The country which claims to lead the free world now openly spies on its allies and its own citizens. The rationale? Terrorism and crime.

The President-Elect won on a platform that stated America is in trouble, she is in danger, and your neighbor, your neighboring country, your neighboring religion, your neighboring race, your own allies…they are the danger. What danger? Terrorism, crime, and economic ruin.

Parents risk losing custody of their children if they allow them to explore their own neighborhoods. Why? It’s a dangerous neighborhood. Strangers are dangerous, and they are everywhere. Better your children be taken by CPS than by a human trafficking ring.

We spend billions and have invented almost an entire new branch of government with a slew of new acronyms…DNI, NCTC, DHS, TSA to name a few. Terrorism.

Where once we worried about Africanized bees, now we see the spread of militarized police. Crime.

Cameras, ubiquitous now, are not welcome near the actions of these entities. Drones recording the #NoDAPL protests are grounded by the FAA. We can’t see what the militarized police are doing.

We imprison more of our people per capita than any other developed nation.

But terrorism is a danger on par with texting while driving in number of annual deaths. Perhaps we need to reduce the WoT to a few ad campaigns and PSAs. Or maybe create half a dozen new federal agencies (armed, with drones) to fight the WoTWD.

Crime is down too. Actual stranger danger is so rare as to be almost nonexistent. Your child is in more danger at home, indoors.

The economy is doing well. The rich are getting richer faster than anyone, but everyone else is doing better. Global poverty continues to drop dramatically. Goods are cheaper.

There are localized differences. Deaths by gun are high in the US. Deaths by armed conflict are high in the Middle East. Deaths by disease are high in Africa. Factory workers are losing jobs to automation even as Uber makes anyone with a car employable. But globally, and nationally in the US, we are living better than ever before. 

Our greatest actual dangers are actually problems of affluence: we have so much cheap food we are eating ourselves to death, and we have so many cars whizzing around that we routinely smash them into each other with people inside.

We are not acting rationally. We are reacting from fear. We live in fear. But we are like a child who is too scared to go down into the dark cellar, but has to be held back from running into traffic. Irrational.

The only winners are those who profit from fear.