One of the hallmarks of what it means to be conservative, is fiscal responsibility, that is, getting the most bang for the publics buck. We do indeed hear a lot of noise along those lines, decrying inefficiency in Government departments, programs that don't deliver the goods, corruption and waste, etc., and those are all true concerns. It's just common sense isn't it, wanting our tax dollars to actually do something?

Here's where this principle goes far awry - terrorism. Is terrorism a legitimate concern? Yep, it HAS to be - but at what priority? At what ratio to other concerns? Again, common sense should be a good guide, even if strict conservative principles are not. However, where terrorism is concerned, neither common sense NOR conservative principles are applied. Look at this:
http://www.nsc.org/learn/safety-knowledge/Pages/injury-facts-chart.aspx

The odds of being killed by a terrorist in the USA are 1:20,000,000. For every 20 million citizens, one may be killed by a terrorist. The odds of being hit by lightning are higher at 1:280,000, of course there's absolutely nothing the Gov. can do about those odds. The odds of being killed by a firearm are 1:358. For every 358 citizens, one may be killed by a firearm, wielded by a criminal, cop, family member, or by one's own self. The odds of dying from cancer are 1:7. Why then, are we spending so much time, effort, energy and treasure on something far less likely to happen to us, than getting hit by lightning?

We must remain vigilant against foreign operatives entering our country to do us harm. No one can dispute that, however, the fact that the odds remain incredibly low means that what we're ALREADY doing is extremely effective - and doesn't need fixing. I wonder what our cancer odds would be, if we spent as much time and money on THAT, as we do on National Security, ICE, Border patrol, DHS, etc.? Why don't we find out?

The reason why political types like to spend so much rhetoric and time on relatively low priority issues - is because you can't prove a negative. In other words, we ramp up our National security efforts and no terrorist attack happens and we call that a job well done - even though the current efforts achieved the same result. Could we prove that the additional effort had any effect? No, because that would be trying to prove a negative, i.e., there wasn't a high risk to begin with. Using our precious resources judiciously and efficiently, precludes spending extra on a low priority threat, redirecting those resources to higher priority threats, as illustrated in the preceding graph.

Our singular focus on terrorism is highly effective for political purposes, but an extremely poor use of our resources, a complete abrogation of conservative principles and an abandonment of common f&cking sense. It is becoming increasingly obvious that our "conservative" representatives are far less cognizant of, or faithful to, conservative principle and far more responsive to the principle of "ME", where THEIR aspirations , dreams and needs far outweigh those of anyone else, including those of - we, the people.