Nothing to Fear but the Fear Mongers

Everywhere that you go in the United States, and on almost every form of broadcast media you encounter, the message is the same. "You have to be afraid, and you have to be vigilant – terrorist are out to harm you!" On an intellectual level, most of us know that this is not entirely true. The risk of a terrorist attack may exist in various parts of the world, but the danger is not omnipresent. If one tries to approach the issue rationally, the accusation of naiveté or lack of patriotism is quickly launched. To look at the issue rationally and on the facts, risks losing the value of capitalizing on visceral and irrational fear. Not only has intellectual response failed to carry the day, it has been driven underground as "politically incorrect."

The message of the fear mongers defines the elusive "enemy" against which we are at war – terrorism – as an attack by extremist Muslims against innocent civilians. By extension, these fear mongers would have us categorically suspect anyone perceived to be an ethnic Arab as being Muslim, and thus a potential "terrorist." There is so much wrong with this fallacy that it is difficult to know where to begin.

The New Yorker Magazine recently lent strong assistance to the fear mongers by publishing a reprehensible cartoon depicting Barack Obama and his wife as allied with Muslim extremists and as terroristic. While presenting the lame excuse that it was intended as "parody" or satire, the image played directly to the fear, ignorance and bigotry in the general populace that the fear mongers desire to inflame. Had the cartoon truly been intended as a glib poke at the uneducated and unwashed general public, it would have been put in context inside the magazine for the enjoyment of regular subscribers. Instead, it was emblazoned on the cover and attended with great media fanfare assuring that only superficial attention would be given to the supposedly more subtle intent. The cover was at best a loud call to ethnic bias and bigotry. It exemplifies the problem.

In fact, Muslims can be found throughout the world and come in virtually all colors and a race, so labeling Obama as a Muslim because of his appearance or name is simply hysterical bigotry. Obama is not a Muslim, and his opponents have even attacked him for his association with his former Christian Protestant minister Jeremiah Wright. The FACTS are clearly in the public domain for those who would exercise the care to look at them. Given the millions, if not billions of Muslims in the world who live daily in peace despite economic and political conditions that could drive anyone to the breaking point, labeling Muslims generally as "terrorists" is untrue, unfair and morally wrong. But the fear mongers would give the public some target that they do not understand and is not like tem to fear and hate.

If we wade a few steps further into the world of facts, we find that the greatest risk that the average United States citizen faces in daily life comes not from a Middle East extremist, but from a deranged individual [usually WASP] invading their school or place of worship. The attack on the World Trade center was horrible and devastating, but an equal number of innocent people have been killed or injured in the last decade by attackers in churches, schools and universities.

Snipers terrorizing the public on the west coast and in the District of Columbia area were not Muslims. Timothy McVeigh who was responsible for the deadly terrorist attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City was a white United States citizen. The presumed sender of terroristic mail letters containing deadly anthrax was neither Arabic nor Muslim. While we cannot forget what happened on September 11, 2001, a rational person would have to reconsider whether to place that event at the core of risks that are likely to threaten our daily lives. Certainly a rational person would not allow such emotions to eclipse concerns about threats that are more credible and perhaps more likely.

The sad truth about the American society is that it is much easier to invoke fear, hatred and irrational disregard of self-interest based upon an "enemy" who is non-White than to inflame such rage against an "average white guy" like Timothy McVeigh. This unfortunate reality is a sorry commentary on the progress of the US populace, but shows that the fear mongers know their target audience very well. Perhaps even more regrettable is the failure of those who recognize what is happening to step forward and reject the irrational ethnic based fear mongering. History has shown us that a mindless crowd can be whipped into a frenzied lynch mob by a cynical and eloquent spokesman. But we also know that a single clarion voice of reason can silence hysteria. It can cause members of that crown to examine their own misguided actions. Each of us who has a mind to reason with and a voice to express those rational thoughts ought to be speaking out.

As we go about our daily lives and try to lead examples for our children, we might try harder to be conscious of "right and wrong." We must try to examine what is true and what is false in the messages fed to us and acknowledge each upon it merits. It is wrong to tell our children that they live in a constant state of "Orange Alert" as that condition of "High" risk is defined in the Homeland Security world. There is not, in fact, an imminent risk of a hostile attack every time we walk out the door. In fact, consider the following quote from the DHS website: "There is no credible, specific intelligence suggesting an imminent threat to the homeland at this time."

Bank robbers do exist and attempts are occasionally made to rob banks using lethal weapons. But it would be ludicrous to post constant warnings that a person is at immediate risk of personal danger from armed bank robbers every time they walk into a bank. Yet that is the equivalent of the conditions we and our children are subjected to every time we go to an airport, bus or train terminal. No one is suggesting that personal safety should be disregarded, but irrational and unsubstantiated fear is also dangerous. There is a fundamental change in the character of the nation and its culture when we cede fundamental civil rights to an abusive governmental authority based upon irrational fear and cynical fear mongering.

When that transition takes place, as is currently happening, and dissent is silenced through threat or intimidation, then the objectives of true terrorists are advanced more effectively than any bomb could accomplished. The destruction of the United States comes not from the death of victims in a bomber's blast. It comes from the deterioration, degradation and abandonment of the fundamental principles upon which the society was built and which have sustained it. The fear mongers who trumpet the "war on terror" as an excuse for grabbing power and curtailing basic Constitutional rights and freedoms are the real danger. Their disregard of fundamental building blocks in our system of justice is doing more damage to our daily existence than any action by Osama Bin Laden or any Muslim extremist could imagine.