Letters to the Editor
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Threat vs risk
Think of it this way: an asteroid's falling to Earth and ending all human life is a much greater threat than your falling in the shower and breaking your neck, but the latter is much likelier to happen, and so is a greater risk. I believe George W. Bush is perhaps only one one-hundredth as evil as Usama bin-Laden; unfortunately, he's perhaps a million times more powerful (if my pocket meters can be trusted---Usama clocks in at one deciheliogabalus and half a caesar, Bush at about one milliheli and five-hundred kilocaesars).
America is very strong; if we should let it fall completely to the complete control of religous/corporate/government fascists (and I do not use the term lightly or loosely), then the entire world would be in trouble.
It is important to remember that (unless we get our priorities straight) we will all die; perhaps forty thousand persons per year give their lives for our freedom to drive. I'm willing to be at greater risk of being blown up by a religious Muslim jerk from (say) Sa'udi than to cede my civil liberties to a religious Christian jerk from (say) New Haven. The Muslim will find almost all Americans against him, and must work in secret; the Christian will receive the enthusiastic support of perhaps one-fifth of us, and the grudging support of another thirty-one percent, and is proud to do his deeds in public, for the most part. It would be more shameful to live having allowed ourselves to become a massively powerful self-parody of America (which is preventable if we grow eyes and ears, and especially noses) than it would be to be blown up by a random asshole after giving stopping him a free people's try.