1) the old white-guy expert who regrets his entire career (my favorite is nuclear weapons, although Soros is the current poster-child)
2) the senseless extrapolation ad infinitum (e.g., confusing standard of living with consumption)
3) our children are idiots (timeless)
4) changes in direction as "the end of ..." (the slippery slope as demonizing tool = "Obama is a socialist!")
5) "those people" will screw it up (non-whites are inherently inferior and won't match what Europeans did in the past)

A note to myself for next week's column.