This is the thread for chatting about car crashes, criminality, cancer, and the collection of calamitous catastrophes in our country.
As Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged:
Quote
“We do not think that tragedy is our natural state. We do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it, and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering, that we consider unnatural. It is not success but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life.”
We are free to fight it. So how do we fight the calamities that I just mentioned, without living in a chronic dread of disaster?
Car Crashes
You’d better drive defensively, and don’t drink and drive. Get an SUV, those have a higher survival rate than little grocery-getters. I hear Google is working on self-driving cars which are safer than humans driving. Maybe invest in one of those if you are concerned with car crashes.
Criminality
You can get a concealed carry permit and have a handgun with you. If you’re ever mugged, pull it out and I’ll bet the mugger will think twice about his proposition that you hand over your valuables. If guns aren’t to your liking, perhaps invest in some pepper spray. Otherwise, take some basic measures like staying in well-lit areas when you’re walking around after dark, locking your door with a deadbolt, getting a home security system, and getting a dog perhaps.
Cancer
Don’t be like Ayn Rand and Peikoff. Don’t smoke like they did. Also, make sure that you exercise and eat right. Get good health insurance because cancer is expensive to treat, and you want the best treatment when you get cancer.
Terrorism
Uh… never go to a public place? Yeah, sorry. Unlike everything that I just mentioned, there is literally nothing that an individual can do to reduce his risk of dying from terrorism. Unless he lives in a chronic dread of disaster and indeed doesn’t go out to public places. As Sesame Street would say, one of these things is not like the others. Terrorism is different from all the other threats that people like to compare it to and call “bigger threats.” Statistically? They’re absolutely correct that terrorism deaths are minuscule compared to deaths from the above items. But from a sense of life perspective? Terrorism is far worse, because we are not “free to fight it” as individuals. Nothing can be done by an individual person to reduce his risk of dying in a suicide bomb, or being run over by a van, or being shot in a dark nightclub.
However, there is something that the government can do to reduce the risk of terrorism. Turns out that many terrorists in the United States come from, or are descended from people who came from, Islamic countries. Restricting immigration from Islamic countries would be a sensible thing for the government to do in order to protect its citizens’ right to life… the one objective role of government. Instead, we have diversity visas and chain migration.
We are free to fight calamity, whether as individuals or the government acting on our behalf. The question is, should we? And will we?