The Challenge of Fear

     The essay was a clear and well documented piece. The author's thesis was that the United States was under attack. There were groups, countries, and individuals who were out to destroy the country. It was not hard for the author to find a number of events to substantiate his claim.  We are under attack. Perhaps there is no real argument on that point.

      The greater question is how are we to respond to that challenge. How are we to combat those groups. How do we respond at a nation to these individuals, this cells, this countries who have different values and different agendas?  It is a question that will have to be discussed in a lot of places.  It may be the question that shapes our entire future.

     The essay was of the opinion that we needed to hunker down. We needed to close our borders to outsiders. We needed to put restrictions on free speech and free assembly. We could no longer enjoy the kind of openness and hospitality that we have offered because the enemy has been taking advantage  of those conditions.  We needed to increase our police and increase the number of activities that were illegal.  There would need to be some surrender of our privacy in order to allow the government to check on the activities of subversive groups.  People who were part of anti-government groups, citizens who were members of strange cults and special interest groups, neo-nazis, groups that promoted the dominance of one race, all these groups would have to be restricted and controlled.  He was afraid that we would have to change the way we lived in order to preserve our country from all these groups.

       Of course, what the essayist was suggesting was that we would have to help the enemy destroy our country by becoming like the enemy in order to fight the enemy.  We would have to sacrifice the very things that makes the country special and unique in history in order, supposedly, to preserve it.  It is not the way that most of the people in the country seem to want to fight the terrorists, the anarchist, the enemy.  When an act of terror is supposed to try to make us shut down or pull back, most people claim that they will not let the "act of war" stop them from living their lives.  Airplane travel is still planned. Marathons will still be run.  All religions will still be protected by the law. All citizens will be given their rights of assembly and speech.

     The fear of the conflict we are engaged in with many different levels can cause us to change the way we live and to become like the enemy to fight the enemy or we can continue to promote, defend and enjoy the rights and liberties we have and trust that those values and principles will overcome the efforts of the ones who seek something else from life.