I don’t think that the “scare tactics” are necessary to make the point.
Itzik, it is true that good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. But you have already said the answer to this – you said that you are free to choose what you want to do with your life. This is absolutely true. It is also the answer to why bad things happen to good people.
Imagine for a minute that a certain type of person was never afflicted by tragedy. Let’s say for argument’s sake that statistics show no Catholic who went to confession ever got into an auto accident, ever got sick, ever lost money in the stock market, or ever had so much as a backache. I guarantee you that with the release of that study skeptics would start going to confession every week to test the study. If nothing bad happens to them after that, it would soon become “the ultimate segula” to go to confession, right? Pretty soon, everyone would be going and no one would ever suffer again. I don’t believe in confession, it is a load of garbage – but if everyone who went was protected from all harm, I wouldn’t have any choice but to become a practicing Catholic, would I? What kind of an idiot would do something (e.g. missing confession) that is guaranteed to bring about retribution? Besides, the fact that doing it protects you would be proof that it is the right thing to do. I would have no choice in what I do.
There is no free will to do right or wrong unless the the bad things that happen in this world are distributed indiscriminately to good and bad people. Who could possibly choose to do bad if you knew that lightning would strike you a minute later? Similarly, are you really a good person if you do good only because you know it will protect you from all harm? It is only your choice if there is no consequence.