Fear of accusations of bias (especially involving one of the nasty "-ism"s) and (legitimate!) fear of a tendency toward angry-mobbing people who make a bad deci

Fear of accusations of bias (especially involving one of the nasty "-ism"s) and (legitimate!) fear of a tendency toward angry-mobbing people who make a bad decision, even if it's only bad in hindsight, drives a ton of society's behavior. See also: nutjob reports kids walking down the street as being in danger, entire security/child-welfare apparatus responds as if this is a legitimate complaint because if any one of them puts the brakes on it, even if nothing happens in this case they may later have their life ruined if something does, as it eventually will because statistics. ("tonight at 8:00—in the wake of [horrible incident], channel six investigative reporters uncover a pattern of ignoring complaints of children in risky situations on the part of the local police department")