them out.

Most of all, I am not happy that once again, a group of insane, extremist, scum-buckets who plotted for years to bring down a couple of planes with a suicidal explosion of combustible liquids, while being caught, are still altering the lives of millions of travelers and increasing the instability of the world in one more way.

Screw 'em! I am not going to play the game. If a terrorist wants me…send him over. But, tell him to bring his swim trunks…I'll be in the hot tub, ignoring him and the latest terror index reports.