Moral Panic

The first moral panic I personally fell for - the Iraq War. I supported it as a 60-40 proposition that it would usher in a change in the Middle East. In that, I was wrong. I also figured getting rid of the most evil man/family in the world might be good unto itself. Still...the emotional sway of the arguments for the war was what won me over at the time. Now I've seen the playbook 10-15x since then. The same pattern being used A LOT around a lot of different issues. The environment? Remember that? What ever happened with climate change ruining earth? Is it still happening? You wouldn't know it by what folks talk about. Guns? School shootings? COVID and vaccine mandates, etc? China, Ukraine, Russia. Stolen elections. DEI. George Floyd. Each one of these issues is built into moral panic. Then it was Doge, which everyone seems to have forgotten from a measly two weeks ago. Then tariffs. Now immigration -- the Maryland man deported. Don't get me wrong. I think it's terrible. But the moral panic around issue is by design and how many times can we be told the sky is falling...