They want you to be terrified

There's something the Republican presidential contenders want you to know: You should be TERRIFIED.

Your level of fear should be such that no font-size or combination of all-caps letters could possibly capture the sheer garment-soiling sense of horror that fills your mind.

I'll let the politicians speak for themselves.

Per Sen. Marco Rubio's website: "The world has never been more dangerous than it is today."

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, discussing terrorism at a recent event in South Carolina: "It's not a matter of if another attempt is made on American soil, it is when."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie defended domestic surveillance programs this week and said "you can't enjoy your civil liberties if you're in a coffin."

And on Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham explained his presidential aspirations like this: "I am running because I think the world is falling apart."

These assertions will undoubtedly play well with voters who make up the Republican base. They seem to love being afraid, perhaps because Fox News is like a fright sprinkler: TYRANNY! EBOLA! (chicka-chicka-chicka-chick) BLACK PANTHERS! SHARIAH LAW! (chicka-chicka-chicka-chick) DEATH PANELS! VOTER FRAUD!

Fear-mongering isn't a new campaign technique, nor is it a tool used only by Republicans. Democrats will undoubtedly paint whoever wins the GOP presidential nomination as an orphan-devouring cross between Ultron and Ebenezer Scrooge.

Max Roser, an economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford University, culled data that tracked, among other things, how the world has changed over decades in terms of violence, education and the number of democratic political systems. He put it all together on a website called ourworldindata.org and what it shows is that the world is considerably safer than it has ever been as well as better educated and more democratic.

As Roser wrote last year in an article on the university's website: "It is easy to be cynical about the world and to maintain that nothing is ever getting better. But fortunately the empirical evidence contradicts this view."

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove

That's a problem for a political party that, at the moment, seems to have the threat of a looming apocalypse as the primary armament in its arsenal.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found a sizable disparity between the policy views of people younger than 30 and people 65 and older. The younger respondents considered supporting scientific research a top priority. The older respondents ranked defending against terrorism at the top of the heap, a full 15 percent higher than those under 30.

This is a problem for Republican politicians, because when they're not busy predicting Armageddon they like to relax by making fun of science.

Sure, there are other things GOP presidential contenders like Walker and Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz think we should fear: same-sex marriage, immigrants, Obamacare. But again, none of that scares younger voters. In fact, they tend to support those issues.