The Politics of Fear - a continuing series

Fear is a powerful emotion. People do amazing and heroic things when the fear-rush sets in. That rush of fear is what allows hundred-pound women to lift cars off of loved ones. I have felt real honest-to-god fear a couple of times - once I was on an ambulance crew and responded to a gang shooting. We broke the rules - we got out of the bus before we had police back-up. The guy was dying in front of us, ten feet away. He was going to die. That is not a curable condition. We looked at one another, and we both nodded. No words were necessary. We moved. And we came under fire. I heard one of the bullets whiz past my head. My partner and I did not retreat in the face of fire - we grabbed up the wounded guy and got the hell back in the bus. My partner quit at shifts end, and I never saw him again. I didn't quit, but I never went out without my kevlar vest again, no matter how hot it was, and I never got out of the bus without back-up if gunplay was the reason for the call. But I was never again in a situation where the person I was called to help was ten feet from me, and bleeding out, either. But if I had been, I would have done it again the exact same way. I knew the risks of the job when I took it. Nobody was a paramedic in that town during a crack-war without being acutely aware of the risk. I don't know how many times we got "airmail" when we responded to calls - Airmail is when the onlookers throw debris from the rooftops and upper floors while the medics tend the patient. A kevlar vest is little help against a burning couch that is pushed out a window at the medics, and two cops are little help either, but better than nothing.

But the fact remains - anything that can make me follow the rules is a powerful motivator indeed.

The fear-mongers know that fear is a potent motivator. They paint pictures of mass-beheadings, forced conversions and Shari'ia law right here in the United States. They use this fear to push an agenda. They use this fear to pass bad laws like the Patriot Act which abridges our constitutionally protected liberties. What interest does the government have in knowing what books I have checked out from the public library (talk about a pinko, lefty downright socialist organization) other than planting a seed in my mind that they can check into my checkouts, and I should therefore curtail myself from reading anything controversial? I read a book about Islam recently. It deepened my understanding and changed my perspective. I checked it out at the library. Was I flagged for that as a potential threat? If I was, I was. I will not change my reading habits or tone down my intellectual curiosity because the government wants me to "be afraid, be very afraid." I read every book I was told not to as a child, from Bertrand Russell to Jacqueline Suzanne.

Nor will I voluntarily give up my freedoms and my civil liberties because some people with a far-right agenda peddle fear and foment uncertainty are running around with their hair on fire, flapping their arms and squawking that the sky is falling because a few fanatics in caves "want to kill you!!!" The imagery of beheadings is a favorite among this lot. "Wait until the Muslims get here. They will saw your head off." is a popular meme.

They meticulously construct this straw-man, and they use it as a front. They use it to scare Americans into surrendering the civil liberties that every American is entitled to under the Constitution. They have used this irrational fear to suspend Habeas Corpus, the cornerstone of the Common Law tradition. They use it to undermine the Geneva Conventions and they use it to justify torture - not an American value, by the way.

Another blogger attacked me recently for the flag at distress that I added to my profile when Habeas was taken out and shot at dusk on September 28th. I must have struck a nerve - he dedicated an entire post full of invective (I'm Blue Bitch! But when someone calls me a "Bitch" I don't get mad - I say thank you) just for me! Complete with a graphic! I have arrived. It is his right to be outraged by me - we are still the remnants of a free country. His freedom to hate what we stand for, to hate all things liberal and moderate is his right as an American. Protecting his right to express his own beliefs, however misguided I might feel they are, in a non-violent way is exactly why my husband dedicated his first career to upholding the Constitution of the United States. That is what troops pledge their loyalty to, by the way - the Constitution, not the Publican party.

And if I couldn't hold my own, or if my sensibilities were tender, or I did not have the courage of my own convictions, I would not take a stand. The precise reason I am a liberal is that I value everyone's rights - not just those of people I agree with. I am a liberal because I stopped needing a daddy to help guide my moral development long before I went off to college. My real daddy did his job well, and I developed the critical thinking skills I would use all my life early in my life, and I am nobody's dupe. Any position I take is thought through and deliberate. I am a liberal because I do not believe the government has any place in medical decisions. They should no more be able to make reproductive decisions for women than they should be able to force Jehovah's Witnesses to accept blood transfusions. I am a liberal because I believe that your right to freedom of religion extends to your neighbor right to be free from religion. I am a liberal because I believe in the sanctity of a free press to hold the government to account by honest reportage. I am a liberal because I believe in the basic good judgment that most people are capable of exhibiting. I am a liberal because I believe in social safety nets. Things like Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment benefits and Medicaid. I believe that everyone is entitled to a quality education and quality healthcare. I am a liberal because I don't believe you can pay for wars with tax cuts. I am a liberal because my idea of family values is this: I will value mine, and you value yours and we won't give one another a lot of grief about our personal moral centers, okay?

I am fearful of the fringe elements in both camps. The left fringe would throw out the baby with the bathwater. But so would the fringe right, and in a heinous and violent manner. The fringe left would appease away the liberties of Americans. The fringe right would strip everyone's rights and we would look eerily like Germany, circa 1936.

And right there - that sets my bearing. Because my people were the ones they came for that time, and I am smart enough to learn from history. I have no desire to repeat it. Maybe I smelled fascism coming before other people did because I have a genetic memory of it. I will fast on Yom Kippur, and when we break the fast, my Auntie Lisbett will be here. She is 86. And for 68 of her 86 years, she has had a series of numbers tattooed on her forearm. So pardon me if I recognize fascism when I see it - regardless of the flag it is wrapped in and the cross it carries. I have no illusion that it will be double-plus good, comrades.