Why aren’t more people afraid of drowning in the bathtub? Why aren’t people terrified of ladders? Why is no one worried about cows? How can anyone stand to ride in an elevator, given how dangerous those things are?
Do those worries sound ridiculous? Of course they do. But statistically, you’re more likely to die due to drowning in a bathtub or falling from a ladder than you are of dying in an Islamic terrorist attack in America; you’re more likely to be killed by a cow or an elevator. There are plenty of things that kill people every once in awhile. But living in fear of those things seem silly.
I lived in New York for the past couple of years. Almost every day I took the subway and changed at the WTC station. If I were as terrified of terrorism as people in the midwest seem to be, I wouldn’t have been able to live my life. The whole point of terrorism is to inflict enough fear, enough terror, to force us to change our behavior. So screw ‘em. I’m going to be smart. I’m going to be aware. But I’m not going to change who I am. I’m not going to be less humane, less human, because of fear.
So if a child whose home was bombed needs a place to live, I think our doors need to be open. Because it’s the right thing to do. And not doing it out of fear would be letting the terrorists win. The only way to beat terrorists is to refuse to be terrified. Because they can kill a few Americans every so often, but they can’t kill the ideals that make America great. Only we can do that.
Read other answers by Matthew Lee Myers on Quora:
- Is Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway right that he deserves credit for not bringing up Bill Clinton's infidelity in the debate?
- How worried should progressives be now that Clinton is receiving support from some significant GOP backing?
- Is Hillary Clinton as unpleasant as some books portray her?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2mpQy9w
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