It's really embarrassing to see a liberal US Congressman made fun of to his face when he posts here

[90-percent]

344. Preventable

Yeah, it's not possible to bring any of the categories mentioned down to zero deaths. BUT, in the case of all things mentioned, governmental efforts can bring all those numbers dramatically lower. If you lower all categories by 10% across the board over the same time period, that would be 2 million (2,000,000) lives saved. I think it's fair to postulate that if the government had poured the same resources into preventable deaths that they did in building the current NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, a ten percent reduction is a reasonable assumption in the same time period since 9-11.

"terrorist attacks prod us into wars." Define "us", Kimosabe? The run up to the Iraq Invasion sparked the largest turn out in world wide anti-war protests in the history of the universe. We the people sure as hell didn't want to invade Iraq! It was our neocon GWB White House that wanted to invade Iraq. We as a country were terrified, but I think there was a decent consensus we at least wanted to bring the 9-11 plotters to JUSTICE, which is a hell of a lot different than invading a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 what so ever. I think we were all supportive for invading Afghanistan after 9-11. That was where most of the plotters could be located, based on info of that time.

Terrorist Attacks prodded OUR GOVERNMENT into starting a war. With our MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL-SECURITY-Complexes ever growing lust for profit making wars and conflicts, the USA, especially under GWB, would go to war if another punk ass country without nukes even looks at us funny.

The invasion of Iraq was an act of treason by the GWB White House. The fecklessness and waste of how the war was conducted was also treason. Incompetence so tremendous, it bore the weight of full blown treason.

The invasion of Iraq was another artifact that proves our democracy is being stolen. The first proof of democracy demolition was of course the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Decision. The magnitude of just how much our Democracy is being murdered by design has become in your face clear with these recent FISA/NSA revelations.

The list of freedoms and rights lost, surveillance mechanisms built and practicing the governance of middle ages monarchs are pointing in the direction of a national police state governmental infrastructure. I think we are perhaps only two or three election cycles to reach this tipping point as described by Frank Zappa.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

America is a police state, although we are only at the stage where the tiny beak is starting to break through the eggshell.

Thanks for your comments. Insightful and thought provoking. It sparked me to try to further refine what exactly is pissing me the hell off about our It's alive, IT'S ALIVE!!!! Police State.

-90% Jimmy