Nothing to Fear but Fear-Mongers Themselves

When did Americans turn into a bunch of wimps?

Everywhere you turn, our fellow citizens are embracing fear and rushing headlong into fascism, just so they can feel "safe."

Personally, I felt a lot safer when my rights were intact. But that's just me.

It is the politics of fear, and that fear is a fear of the "other." Quite a nebulous concept, that. But no matter how you slice it, I am the "other" - I am (culturally) Jewish. I am a feminist. I am an atheist. I am a scientist.

Which one of the labels that apply to me will be the first ones frogmarched? Call me paranoid if you want, but my Auntie Lisbet wears a tattoo on her arm that the Nazi's put there when she was interred at Bergen-Belsen. Every Purim we hear the family stories retold, and every Purim we celebrate, I become more convinced that we will once again live through another ethic cleansing in my lifetime. (A lot of Jewish holidays have as a unifying theme "They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat.)

And ethnic cleansing works. Ask the Tutsi of Rawanda. Ask the Darfur refugees. Ask my Auntie Lisbet. Most of those who don't get rounded up, flee.

I am not convinced that we won't see something here, on American soil that will rival the horrors of September 11, 2001.

Today in the Kansas City Star, the first letter to the editor was from a woman in PLatte County who has embraced the fear. Her worldview? We have enemies who want to kill us. It is a bad time to be a Christian.

When in the history of the human race has life been a guaranteed cakewalk?

Never.

You may stroke out today. You may be involved in a fatal car accident. You may be the victim of random violence. You may fall to a houshold accident, you may fall to a bug-bite. There are no guarantees. There never have been and there never will be. I can't find the source, but about 20 years ago, I recall learning the statistic that if we wiped out all disease tomorrow, and found a cure for aging, no one would surpass the age of approximately 650, because by then, some form of accident would befall you. That is not to say that caution should just be tossed to the wind. But fear should.

So live, for crying out loud! Drink life! Carpe Diem, because it may be your last. And don't cede your thirst for life to fear. If you do, your life is wasted.