FEAR!
Our President, George W. Bush, spoke of “Freedom from fear”in his nomination acceptance speech before the Republican National Convention. I remember that topic being touched upon by another great President of our nation – F.D.R. He aroused us to a new understandings of the “fear”, if you recall
We were unaware of the eventually obvious fact hat were,at that time, in rather desperate need of such encouragement in those Nazi-ridden times. Roosevelt, as a strong leader of men, realized our extreme need of encouragement a the time - a phase in which when we had several quasi-uniformed groups who were actively opposing the basic principles of our government and extolling that of Hitler's';s Germany with others favoring Joseph Stalin's U.S.S.R. Such groups - “bunds” and and others who wore distinctive silver shirts as a symbol of their collaboration intentions, mystic or quasi-religious designations which would solve the nation's problems. Today, our president warns us of such dangerous groups as the Taliban, El Quida, the fundamentalist Muslim fringes and unthinking collaborators within our own people who go along with such groups and work to destroy our way of life. We are in special need of reminders because our enemy – called “Terrorists” cannot always be identified with certainty.
Our need is real. It is urgent.
It is high time our President speaks out strongly against that fear which, again, grips far too many people among us today. Franklin Roosevelt “our greatest fear was fear itself”. In many of the intervening years, we have suffered a loss of self-discipline at both national and stet governmental levels which is
“catching up with us. Negative attitudes are favored . Company standards of morality are openly scorned and have, even in the highest place, been redefined and corrupted openly. Basics of our social associations have given way to lust, avarice, greed, and the fringes of treason. We are beset by confusing, meaningless labels in which some who would ,purposely, speed up the decline of our governmental structures call themselves “Liberals.” In truth, they, often manifestations of the same misguided principles which caused F.D.R. to condemn them by name in his time ...and label them all as fearful wrongs.
I cringe when I hear “the hero of Chappaquiddick” publically and repeatedly call our President “a liar.” Something is amiss when that sort of thing is common in our political life. Such individual, by their slurs, show they are running afraid.
Fear kills Reason.
A.L.M. September 2, 2004 [c417wds]
