The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Since 1972, worldwide there have been 18,483 fatalities via plane crash. Since 2001, there have been 3,222 fatalities in the United States via terrorism, 2,902 of those occurring on September 11th of 2001. Combined, that's 21,705 fatalities. So, on average, there are approximately 528 deaths via plane crash worldwide every year and 190 deaths via terrorism in the United States on an annual basis. If we were to strip 9/11 from said equation, that average would decrease to 20 per year. Even if we go with the high end of that range, the two variables would combine for an average of 718 deaths every year. In other words, it's probably more likely for a person to die by getting struck by lightning than for him/her to die in a plane crash or by an act of terror. Yet we seem to be more paranoid than ever of being victimized by these lottery-jackpot odds, enough so that we've nonchalantly allowed our freedoms to be infringed for a false sense of security. I say this because of a ...

Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul and I haven't seen eye to eye on much through the years, but one area where we agree is with regard to the Patriot Act, which he helped bring to at least a temporary end today. The Patriot Act, which was enacted on October 26th of 2003, just a month and a half after the 9/11 attacks, has been controversial since its inception, and as the public has learned more about it, the more controversial it has become. Due to the fear and paranoia the 9/11 attacks stoked, the bill was rushed through Congress without many members taking the time to read through it, and as soon as it was signed, the United States government made it known that, in order to increase our security, we had to sacrifice our freedom. Of course, this wasn't actually the case. The bill simply provided an illusion of increased security, while it stripped us of freedom. I have been an ardent opponent of the bill since first learning about it nearly 1...