How many times did proponents of the "recovery" package -- or other recent spending plans -- dispatch the bromide "something needs to be done" or claim that choosing "inaction" was tantamount to national suicide? Those aren't exactly arguments drenched in reason -- panic, maybe.

But the most common brand of public policy that relies on scary talk is environmental. We need not catalog the endless end-of-days scenarios that environmentalists have been laying on us for more than three decades to understand how intrinsically they rely on fear.

Let's just point to admired professional alarmist James Hansen, who made the panic-stricken assertion recently that "President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastrophe."

Thus, logic tells us, to oppose egregious CAFE standards, cap and trade nationalizing of energy, or any plan the Obama administration supports in the area of the environment is akin to being a nihilist hellbent on destroying planet Earth.

Talk about decision-making "based upon fear rather than foresight."

Surely, at the time of 9/11, the fear of terrorism was at least as tangible and real as any long-term environmental consequence.

Of course, reasonable -- and highly unreasonable -- people can disagree on these issues. But let's not pretend either party is innocent when it comes to using fear to get its way.