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John, I'm not sure what you've added to the discusssion.

You really aren't sure? The most intelligent one here isn't sure? I think what you really mean is you disagree with me, isn't that more accurate?

There are currently all manner of emotional dialectic designed to elevate the WAR ON TERRORISM to ensure it is clearly in the #1 spot, because frankly that's all the current administation has got to win this presidential race.

OK, so right off, you've backpedaled from your prior statement that terrorism isn't that significant in terms of human lives and we should focus on other causes of death. And so your "analysis" is revealed for what it was all along, a thinly-veiled attack on the Bush Administration.

He's been fiscally irresponsible and his domestic policy is abysmal.

Assertions without facts. I also believe that certain policies of the Bush Administration have been wrong. Stay tuned for my opinion on that, it will actually include FACTS.

You point to the emotional impact on the families who were directly impacted, and my heart goes out to them.

Hmm, where was that heartfelt emotion in your original post? I can't seem to locate it among your assertion that the death toll of terror in the USA didn't justify the importance attached to it by the Bush Administration.

Emotional aside: It's very well for you to sit out on the left coast and pontificate from behind your Internet nom de plume . For one month after 9/11 I got to breathe the smoke from the still-smoldering WTC site. This is a REAL issue, not some government-funded, how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin social experiement through which you can try out the latest BS academic theory. When discussing terror, Sir, I submit that you are UNQUALIFIED to comment on its effects on the American populace.

But then I want to get back to the question of what level of ongoing threat is posed by terrorism. And no, I'm not aggregating anything. I'm suggesting we compare each of those mortality causes independently with terrorism. My guess is that terrorism comes nowhere near stacking up to them in terms of mortality.

Which remains undisputed. What the point of YOUR thread was (you may want to re-read it to refresh your recollection) is the PRIORITY on Terror as a cause of mortality that our administration assigns is greater than the actual number of deaths reflects.

Your cause-and-effect string ending in economic decline due to consumer confidence trouble scores no points with me for at least two reasons. First (if you really understood my "broken record ideology" this explanation would not be necessary), I do not buy into the notion that what is good for business is good for people. Candidly, if the standard work week were cut back to four days, and if (a big "if," frankly) there were an equivalent economic decline, our white-hot economy might have a chance to cool a little, people would have more free time, perhaps that last 20% of income and the high-tech toys it buys are not the straightest roads to happiness.

ALL RIGHT! You are finally on the road to intellectual honesty! You've begun to reveal your TRUE, SOCIALIST agenda! Go with it! Tell us all more how business is bad for us! That institution that employs us, clothes us, fills our stomachs, houses us, and cures our illnesses! OUTLINE for us how you would replace BUSINESS with a TRUE SOCIALIST UTOPIA that provides for all those needs on a COMMAND basis, with SMART guys like YOU at the top running it!

By the way, you're describing labor conditions in France.

The other reason is that the same cause-and-effect relationship can easily, and perhaps more easily be drawn in the other issues. For example, what do you suppose is the unseen emotional and sociological fallout from the public's sleepy/dreamy/awakening awareness that the the social security promise, the retirement floor/rug, is going to be pulled out from under Americans soon? Ummm, would there be an impact on consumer confidence?

Superman, or Jim, since you are the most learned one here you are no doubt familar with what logicians call the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" fallacy. And this last statement is a shining example of the fallacy at work.

I don't disagree with you that the Social Security system is on the verge of insolvency and needs to be dramatically replaced. We can debate that elsewhere, although I really genuinely question whether that debate can be carried on here without the inevitable degeneration into Bush-bashing that seems to result. (Have you noticed the quality of debate declining around here? I certainly have.) Let's try and debate how we eliminate the program, or replace it with a private-sector-funded alternative. For fun, YOU argue for elimination or privatization and I'll take the other side.

Neither do I disagree that the economic drag that funding Social Security "On-Budget" represents is a MAJOR concern, and a potentially catastrophic drag on our economy.

But here's where the fallacy of causation comes in: does that mean we should IGNORE the "War on Terror?"

That's what you propose, isn't it? That we shift focus and resources away from fighting terrorism and to those other socialist programs that YOU would prefer?

Sorry, I'm just not prepared to agree with you.