In a recent New York Times column, Paul Krugman dismissed the war on terror as some sort of "Wag the Dog," fear-as-control device. Fear is a perpetual theme that liberals keep coming back to when talking about terrorism in the post 9-11 world. They perceive that middle America was cowed by fear into accepting the War on Terror and the constituent Iraq War. They believe Americans should fear less and love and trust more. Do they really see through rose-colored glasses, that if we beat our guns into ploughs, the Jihadists will surely follow? I bet that theme has wooed folks since time immemorial, but the truth is quite simply, and literally, that it will get you killed! To turn the rhetorical table, is it liberals who are trapped in a black and white view of good and evil, where to be "good" is to be embracing, tolerent, and conquering fear with love, and to be "evil" is to be distrustful, violent, and inconsiderate?
This powerful theme of love conquering fear has been taken out of context from where it first came. If there is some pervasive, historical ether of Western or American values that informs the worldviews of both the Left and Right, then the concept of love conquering fear derives from 1 John in the New Testament. But to mistake such a beautiful and true concept as being a moral policy mandate of the United States federal government is just plain wrong. No matter where we draw our values from, we have to be clear to distinguish to whom they apply, and to what ends. Its great for an individual Christian to demonstrate love in spite of fear, as a means to testify of Christ's love and demonstrate His glory. However, there is no logical basis for the U.S. government to be so self-effacing, unless you believe America should be a left-wing theocracy whose aim is to demonstrate God's love to the world. This would totally go against One of the most commonly-agreed and quite legitimate functions of government, which is to protect citizens from external threats. Indeed, taken out of the original context, love conquering fear can be nothing more than a bunch of feel-good fluff. Dangerous fluff at that.
Since protecting citizens is a widely-expected, legitimate concern of national governments, why is it wrong to be considerate of dangers? Liberal spin might call such consideration fear-mongering, but this belies an insidious elitism on the spinners' behalf. If a Homeland Security alert is excessive fear-mongering, then American people in general must be dumb sheep. This thinking implies that people are too fickle, ruled by emotion over reason. And if this is a component of your philosophy, then you are probably not too far removed from elitists like Lenin, who believed there must be a Vanguard to guide the people and usher in a new age. The Age of Aquarius, perhaps? The opposite view, that I'm partial to, is to trust people to their own judgements. After all, America's is so great because it is based on an agreement between free and mostly prosperous individuals not to step on each others' toes. Let grown ups be grown ups, and let them know the dangers of the world. If people really are mature, they will make sound decisions for themselves whether or not the latest news report or commentary has valid points, is sacre-mongering, or some other kind of baloney. If this is not the case, then the situation is hopeless, and you should probably give Big Brother a call to save us from the machinations of the conservative media-scare machine.
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