Government Roadblocks: Smokers, Dealers, Drinkers and Pedophiles

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the federal government is peddling fear.  Sitting at my desk, drinking a cup of coffee, I attempted to read a New York Times article this morning.  As sometimes happens, I encountered a roadblock ad sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.  I loathe roadblocks so I normally move quickly to shut the ad and read the article.  This time, though, the moving headline caught my eye: Smokers, Dealers, Drinkers and Pedophiles.  I was so flummoxed by this clear pandering to popular fears of pedophiles - anxieties that are one my chief scholarly interests - that I was unable to process the rest of the ad.   I tried google to find any reference to the ad, with no luck.  Finally, I thought to check the Drug Control Policy website.  There I discovered the motherload of monitor your teen ads, many of which I've previously dismissed on my way to reading the news.  And I found today's message here.

Here's the problem with today's fear-of-pedophilia ad: in its effort to trade on popular anxiety - using existing fear to cause readers to pay attention - it also further produces that fear.  Every time the government waves the bloody shirt of pedophilia, a few more readers will begin to believe that the nation is in a child sexual assault crisis.  And it's simply not clear that this is remotely true.  But by generating that anxiety, more and more voters become open to the sorts of aggressive, repressive regulations supposedly needed to suppress this crime.  Internet speech bans.   Shaming sanctions.  And I won't be surprised if, at some future point, states begin to reguate the dating habits of single moms.  (The data suggest, at least, that this would be the most productive site of intervention.)

Market research may show that you need to employ this radioactive rhetoric to grab the attention of readers.  But it is also true that fear is the tool of authoritarian governments.  I've blogged previously about increasingly aggressive governmental surveillance and policing.  Today's ad is a small component of this troubling agenda.