all overdone

Found by way of this post, an excellent commentary on just where paranoia lands us:

If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security.

...[S]top urging people to report their fears. People have always come forward to tell the police when they see something genuinely suspicious, and should continue to do so. But encouraging people to raise an alarm every time they're spooked only squanders our security resources and makes no one safer.

I agree, his examples are "attack[s] on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected," and when you're hypersensitive to lurking evil-doers, just about anything will qualify. At the same time, I have to wonder about another motive. Despite the exasperating mantra, "better to fight them here than here," it appears people are chomping at the bit to fight "them" here and are willing to fabricate "them" so they can do just that. Or maybe folks just want to see a good taserin'. Compensating for insecurity, real or imagined, personal or political.

Overreactions.
Overt.
Overdone.

And with that, I leave you, once more, with Paul:

Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland
But I think it's all overdone
Exaggerating this and exaggerating that
They don't have no fun

I don't believe what I read in the papers
They're just out to capture my dime
I ain't worrying
And I ain't scurrying
I'm having a good time

. . .

Maybe I'm laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I'm blind
To the fate of mankind
But what can be done?