I was going to write a post about fear, but Freddie Deboer beat me to the important part of it. He makes the important point that the United States hasn't been under existential threat, since the fall of the Soviet Union. Well, that's probably not entirely true, the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals still exist, are aging and could conceivably be fired in anger or due to human or equipment error. But they neither side seems inclined to fire them any time soon, and there's certainly no popular momentum on either side to use them, so the rest of us, more or less rightly, don't worry about the existential threat of nuclear weapons so much. Although personally, I'd be happy if both sides voluntarily dismantled their capability to destroy the planet. The point is, terrorists (both foreign and domestic), liberals, conservatives, Iraq, Afghanistan and disaffected loners are not even close to an existential threat to this country. So why do we keep acting as if they are?
It's frustrating and nonsensical that we are led by people and listen to people who spend most of their time telling us to be afraid of our absolute destruction. Politicians do it to paint their opponents as weak and as an excuse for abandoning our existing legal framework for one that pleases their base emotionally and themselves and their supporters financially (We're under attack! We can't afford to do things the right way!). Talking heads and media types do it to generate a climate of fear that keeps people clicking for fear of being left behind on the latest existential threat to their day (Is your latte killing you? More at 11! How can you vote for liberals when they want to let terrorists kill you children?). How strange is it that the same people who have been loudly proclaiming the supremacy of the U.S. in law and justice are also the ones screaming for us to abandon these principles at the first sign of a terrorist? Our laws and principles are really not capable of effectively dealing with terrorist threats to this nation? When Lindsay Graham expresses his deep wish that a U.S. citizen be tried as an "enemy combatant", isn't he expressing a complete lack of faith in the U.S. legal system? Don't we need better leaders than people willing to abandon bedrock principles the moment things get a little scary? Who understand that when we put ourselves forth as the foremost beacon of truth, justice and fairness in the world that we actually have to behave in a manner most consistent with those principles? If we're holding ourselves up as better than, then we actually have to ACT better than, you know?
Didn't we used to think of leaders as the people with the clear heads, who were supposed to tell us not to be afraid? People who would tell us that the enemies who face us are nothing we can't overcome and the challenges ahead of us something we don't need change who we are to face? Why are we burdened with leaders whose only contribution to the national mood is division, distrust and paranoia? Well, because we elect them obviously. I guess my point is, maybe we should stop electing people who tell us to be more afraid, against all logic and judgement. Maybe we should stop watching talking heads who tell us to be afraid of our neighbor, that we've failed as a group and a society and it's time to buy a gun and start jumping at shadows. Maybe we could rationally assess our fears, and see if our day-to-day lives really warrant the kind of fearful stance that our "leaders" want to inspire in us. If not, what should we do about that? Maybe we could start by not listening to manipulative and fearful people and not voting the same into office.
I don't know, it's just a thought.
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