I’m not trying to scare you, but Joe the Plumber is still pretty famous.
I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s worse than people know. Put together all of the problems you can think of: that, by definition, is the realm of the known, and how things are is worse than all of that put together. I’m not trying to scare you, but the sum total of all the bad things in the world, plus your imagine, almost certainly underestimates how bad things really are due to the limiting factor of awareness. Right now, people you don’t even know about are doing bad things in secret. I’m not trying to scare you, but however scared you might be at this moment is almost certainly insufficiently scared, although we just don’t know. Today is Friday, and every shadow teems with grues. Won’t you stumble around in the dark with me?