RISKY BUSINESS: What's most likely to kill you? ISIS? Not likely.
Most people are killed by ordinary things: 5,000 Americans die crossing the street, 4,000 people drown, 300 drown in bathtubs, more than 4,000 Americans choke to death every year, 2,000 die in house fires, stairs kill 1,000 Americans, and every year, 50 children are killed by ordinary, five-gallon buckets. Terrorism kills but (so far) it poses a much smaller threat. Even if 3,000 Americans died every few years, such attacks would be less deadly than choking or drowning.
THE GAME OF RISK: What's riskier-walking through an airport scanner or eating a handful of Brazil nuts? The answer might surprise you. I play a new game on my show: Can Fox TV hosts Harris Faulkner, David Asman, and Judge Jeanine Pirro figure out what's riskier than what?
FORCED VACCINATIONS: Contagious disease is a special case that justifies government intervention. Stossel thinks parents who don't vaccinate their kids are anti-scientific morons. But since zero Americans have died of measles, it is not yet right for the state to force vaccination.
SAFETY VS. FREEDOM: Motorcycles are very dangerous. So should the government force bikers to wear helmets? 19 states do. We libertarians say, that's wrong. Once I'm an adult... I should get to take my own chances, even if I'm a fool. As Milton Friedman said, "Part of freedom is the freedom to be a fool."
MY TAKE: In America, thanks to free enterprise, life is pretty good. And every year, Americans live longer.
