I think it's become a cultural thing, unfortunately. I've spent the last few years seeing the world, and the difference in attitudes between the people of many other countries and Americans at home is striking. We've become a fear-based culture.

I have an anecdote from a month or two ago. My girlfriend--she's German--and I were in Boston's central park, where there's a wading pool for children. The place was extremely busy with families and children everywhere--and also crawling with police. As the mother next to us ushered their 9-year-old into the pool, the mother loudly told her, "If anyone touches you, you scream!" My girlfriend laughed out loud at the silliness of it (the child was within eyeshot, in a pool filled with other children and families, in broad daylight, and surrounded by police) and commented to me about how afraid Americans are of everything.

Now that's just an anecdote. But we're seeing bits and pieces of this everywhere. Parents fearful of pedophiles around every corner. TV commercials about new drugs, scaring us into thinking we have some painful disease. ("If you've had chicken pox, the shingles virus is already inside you..."). People like the Free-Range Parenting blogger getting harassed and hounded. The ballooning security and surveillance apparatus. The militarization of our police, and draconian and unfathomable laws and sentencing requirements. The TSA, which is pure theater in service of fear. Bits and pieces.

I find myself increasingly thinking that the fear-based environment in the US is not a place I would want my children to grow up in. It breeds a dangerous us-vs-them (the brown people, the druggies, your neighbor) mentality and leads to suspicion and hatred.

Unfortunately I don't know what to do about it other than move to a different, more emotionally stable country. Culture is hard to change and takes a generation.