@JPB,
OK - We disagree on the motivation for Biden's comments and the comments of people like him.
Regardless of his motivation, his comments were idiotic. There is a lot more to fear from another 9/11 than personal injury or death,(and this is exactly what he was talking about) and despite Max's confidence, another attack on such a scale will set this country into a tailspin. Not one we cannot pull out of, but one that will disrupt and impact the lives of most Americans.
There is zero reason to panic, no matter how great the risk, but "panic" is being used by Max and others to describe reasonable as well as irrational fear. There is already reporting concerning possible plans by ISIS to use Ebola in a terrorist attack against America. I don't know if they have any actual evidence of this or it's just logical speculation, but introduce humans willing and capable of using the virus as a weapon, and all the assurances concerning the way it spreads
naturally have a hole in them.
A lot of people are calling for a ban on inbound flights from the nations currently beset by Ebola, and this is being called a reaction of panic. We were told by our president that Ebola was not going to be brought to the US by one of these flights, and lo and behold, one did. (Another good reason not to tell people there is zero risk - if it's proven false, it trashes your credibility when you have something sensible to say about the matter).
Past Ebola outbreaks have been self-containing in that they have occurred in rural areas and kill so many of it's victims that eventually the disease puts an end to itself. This time around it has reached urban centers where, regardless of how difficult it is to transmit, wider spread transmission is more likely. The more people going to and from the affected areas, the less chance there is for the disease to run its course.
I'm not suggesting that the people in these West African countries be left to die for the benefit of the rest of the world, but banning inbound commercial flights would not do do. I have heard numerous experts stating that we shouldn't ban these flights, but none can offer a reason beyond saying its not necessary. Obviously if the ban had been in effect before Mr. Duncan arrived in American, Ebola would not have come to Dallas.
Whether or not it is appropriate to prevent commercial air traffic between the US and these countries to prevent a relative handful of deaths is a worthy question, but no one wants to frame it in this way, because no one wants to publicly say that the commercial air traffic with Liberia or Sierre Leone is more important than the lives of a handful of Americans who might die from contracting Ebola. So instead they insinuate that simply calling for a measure that implies a handful of American deaths
are more significant than the air traffic, is an expression of panic.
If from the start they had said that with the extent of global transportation there was a pretty good chance that Ebola would find its way here, but it is actually less dangerous to the general public than several other potentially deadly diseases that can just as easily or more easily be carried here from foreign lands, they would have had a better chance of keeping the threat in context with the American people, but their first reaction is to treat us like children...
Daddy will never let anything happen to you so go back to sleep and don't worry.
When you tell someone something that is proven not to be true:
Ebola won't come here on a plane from Africa, or ER staffs throughout the country are trained to immediately identify potential Ebola cases and will jump on the case right away, you've created a logical reason for people to mistrust everything else you say:
Ebola is not airborne, it can't possibly spread like the flu.
When the assurances of experts are needed to prevent overreaction to a situation, it obviously doesn't help to undermine those assurances by having been proven wrong on prior ones. When the one's that have proven wrong were based on fanciful or condescending zero risk-like statements, you've shot yourself in the foot.
And to the extent that they are implementing safety precautions, largely to calm the fear of citizens (medical screening of inbound passengers from these countries) it doesn't have the desired effect when it is obviously an attempt at applying a psychological band-aide to the public's psyche. People are not stupid. If there is a reason to screen these passengers in 5 US airports, why isn't there a reason to screen them in all US airports?
If they are incompetent when it comes to allaying fears, why would we believe they are competent in dealing with the disease when it actually presents itself?
