In various avenues where it commonly appears (guns, gay marriage, speech, privacy, etc) it's particularly unhelpful because the US typically lags other western

In various avenues where it commonly appears (guns, gay marriage, speech, privacy, etc) it's particularly unhelpful because the US typically lags other western nations on this stuff. So an opposition that relies on "what if" scenarios to oppose progressive change is often one which is either unaware-of or has explicitly looked at other nations that are 10-50 years ahead on whatever the policy is, and discovered that enacting step X did not, in fact, lead to a downward spiral into nightmare scenario Y.