Fear of the government

lewleadbeater.com

notes from the edge

Home

Email Me

				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Fear of the government				October 27, 2004

It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who told us in his first inaugural speech that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Jeffersonian that he was, Roosevelt later knew well the dangers inherent in foreign entanglements and the ramifications of fighting a war on several fronts. Yet, a territory belonging to the United States had been viciously attacked and there was nothing to be done but respond in kind. Without fear.

Though we have no way of knowing what Roosevelt would have counseled or how he would have responded to the events of 9/11, I suspect that the outcome would have been somewhat different from the one we’re experiencing now.

The fact is that we now live in a country riddled with fear, even to the point that security moms have replaced soccer moms. Colors of normally pacific rainbows have been transformed into ugly terrorist alerts that appear and disappear for no apparent reason. We have a vice president who roams the countryside, threatening nuclear or biological disaster for our cities if we elect the flip-flopping John Kerry. Mushroom clouds were to be imminent if we didn’t invade Iraq.

But what is most troubling is that the worst kind of fear – fear of one’s own government – seems to be spreading amongst the most polarized electorate we’ve seen in years.

For instance, I fear a government that, in the name of fighting terrorism, is willing to choke its own Constitution and maul the civil and privacy rights it assures. Having digested the abominable Patriot Act, we now are being asked to swallow the “Tools to Fight Terrorism Act of 2004.” This will allow the government to snoop into our personal records without judicial review through wiretaps and other formerly illegal means. It will also further enhance the FBI’s ability to extract from Internet providers and other businesses sensitive customer records.

I fear a president who considers the military his personal set of toy soldiers to be sent on deadly ego-boosting missions, as though in a game of Risk. Reality sets in, however, when they return home to find that their commander-in-chief’s 2005 budget not only cuts spending for the VA, but also eliminates 500 claims processors at a time when 70,000 claims a month are pouring in. In addition, there are now 1.7 million veterans without health care and hence without access to government hospitals and clinics. Support our troops indeed.

I fear an administration that uses semantics and semiotics to lull an uninformed public into thinking that our environment is being properly protected when in fact it is under what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. calls a “stealth attack” that will “eviscerate 30 years of environmental law.” Hence a “Healthy Forest Act” allows loggers to destroy forests, while a “Clear Skies Act” encourages polluters to run roughshod over the quality of our air. The “Clean Water Act” simply means that 1/3 of the nations rivers, lakes and streams are so chemically polluted that they are unfishable. It is now unsafe to eat some or most fish in the rivers and lakes of 48 states.

I fear a president who is so bent on pandering to his far right constituency that he is willing to sacrifice a sizable group of citizens on the altar of exclusion and denial of civil rights. Obstinately flaunting the fear factor, Bush the uniter has fostered hatred for and derision of gays through his hallucinatory contention that granting them the same partnership rights that heterosexuals enjoy will somehow destroy the concept of marriage.

I fear a president who believes that he is beyond moral reproach and is firmly convinced that he has made no mistakes. Even more do I fear a president who so wraps himself in the cloak of religion that he believes God whispers in his ear, approves of his military disasters and, worst of all, has granted him the emperorship by divine right. Furthermore, I fear compulsory prayer breakfasts, the replacement of science with theosophical voodoo snake oil and the inevitable agglutinization of Christian theology with what is supposed to be secular legislation.

I fear a politicized Supreme Court that insinuates itself into the electoral process. Even more do I fear a Supreme Court populated exclusively by Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases. And I fear judicial nominees for district courts who believe that women should be subservient to men and that civil rights laws are unconstitutional.

I fear a president who is so out of touch with reality that he told Pat Robertson there would be no American casualties in Iraq. Or who really believes that some 55 year old steel worker whose job has been outsourced can go back to college and learn a new skill. Or who thinks that his stupendous educational coup known as No Child Left Behind can survive with only the most sluggish infusion of federal funds.

In his editorial of Oct. 20, Gazette publisher W.C. O’Donovan eloquently urged that we remove George W. Bush. I couldn’t agree more. We should be so lucky as to live in a land in which the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Unfortunately, fear now seems to be rampaging through the country, and not the least fear is that of the government itself.