"...reason is not in play anyway."

I keep finding Adams' analysis of Trump pretty fascinating.

Risk Management - (Trump Persuasion Series) | Scott Adams Blog: "But will it work? It appears that Trump is playing the odds, and smartly, whether you like it or not. ISIS, or its supporters, will certainly strike again. And each time that happens you will try to imagine what can be done about it. And you will only know of one option – the Trump option of shutting down all Muslim immigration for now. You can hate that option or you can love it. But you probably don’t know of any other plan...

It is the only plan you know, flawed as it is. And when a monster attacks, you escape through the door that exists, not the one you wish existed. Advantage, Trump. As President Obama would remind us, a change to gun laws would also address domestic terror risks. But I don’t think the public sees gun control as a terror solution. That topic is more associated in our minds with ordinary domestic bloodshed. And according to the Master Persuader filter, reason is not in play anyway...

The Master Persuader filter predicts that Trump’s call to end Muslim immigration will help him in the polls, not hurt him. The degree of benefit depends on how many terror attacks hit U.S. and ally soil in the coming months. Allow me to pause here for my usual disclaimer. As I often remind readers, I am not endorsing Trump or anyone else. I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. They all look qualified to me.  My political preferences don’t align with Trump on several issues. My interest in Trump is his talent for persuasion, which is astonishing...

Trump’s plan to discriminate against immigrants based on religion offends me to the core. I hope it offends you too, on some level. Religious freedom is about as basic an American right as you can get. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we sometimes have to make hard choices based on our assessment of the odds. So let’s look at the odds...

The odds of a Muslim immigrant being a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer is probably far lower than 1%, assuming we’re good at screening. I don’t know the exact odds, and neither do you, because it depends on how hard ISIS is trying to infiltrate in that particular way. If they are trying hard, one assumes the number is higher than if they are not trying. But the bottom line is that we don’t know.

I propose that instead of calling fellow citizens racists or idiots we do a deeper dive into the risks and put a price tag on our preference for religious tolerance. If the risk of future terror attacks is tiny, most of us would prefer maintaining our respect for religious differences. But if the risk is more than tiny, can you put a price on your love of religious tolerance? In other words, how many dead Americans are you willing to accept? I’ll go first. Personally, I would accept up to 1,000 dead Americans, over a ten-year period, to allow Muslim non-citizens to enter this country. 

My calculation assumes we are better off accepting some degree of tragedy in the name of freedom. That is often the case with freedom. If you believe there is no risk from allowing Muslim immigration to continue as is, please explain that thinking in the comments. I have not seen that argument yet. And if you believe there is some risk of a Muslim terrorist slipping through our current system of screening, what level of American deaths do you consider an acceptable tradeoff?"