If we applied the War on Terror to 40,000 traffic deaths

[scoopmeister]

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002609.html

Everything changed on April 22, 2002. It was on that date -- which will live in infamy -- that we learned that 41,739 innocent Americans had been slaughtered during 2001, all at the violent hands of motorists behind a steering wheel. They were everyday Americans -- secretaries and firefighters, even children -- and now they were dead.

The stats of 4/22 were a grim wake-up call for the United States. Before that fateful morning, we all thought we were safe and secure on the nation's highways, protected by the barrier of steel that surrounded us on all four sides. But we were wrong. Even that same day, the pundits and the politicians knew that things would never be the same.

"The pictures of SUVs sliding into Suburus, gasoline burning, huge Hummers collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger," President Bush said from the Oval Office. "These acts of mass carnage were intended to frighten our drivers into reverse," he said. "But they have failed. "
In the end, this is what the unfortunate events of 4/22 will be best remembered for. It was the day that George W. Bush launched the War on Motorism.

Check out what happens next.

[scoopmeister]

1. Re-did the title....

To make it less obscure

[kevsand]

2. But then we'd have to invade Detroit

to liberate its oppressed citizens from those demonic union despots...

[Poiuyt]

3. Don't forget the terrorists who kill about 400,000 Americans yearly

Big tobacco

That's like a Sept 11 attack every few days

[Rich Hunt]

4. that's a flawed analogy

...and as far as I can tell, it makes light of the fact that 40,000 or so people die in automobile accidents every year, as if there were nothing we could do about this number. For another thing, drivers do give up some of their privacy when they get their licenses - a car is a potential deadly weapon after all - this is not a good analogy for civil liberties. You do NOT have a constitutional 'right to drive'.

Personally I don't think it belongs in the realm of satire or comedy to say that many people on the roads ARE terrorists and don't belong there.

[gumby]

5. Rush Limbaugh spouts this crap all the time.

He squeals about how 'Murikans are such weenies for being upset at the Iraq death toll, when hey, more people are killed in auto accidents.

If you disagree with Dear Leader invading countries and killing tens of thousands, then Rush will give you his auto accident stats to show how stupid and un-cowboy and un-'murikan you are.

See, it's all so funny; other people dying for Bush's and Rush's pocketbooks.

[kevsand]

6. I think maybe several folks have missed the point.

The crux of this satire is not that the losses in Iraq are insignificant in light of other causes of death. The point is that the massive disruption of American society in deficit spending and erosion of civil liberties has been "justified" by a single event (9-11), with a loss of less than 3,000 lives, engineered by a ragtag group of terrorists who may or may not be capable of posing a serious threat at any point in time.

Before anyone jumps my case, I'm not in anyway trying to minimize the loss of life on 9-11, nor do I think the OP was. Unless I'm severely mistaken, the target of the satire was not any fictional lack of perspective on the part of war protesters, but the unbelievably screwed up priorities of the Bush administration. There are much bigger problems to be tackled than a pathetic dictator in what was arguably a third world nation after the sanctions. Saddam was not a threat.

And yes, auto safety is one of those significant problems that the government has mistakenly back burnered for generations. Of course, Ford and GM and Chrysler are forming "Axles of Evil." (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)