Fear Mongering

This shit has to stop. Seriously.

All the pharmaceutical commercials. The outrageous media coverage that turns ordinary risk into sensationalism that you'd only find in a horror movie. The guy next door is a killer. Your kid's teacher is a pedophile. Computer games, Marylin Manson, and TV are going to single-handedly turn your kid into Columbine killers, only less successful. The list goes on.

I remember when the Nintendo DS came out, I saw a piece on how the networking and chat capability of the DS would be used by child predators to attract children, I can't remember what network it was, but it surely wasn't what I would consider 'news'. It was like this would be some sort of widespread problem, as if there was some sort of predator lurking on every escalator, of every mall, of every city, just itching to ensnare your hapless child by luring them using the DS. The best part of the of the whole piece was that some idiot mom admitted that she hadn't bothered to read the manual for the DS, and it went on to say that most parents don't educate themselves about the toys they buy for their little bundles of joy. Yeah, real mother of the year candidate right there; you'd think that with all the lead in toys these days, parents would care what their kids play with - guess not. This is a fucking parenting issue, if you're really worried about it, then know where you're goddamn kid is! This shit just fuels paranoia.

And if your kid is a teenager, for the love of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, do not give them a cell phone. That's just a bullshit excuse for not actually parenting, and it tells your kid that you don't trust them. Yeah, I said it: you're a shitty parent. Don't start bitching, my parents raised me just fine without attaching an electronic umbilical cord. Slacker.

The best TV commercials for fear mongering are drug commercials. Here's a list of symptoms! If you are feeling (choose one): alive or dead, then this drug is for you! The range of symptoms is absolutely ridiculous, drugs these days can cure anything from rabies to leukemia to the common cold... and that's all in just one tiny pill!

Another example of fear mongering are these new stroke commercials from Government of Canada. These are fantastic - they go through a series of symptoms with white block letters on a black background. They blur the words, shake them, spin them, mess with the music, and the commercial finishes off with: "if you experience any of these symptoms, then you may be having a stroke." This is just cause for you to misdiagnose yourself. You know when you stand up really quickly, and you feel dizzy? Yup, that's a stroke. You know when you've been working really hard after a day in the sun, and you didn't have enough to drink, and you feel tired and your vision is a little blurred? Yup, stroke number two. You know when you're underwater and you start speaking, the people around you don't understand what you're saying? Get to a doctor! You're having another stroke! By the standards of what I watch on television, I've had dozens of strokes! Still kicking though... weird.

This is just what we need: whole bunch of idiots diagnosing their own illnesses by watching television and surfing the Internet and trusting Wikipedia as if it were the New England Journal of Medicine. You want to know why you aren't allowed to prescribe yourself pills, even though you Googled all your symptoms and your certain that it's necrotizing fasciitis? It's because you don't have a fucking degree in goddamned medicine! All those years of a doctor's education are totally meaningless now that patients have access to the Internet, I guess this is fantastic news... now that patients are doctors, there isn't a shortage of physicians! Hurray for the Internet!

Governments in general don't help with the fear mongering. They cry: You're not protected! Somebody is gonna getcha! You know who's gonna getcha? Osama! Who can't protect you? Hillary! Run! The Russians are coming! This is bullshit of the highest order. It's not a contest about who is going to make better decisions for the country, it's about scaring more people into voting for you.

When did the human race become a bunch of pussies? Humans built the chunnel... an fucking underwater tunnel! We connected the globe with telecommunications, be it phone or Internet or whatever! We built a space shuttle and space stations! Did you hear that? We went to space! We went to the motherfucking moon! Those sonsabitches had balls! People died in the pursuit of that great endeavour, and we still achieved a feat that has yet to be repeated since 1972. Since when do we live in fear? No, the real question is: why do we live in fear?