I would not presume to say what the Brits should do in response to the attacks in London yesterday. It was the third terrorist attack with multiple fatalities in three months.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has proclaimed “enough is enough” but I don’t know what that means in practical terms.
I do know that if the U. S. had experienced something similar Americans would react, possibly precipitously and rashly.
In each case in the UK the police have responded decisively. That doesn’t appear to have been enough to deter more attacks.
There’s something about these terrorist attacks that grab at the heart and capture the attention. I don’t know what it is. Is it their apparent unpredictability? You can’t just avoid a bad neighborhood and stay safe.
Terrorist attacks are special in that the represent the truth that cannot be spoken: Islam is an evil religion that must be extirpated.
Right, Jimbino, let’s kill 1,500,000,000 people. You start.
You are three times as likely to be murdered in lily-white, Republican, deeply religious, largely rural Utah as you are to be murdered by anyone – terrorist or random thug – in multicultural, urban London.
I agree with the thrust of your comment, Michael. I don’t believe that genocide or suppression are likely to improve matters.
However, I’m curious. Where did you get your statistics? I think that quite to the contrary the homicide rate in rural Utah is about the same as in London. Americans and Europeans tend to have a lot of misconceptions about the homicide rate here. Rural homicide rates tend to be low for all races. What boosts our overall statistics is the black urban homicide rate.
Utah had 90 murders last year I found stats for, out of a population of 3 million. London, with 9 million, had 118.
According to this article Utah had 63 homicides in 2016. Almost all of those were in Salt Lake County which isn’t rural.
For me, the attack was jarring because Manchester was so fresh, indeed today was supposed to bring some closure with the benefit concert.
I have lots of other thoughts and questions and I am sure I will have opportunities to write them, but today its sympathy for the victims and the Brits.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865670281/Utah-homicides-skyrocket-in-2016.html
Different stats, same point: despite the fact that these stats are for the entire state – much of which is rural – they have a higher murder rate than London which, obviously, is all city. A comparison between SLC and London would be still worse, presumably.
Super white, super Christian, super Republican Utah vs. multicultural London. The point being that it makes more sense to be panicked in Utah than in London.
Actually, I am not 100% sure why killings by terrorists are perceived as being os much worse than other killings. No more controllable or predictable that other mass killings. Some times it is because they are outsiders, but a lot of these are being done by people born in the country. Her in the US we pay a lot more attention to maths from terrorists, and spend a lot more money on it than we do on a lot of other area where we have preventable deaths. Not saying these attacks are not important, but we certainly don’t spend our money well.
Steve
Gee. I wonder if a wave of runaway cars, bombings, shootings and beheadings, perpetrated nearly exclusively by Lutherans and targeted at atheists, over the next two years would be treated in such a blasé fashion. You know, complete with Lutherans railing against the infadels and calling for their extermination. It’s Gods will. Yeah, probably. I mean, seriously, what’s all the hub-hub about? Very puzzling. It’s just a few thousand dead, and after all, most Lutherans are peaceful people.
Go about your day, or the Lutherans win.
There’s something about these terrorist attacks that grab at the heart and capture the attention. I don’t know what it is. Is it their apparent unpredictability? You can’t just avoid a bad neighborhood and stay safe.
I think the predictability/avoidability issue is operative, but in addition there’s the sheer outrage of the motivations involved. Plus, the attacks are planned to produce maximum horror. If there was a Ted Bundy mass murderer using nail bombs as his murder weapon I think it would also get a lot of attention.
Michaels statistics are “true” as far as averages go, but the truth is that risk varies widely by individual and group. The risk of murder for and average middle class person is much less while the risk of murder for people with known risk factors (gang/drug activity, unemployment, drug/alchohol abuse etc.) is much greater. So what sets these terrorism incidents apart (and most mass murder attacks in general) is they don’t conform to our normal expectations of risk factors. Notional aggregate statistical averages don’t really mean much in this context.