Then there's the whole mythology of the cell phone, as if it is in any way a fitting substitute for an actual defensive weapon. "Get a restraining order." "Get a whistle." "Call the police." "Don't resist your attacker." "A gun is statistically more likely to be used against you."
Pandora is right, these official admonitions are not simply flowery, misguided advice made with nevertheless good intent, they're outright lies meant to drive home the point that your security and well being are dependent on acts of officialdom. They're lies meant to underscore an important tenet of our closest thing to an official religion, which is the belief in supremacy of the State. The magic piece of paper has power because it is the issue of the State, just like the "no weapons allowed" signs on college campuses. I think it is to some extent part of an Orwellian effort to make people blithely accept the absurd and the counterintuitive, because doing so is a potent form of mass psychological conditioning.
