Ron Paul: Highways claim more than 9/11 killed

Baltimore Sun ^ | 9/22/07 | Rick Pearson

[LdSentinal]

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul contends that the federal government has overreacted by limiting personal freedom in the wake of terrorist attacks six years ago, noting more people die on U.S. highways in less than a month’s time compared to the number who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

“We have been told that we have to give up our freedoms in order to be safe because terrorism is such a horrible event,” Paul said today to more than 1,000 supporters who attended a rally at a downtown Chicago hotel ballroom.

“A lot fewer lives died on 9/11 than they do in less than a month on our highways, but once again, who owns the highways? Do we own the highways? No. It’s a government institution you know. …We need to put all this in perspective.”

More than 2,970 people were reported dead in the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Federal highway traffic statistics show an average of 3,509 people a month were killed on the nation’s highways in 2001.

[RightOnline]

I don’t think Ron Paul is a bad person; a bad human being. I DO believe, however, that he has a basic misunderstanding of what being a staunch Constitutionalist is all about. I truly do. He’s missed the boat somewhere........

[Iwo Jima]

An armed citizenry is more than a match for terrorists. If just some passengers and pilots had been armed on 9/11, we would have had 19 dead terrorists and few if any other casualties.

[TigersEye]

“A lot fewer lives died on 9/11 than they do in less than a month on our highways, but once again, who owns the highways? ..."

It's official. Ron Paul is a certifiable nutcase.

[devolve]

.

Hillary will say or do anything to get votes

Then she will do exactly what she wants and scream out CYA’s:

“I never voted to invade Iraq!”

[MaxMax]

So we should do nothing when attacked by finaticals?
Ron Paul, you're a freeking Idiot!

[listenhillary]

Good for your son.

I’m not a RP supporter though.

[potlatch]

True, or she can just call them by another name, lol.

[Iwo Jima]

LOL! That was most definitely a typo. Not the first that I’ve made, but the funniest.

[ErnBatavia]

Twenty posts and not a peep from the Paulestinian Liberation Organization on FR.

Just stick something in about the War On Drugs...that'll get 'em lit up, mach schnell.

[Iwo Jima]

He may well change his mind, and that will be all right. He is taking it all very seriously. It is interesting to see how this generation gets their information. [Hint: NOT the 6 o’clock news or Sunday TV. ]

[television is just wrong]

killed on our roads by illegal aliens that want to take our land from us.

drunken drivers, sometimes illegal aliens that just don’t care.

and so on.

roads don’t kill, people carelessly driving cars kill, mame

[devolve]

.

The Klintoons gave us an accurate tool to measure the % of idiots, traitors, Commies, and criminals in the USA

[finnman69]

The numbers are not a point to contest.

But Ron Paul is a world class douchebag for making the comparison. It was totally unnecessary, and done so only to create a provocative statement that might generate some press.

DOUCHE-BAG

[potlatch]

I assume “they, themselves” are the tool??

[r9etb]

Mr. Paul's correct about the relative statistics. He'd also have been correct had he applied that statistical comparison to Pearl Harbor.

It'd be interesting to see how he would differentiate between the two attacks.....

[Iwo Jima]

It was a clumsy, “shot-in-the-foot” moment, but people on this thread are making entirely too much fuss about it.

[Old 300]

Clumsy moment?

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

[devolve]

.

Elections - esp. since Clinton are the tool

Hillary is bring the democrats back to McGovern and beyond

The radical dingbats - top 3 running - are all showboating Socialist huge programs and tyrannical controls and massive tax increases while writing weekly speeches for bin Laden

[r9etb]

Ron has lost every bit of credibility he had left. Now he is a terrorist apologist. How disgusting.

I'll disagree with you there. He's not quite a terrorist apologist, because I don't think that's his intent. I think it's actually worse than that: he's making a damned fool ideological argument.

Look what he's saying: that the "relatively small" number of dead from 9/11 don't justify the resultant security measures. It's a computation of "loss of liberty" vs. "severity of attack".

What Mr. Paul is attempting to do, is to downplay the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. It's very reminiscent of the way people tried to excuse Hitler's Germany in the mid-30s. And that is the real danger of what he's doing.

[shield]

What an idiot...big difference here...car accidents are accidents...planes flying into buildings by radical fanatical terrorist is an attack on the United States of America....I can’t believe how stupid that statement is...NO COMPARISION WHATSOEVER...