Anzahl der Opfer des 11.9.
2.974

Anzahl der Selbstmo…

(ins Deutsche übersetzt):
Tote beim 11. Sept. 2001: 2,974
Verkehrstote auf Highways im Jahr 2006: 38,588
Tote durch Fettleibigkeit: 300,000
Krebstote im Jahr 2007:

It appears as though we are beyond the point of return. Ironically, it will require a powerful, charismatic conservative (probably Republican) leader with great wisdom and vision to pull off the necessary reforms…quite the combination…VERY unlikely.

The government shouldn’t have gotten involved in building roads. Go back and read newspapers from the early parts of the 20th century. “Can’t get to the next town except on foot or rail — the road is washed out!”

Had the government follwed your advices, we would not have an over-abundance of cars — they never would have been feasible.

Instead of bailing out the auto industry (by building roads) the government should have let the free market rule. Then we would have trains everywhere.

The three biggest numbers you have up there are highly dependent on personal choice. Some forms of cancer involve little to no choice, but many do, might be interesting to see the breakdown there. I see no reason to spend massive amounts of government money (my money) on (other peoples) personal choice.

The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough many going to these things, the problem is we have way to much government involvement.

Given the wide array of location and actions the US military is involved in associating total military spending to 9/11 deaths is nothing short of laughable.

Could military spending be less? Maybe. I’m quite sure there is a fair amount of waste in there. But doing a comparison between total military spending and the spending of a couple select federal projects has no value whatsoever.

As long as greed and commerce take priority over what is best or what is right, we will continue to destroy our world, our country, and our nation’s soul. No government action by itself can solve these problems. A paradigm shift in the values of Americans is necessary to turn around what has become a culture full of corporate greed, personal indifference and ignorance, and misguided religious zeal.

Democracy is a wonderful thing, but when the desires of the ignorant many, or the greedy powerful few win out over the best choices, then all hope is ultimately lost. Where faith in capitalism and the free market was once a fine thing, it is clear now that the only moral compass driving the forces of commerce in this country and of MNCs are personal greed and the myth of constant growth.

There is no model in history that I know of that can solve these problems. The only examples history has to offer are those of failure. The poor and ignorant don’t know any better, and the rich and powerful are don’t care as long as they make more money. The educated left and right are useless pundits, and middle are just trying to pay mortgages that they should not have taken and raise kids that will not be equipped to solve the problems our parents and our generation have created.

Man, don’t even get me started.

PA has decided that subsidising public transit in rural areas is also worthwhile and I know people who use the bus instead of owning a car despite not working in the city.

It is unfortunate that people who haven’t experienced good public transportation think it isn’t worthwhile.

I certainly value the Amtrak option that is available.

What are we defending ourselves against? It seems that we are defending ourselves against fear, and that’s about it. Why do we have to spend so much more on defense than anybody else?

If we really valued each human life for what it is, we would be channeling far more public money into saving lives than putting it into a department whose job is to destroy them.

I don’t really fee like looking up the numbers to debate your obviously cherry picked worthless numbers, but much of the medical research in the US is state and private funded. Same with car safety.

Total military funding really doesn’t have much to do with 9/11. Defense is one of the primary responsibilities of government.

Medicare and Medicaid are treatment, not prevention, programs. Certainly there would be more deaths if they weren’t in place.

The transportation budget figure also is misleading, as a large part of it is part of the problem (funding for highways rather than safer modes of transport).

I did correct the figure for the total military spending, thanks. It it still sadly disproportionate to the actual damage inflicted.

1. You’re missing the importance of volition.

Suicides decide to kill themselves. Traffic accidents are caused by people choosing to drive too quickly, or intoxicated, or when conditions are poor, or with unsafe drivers; or when drivers of other vehicles inadvertently cause accidents. Deaths from health reasons come from a combination of innate, environmental and personal choice factors. Terrorism, on the other hand, is when other people choose to kill civilians.

It’s the difference between me spending my money carelessly or absent-mindedly losing my wallet, and someone forcing me to hand over my wallet. More money might be wasted on former problems, but we still want cops to deal with the latter.

2. Your figures are misleading. Looking at Wikipedia for the US Federal Budget 2007, we see that:

a) Spending on medicare and medicaid: $671B

b) Spending on transportation: $76.9B

c) Spending on the military in Iraq and Afghanistan: $183B [0]

d) Due to the federal structure of the US, most transportation and much of the health funding comes from State governments, who do not have large military expenditures. The EU spends 45% of its budget on agriculture, but government in Europe overall spends more money on health and education.

[0] ($474B-$411B+$120B for FY2006). Even the War Resisters’ League website seems to give $2.4T as total government spending, not total military spending. While I’m no expert in US government spending, I think Wikipedia is probably a more reliable resource.

I can tell you what’s wrong with this and why it does not punch through in the news. It’s “merely” statistics.