Fear, Theater and Calculated Risk

By Dave Anderson:

James Joyner notes that the American political and security system decision loop is screwed as the Detroit bombing attempt is prompting a massive wave of security theater that will do nothing besides increases fear without increasing security:

We�re simply going to make people miserable for no apparent reason. 
There have been precisely three attempts over the last eight years to
commit acts of terrorism aboard commercial aircraft.  All of them
clownishly inept and easily thwarted by the passengers.   How many tens
of thousands of flights have been incident free?  And, yet, we�re going
to make hundreds of thousands of people endure transcontinental flights
without reading materials or the ability to use the restroom?

If I remember correctly, three attempted attacks against US airlines or airliners with a US leg in their flight path in eight years is significantly below trend level of attacks since the start of the intercontinental jet age.  The air transit system is fairly robust and fairly secure against most threats that can be smuggled aboard.  At some point, security measures have reached a negative marginal utility as people tune out the good with the idiotic. 

And this is emblematic of our wider society wide decision loop.  At some point there has to be a recognition that all life is at some manageable and tolerable level of risk.  Instead we have CNN, Fox and MSNBC chasing the missing blonde intern of the month, people freaking out about crazed serial killers as they drive six hundred yards to the store in their SUVs and fear that groups that don't have nukes and seldom have battalion level weaponry are an existential threat to the United States. 

Something approaching perspective would be wonderful.