It is well documented that humans are especially fearful of threats that can be easily pictured or imagined. For example, one study found that people… - Al Gore

Two thousand scientists in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well-organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have long since produced a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.

The progressive abandonment of concern for reason or evidence has required the administration to develop a highly effective propaganda machine with which it attempts to embed in the public mind mythologies that grow out of one central doctrine upon which all the special interests agree: Government is very bad and should be done away with as much as possible — except the parts of it that redirect money through big contracts to industries that have won their way into the inner circle. This coalition gains access to the public through a cabal of pundits, commentators, and “reporters” — call it the Limbaugh-Hannity-Drudge axis. This fifth column in the fourth estate is made up of propagandists pretending to be journalists. Through multiple overlapping outlets covering radio, television, and the Internet, they relentlessly force-feed the American people right-wing talking points and ultraconservative dogma disguised as news and infotainment — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The rule of reason is the true sovereign in the American system.