{"id":3028,"date":"2018-01-04T11:50:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T11:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=3028"},"modified":"2018-01-12T18:27:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T18:27:08","slug":"moral-panics-they-may-begin-with-a-legitimate-societal-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=3028","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Moral panics: they may begin with a legitimate societal concern&#8230;.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3029\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/180104Bellman80.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"80\" height=\"160\" \/>Jan. 4, 2018<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSexual harassment or assault, by contrast [with the Communism scare in Hollywood], obviously warrants discipline at the very least and criminal prosecution wherever appropriate. But then and now, what&#8217;s lacking is any shared obligation to respect constitutional rights, ensure due process or maintain a sense of proportion&#8230;. And that&#8217;s the thing about moral panics: they may begin with a legitimate societal concern \u2013 drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, child abuse, human trafficking \u2013 but they can devolve into Prohibition, movie and broadcast censorship, banning comic books and rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll, and general crusades against anything in popular culture challenging the official conformist line. And if you&#8217;re not careful, you&#8217;ll soon find yourself succumbing to irrational fears of \u2018satanic ritual abuse,\u2019 \u2018backward masking\u2019 in rock lyrics and secret pedophilia rings run out of suburban pizzerias&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s not witches, but the witch-hunters, that we should really fear, for they lead us to abdicate our responsibilities to be fair, thoughtful, measured, and rational&#8230;.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2013 From \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.laobserved.com\/intell\/2017\/12\/season_of_the_witch.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Season of the witch<\/a>\u201d by Joel Bellman at LA Observed (Dec. 10)<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1707\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/LRDCC20.jpg\" alt=\"LRDCC20\" width=\"132\" height=\"20\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jan. 4, 2018 \u201cSexual harassment or assault, by contrast [with the Communism scare in Hollywood], obviously warrants discipline at the very least and criminal prosecution wherever appropriate. But then and now, what&#8217;s lacking is any shared obligation to respect constitutional rights, ensure due process or maintain a sense of proportion&#8230;. And that&#8217;s the thing about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}