We also know that as a practical matter we will never get the number down to zero. There will always be accidents, and there will always be the possibility it will be us who are in them. No-one can keep us, nor do we really demand that the government keep us, totally safe from any possibility of crashing. So what do we do to deal with this massive threat to our personal lives and security, this recurring, year after year, senseless, cowardly (that's the word you use about all terrorist attacks, even if it involves a shoot-out with police and the terrorist dying) brutal death toll? How do we cope when faced with meaningless, violent, death that could come to anyone of us or our families every day?
Well, we take reasonable precautions, like not driving in really bad whether, not driving drunk, obeying traffic laws and being careful. We also ensure that if something happens, there are effective responses. There are ambulances and hospitals and police and health care and the courts, if they are necessary. And what else do we do? We go on with our lives. We don't panic, arm ourselves, demand a police officer ride with us everywhere we go, or give up our right to gps units and Tim Hortons travel mugs. We continue to drive, go places, see people, do things. We live with the risk.
Same with the risk of being mugged, killed in a drive-by shooting, targeted by the mafia, having a heart attack, your house catching on fire, or nuclear war (which is still a threat). Let me repeat: a) take reasonable precautions, b) establish effective responses should they be needed, c) get on with your life.
The Canadian police -national, provincial, and municipal - despite all their numbers and funding and authority, cannot protect you or me from the risk of murder or assault. Murders and assaults happen everyday in Canada. To someone. Maybe next time it'll be you. Why do we demand a higher security, a more extreme and frightened response, to the risk of a terrorist assaulting you than a mugger, street gang, drug addict or friend of the family assaulting you? Is it that gang murders generally happen in gang neighbourhoods and terrorist seldom target poorer areas? Is it that terrorists are somehow in league with foreigners? The guns are out there, circulating around the world, and we all have causes we are willing to kill for. It's a globalized world. We can no longer fight our wars exclusively in other people's countries. The shock of the Paris attacks is that it is not a story of the French invading and colonizing and bombing people in Africa - that would be normal and just one if those things countries do - the terror part is that the killing happened in Paris: we are not even safe in our own cities! Welcome to the world.
You are not safe in your city from dying early because of air pollution, being hit by a bus, being shot for your purse, being raped, being beaten up for money, being murdered by your spouse, or the many other much more likely things to happen to you. You don't walk in bad neighbourhoods at night unless you have to (and many people have to). You don't leave your drink unattended at a bar (but you still go out with friends). You look both ways before crossing the road (but people still get hit).
When it comes to death by terrorist, it's different. They are a group, a mass, a people, a country, a type, religious or ethnic. They must be destroyed, all of them...because terrorism is not just a threat to you or me individually, terrorism is an affront to our power as a nation. To our rightness and justness. You being killed in a drive-by sucks for you but says nothing about us as a people. Terrorism provokes our sense of outrage because it strikes at our sense of self, as a nation. How dare someone hate us? How dare they act on that hate? How dare they think that they can just kill our citizens the way our citizens kill others of our citizens? What kind of evil people would see us as the enemy? Don't they know who we are? We're on the side of the angels. God loves us especially. We never did anyone any harm. We're the good guys. Terrorists commit the sin of hating who they are supposed to love, whereas we only hate the people we are supposed to hate.
We have good reasons for our violence (see the bombing of Libyan cities to protect civilians...and where do most civilians live? In cities). Terrorists are evil because they kill for the wrong reasons. Who really cares if there are American bases on Muslim holy ground? That's a stupid reason to kill. Regime change in a foreign country - now that's a proper reason to kill. Why doesn't everyone see that? Why do other groups insist on killing for what they think is important? Ultimately, what the world needs is to be more like us, for our priorities to be everyone's priorities, all territory to be our territory, for everyone to value only what we value. Why can't the terrorists see that?
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