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Papal paranoia, Ahmed Mohamed, and the United States of Fear

From South Jersey to Irving, Texas, America's unending paranoia about transparently ridiculous "terror plots" is diminishing us as a nation.

Just the other day, we were talking about the 14th anniversary of 9/11, and whether it's still necessary for the president to declare a "state of emergency," year after year after year. But then, the reality is that whether it's President Bush, President Obama, President Sanders or President Pataki,, the next commander-in-chief won't erase the national state of pure unbridled paranoia that has planted itself since the hopeful dawn of the new millennium.

In countless ways, large and small, Americans' view of the world tilts too often toward fear and away from hope. Take the looming arrival here in Pope Francis here in Philadelphia towards the end of the month. The Secret Service has worked hand in glove with City Hall to help us view our visit from the Vatican as less a time of spiritual uplift and more as a "national security event" where the most sacred relic is a magnetometer. To some degree, I'm criticizing the tone, especially in the earlier days of planning, rather than all of the actual measures; anyone who remembers the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981 knows the importance of safety measures and preparation. This weekend, though, the fog of paranoia suddenly grew thick.

Sunday night, the Big Story locally on Channel 6 Action News (usually, on the weekend, the big story is something like, "Our unusually pleasant summer weather!") was that authorities had "disputed" an otherwise unspecified plot against the papal visit to Philadelphia. There was no "who," no "where," no "when," and no "why"...just a pretty lame "what." It wasn't so much a story as a bleat of vague terror. It felt like the mid-2000s all over again. How many times did Homeland Security raise the threat level to "orange" based on unspecified information? This is literally news you can't use. It's not clear how citizens are supposed to respond to this kind of information -- other than perhaps to become more docile, and do whatever the nice people in uniforms or positions of authority say.

Like most "unspecified terror threats" of the 21st Century, this one unraveled in a matter of hours. The primary source for the report was an interview that a Republican congressman from Texas, Michael McCaul, gave to ABC News -- and the officials tasked with actually protecting Philadelphia had no idea what he was talking about. "If there was a threat, I would have been made aware," Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told the Inquirer. At roughly the same time, however, a second report emerged of an "ISIS-inspired" plot allegedly involving a 15-year-old boy in South Jersey, Authorities admitted that the plot was "aspirational" -- which is usually Global War on Terror code for "bull----" -- and that the youth might have "mental health issues." So why does thiat even elevate to the level of a news story?

Thank God some people are, as Donald Trump might say, "classy" -- including the current occupant of the Oval Office. "Cool clock, Ahmed," President Obama tweeted, and he invited the Texas youth to an upcoming astronomy night at the White House. Meanwhile, his homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson, also seems to get it, warning today about turning terrorism threats into a kind of "red scare."

Said Johnson: "We can erect more walls, install more screening devices and make everybody suspicious of each other, but we should not do so at the cost of who we are as a nation of people who cherish our privacy, our religions, our freedom to speak, travel and associate and who celebrate our diversity and immigrant heritage."