What we choose to be panicked by
Absent a pressing life or death calamity such as an earthquake, apartment fire, car crash or a fall from a ladder, what we decide to be panicked by is largely a function of the mass media. Since the mass media is a for profit business, they have an interest in creating a baseline level of panic and keeping that base panic simmering on a continuous basis. Studies show that what we are panicked by has little connection to what will actual kill or maim us.
In this blog’s very comments section we have people panicked by the idea that the government could run amok and take away “our freedom” whatever that means. (The freedom to have your kids paralyzed by backyard trampolines, I suppose.) Having worked for the federal government, the idea that people can be panicked about a government run amok strikes me as ludicrous. But the radio stations these people listen to and the movies they watch keep jamming the panic button down for them. Poor things.
We choose not to be panicked by the known fact of human activity caused climate change. But we choose to be panicked by the mythology around the idea that someone somewhere got a welfare check that didn’t deserve it.
We choose not to be panicked by an ongoing assault on the first amendment to he Constitution, while we are in a state of catatonic shock brought on by the idea that the second amendment to the constitution needs to be looked at.
The Rude Pundit takes up this odd state of affairs in recent post.
If there’s one certainty in the history of the human experience, it is that the state can and will run amok, destroying and degrading the lives and property of citizens and foreigners alike.
Those that choose to ignore this lesson are ignorant at best and evil at worst.
See: Soviet Russia, Revolutionary France, Saudi Arabia, Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, Mongol Empire, North Korea, Zimbabwe, et cetera. Don’t forget to include the governments in the United States: Japanese internment, endless wars, human slavery sanctioned and enforced by both State and Federal governments, the list goes on.
Poor thing.