According to a new scientific study, which has appeared in the latest issue of the American Journal of Political Science, politicians are very likely to try to use fear so as to make people agree with decisions they would otherwise regret. This behavior is very obvious in pols around the world, but especially, some say, in the United States, where the population is constantly bullied into consenting to breaches of its constitutional rights without the possibility to protest.

The best example of this are documents such as the Patriot Act. The levels of manipulation achieved by this bill are astonishing. They severely limit the average citizen's right to privacy, on the very vague basis of protecting their security. And what's even worse than that is that individuals sheepishly admit to this breach in their rights, hoping to gain the illusion of security. If, before 9/11 the government had proposed such a measure, then all groups protecting individual rights would have had a field day, calling the measure unconstitutional and abusive.

Now, if a person or an organization objects, they are immediately labeled as “unamerican,” a term that seems to be used more and more in the US, although not many people know exactly what it means. And therein lies the problem with manipulation. Because politicians appeared on TV after September 11, 2001, and kept repeating the word “terrorist” and “terrorism” time and again, the population started feeling at risk.

And scientific studies prove that there's no better moment to deceive the public, if you're a politician, than when it's scared to death. It was in such times that the Patriot Act was passed, and the invasion of Afghanistan took place, without many people knowing exactly what was going on. The bottom line, after 8 years, is that individuals are deprived of many of their constitutional rights, they can be arrested and held without charges like common criminals, and are searched at airports like they are murder suspects.

“A greater understanding of when fear can and cannot be used to scare citizens into supporting bad policies can help journalists and scholars more effectively interpret important historical events. It can help them think about whether, and to what extent, elite manipulation of citizen emotions contributed to initial public support for these kinds of government actions,” Arthur Lupia and Jesse O. Menning, the authors of the new study, argue.

When the public is not afraid and knows exactly what the politicians are talking about, it is highly unlikely to fall for political tricks. But by keeping people in fear, telling them that attacks are inevitable, they end up supporting decisions they would otherwise dissent. And America is starting to look more and more like a police state with every passing year. This country is no longer the beacon of democracy in the world.