[mattm]

This is a good This American Life podcast about that issue:

> Two towns where people got really upset about undocumented immigrants, even though in both places, that did not seem to be the most important thing happening at all. One of the towns, a small town in Alaska, has no undocumented immigrants at all, but the possibility of them arriving put the whole town at each other’s throats.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/621/fear-and-loathing-in-ho...

[BitwiseFool]

Something about this seems dismissive. I definitely get the sense of "Why are you worrying about this? You shouldn't be worried because it won't affect you. Just let us do this because you shouldn't be worried about it."

[mattm]

Wouldn't that be the advice you would give a friend if they were fretting about something that had a very low likelihood of happening? Would you be happy with them spending energy on something that has no impact on their life?