Vodkapundit - The Only Thing to Fear Is Failure Itself

The Only Thing to Fear Is Failure Itself

Posted by Stephen Green · 9 October 2002

The problem with democracy, it has been noted many times before, is that it usually gives The People exactly what they ask for.

The problem with The People is, you put them in groups and they often become very, very stupid. The Wave will serve as Exhibit A. For Exhibit B, just take notes on your rush hour drive home from work today.

If you actually take notes in the car, then you’re part of the problem. Pull over, take a deep breath, and renounce your right to vote.

Crowds of people are bad enough. Fearful crowds of people are worse still. The German people, fearful of the future, managed to saddle themselves with Adolph Hitler. Thirty years later, Southerners, afraid of change, lynched innocent blacks to preserve Jim Crow. The people of Iran were so afraid of the Shah’s rapid, wrenching modernization, they put the Ayatollah Khomeini in power.

On September 12, the American People were very, very afraid.

Do you remember the two months after the attacks? Do you remember how jumpy we all were? They hit us four times, just hours apart. What would they do next? Maybe you slept with the news on – I did. Every time the Special Alert notice came up on the screen, we braced ourselves for new horror. Anthrax? That’s bad. What else do they have?

Every backfiring car might be a bomb. Every morning brought fresh dread in the instant before you turned on the radio. Every person in every big city wondered every day if they were going to be the next civilian casualty in this new war.

We accepted the USA PATRIOT act. We accepted the federal government detaining 2,000 people anonymously, and without a hearing. We even accepted seeing Ted Kennedy singing “God Bless America” sober and with his pants on.

If there is another attack on American soil, I dread to think what other indignities we might accept. And not only accept, but demand.

Fearful people often make bad decisions. And the government is happy to oblige them.

That’s not to say that we’re stupid or the government is evil. It’s simply human nature to require some minimal amount of personal safety, and it’s the nature of democratic government to give the people what they want. If we can’t feel safe in a free society, then maybe we won’t have one much longer.

A very wise man once said that if we throw away our freedom, if we renounce our heritage, there can never be another America. Never again on this planet will the political, geographical, and philosophical stars align the way they did in 1776. There are no new continents to find, explore, settle, and to which to escape all the bloody history of the Old World. This is it – humanity’s one shot at a new creation.

But we might just blow it if Washington can’t protect it.

Be afraid of George W. Bush if you must. But your real fear should be your neighbors, if Bush fails us in this Terror War. We’re just one more attack away from trading a lot of freedom for a little security – and getting the neither that we deserve.

With al Qaeda hurt and scurrying, our biggest danger now lies in Iraq. Iran’s government is rotten fruit, ready to fall on its own. North Korea is starving. Saudi Arabia exists at our whim. Syria is hapless. Libya is like Italy under Mussolini – loud but mostly laughable. Pakistan is worrisome, but mostly to itself, not to us. Only Iraq has the combination of means and menace to threaten us directly.

A nuclear-armed Saddam doesn’t actually have to level Los Angeles or New York to put National Guardsmen on every street corner. He doesn’t actually have to spray us with smallpox to bring our economy to a halt. He doesn’t actually have to lob Sarin missiles into Israel to blow apart our foreign policy.

Saddam only has to demonstrate that he can. Then we become a very fearful people again, much worse than we were on September 12.

Part of what makes America special is our simple physical separation from the Old World. We have no Kaiser on our northern border, rattling his sword. Our southern flank is poor Mexico, not expansionist China. Enemy warships don’t patrol our coasts, threatening our lives and livelihoods. Those simple facts accord us much of our freedom. 9/11 showed that none of those facts count like they once did. So now we must either police our threats, or police-state ourselves.

Most civil libertarians fear what will happen to us if we attack Saddam. I fear what will happen if we don’t.

Comments

Excellent essay Mr. Green. Bravo.

I've been saying this for months too - what is the cost of inaction? We have to face our future and choose it - we can be aggressive and take the fight to our known enemies, and likely take most of these threats down over time, or we can sit here like cowards who are afraid of unknown outcomes. Even if are destined to fail, which I don't think we are, we must go down fighting for our freedoms, just like our brave young men did in WWII. How different is it now? Not so much. Our way of life is threatened, do we want to protect it or not?

Posted by: Jeff Brokaw at October 9, 2002 07:16 AM

One more thing. People are getting shot and killed by snipers now. Including kids at school. Do we really think this couldn't possibly be tied to foreign terrorism, regardless of who is pulling the trigger? It's in Washington D.C. for crying out loud. Do we need a big flashing neon sign? Do we WANT this kind of world for ourselves? Isn't this EXACTLY the type of thing you would do to spread terror, if you were inclined in that direction? And even if it turns out to be unrelated to foreign terrorist groups, which I highly doubt, the point is, he would do it if he could, or maybe he just hadn't thought of it yet. The sky is the limit here folks.

Posted by: Jeff Brokaw at October 9, 2002 07:33 AM

Amen Stephen.

Posted by: Garrett at October 9, 2002 08:03 AM

We even accepted seeing Ted Kennedy singing “God Bless America” sober and with his pants on.

Teddy's sobriety and public decency at any given moment is an assumption. Can it be substantiated by photographs?--if only the Massachusetts Senator was down in front where his bottom half might be visible. I can't recall. Can one sing and appear halfway photogenic when partly doused in the odd pinch of ripple? Leave it to a man who's spent his life perfecting the art to so accomplish it. Truly, these are compelling riddles of our day.

Excellent essay, regardless.

Posted by: Michael Ubaldi at October 9, 2002 09:15 AM

Bravo Zulu! Kudos to you, Mr. Green. May America read your words loud and clear.

Corporal, USMC.
OUT!

Posted by: Jim Martin at October 9, 2002 01:04 PM

Oh, and that freedom vs. security statement was taken from Ben Franklin.

"Those who are willing to give up freedom for security, deserve neither."

Posted by: Jim Martin at October 9, 2002 01:12 PM

"We even accepted seeing Ted Kennedy singing “God Bless America” sober and with his pants on."

Even if this isn't true, if he was actually singing drunk and naked, this is still the funniest line that I've read in a while. Thanks.

Posted by: Buck Naked at October 10, 2002 11:56 AM

Unfortunately we have been giving up our freedoms year by year piece by little piece. I agree with most of what you say but after Saddam is a footnote in history we need to wake up to the gradual insidious nibbling away of our way of life that continues even while we are trying to fight this bigger and more pressing problem of Iraq and muslem extremism.

Posted by: Starhawk at October 10, 2002 01:19 PM

What made us special was the oceans that separated us from foreign, menacing powers. No longer is that the case, as 9/11 proved. Interlopers use our freedom and technology to attack and terrorize us. Our government is stupid and evil. State Dept. consular affairs officers allowed terrorists to enter the country without the legal scrutiny required (See Joel Mowbry documents at NRO). The Congress federalized airport security for the purpose of harrassing the elderly and children, and although no airport security breaches were the proximate cause of the 9/11 attacks. The House voted 417-5 to support use of force for the purpose of regime change, by the Clinton administration, but does not even get 300 votes today. Sen. Byrd quotes Nazi Hermann Goerring (sp?) on the floor of the Senate, implicitly comparing him to Pres. Bush. I could go on. If we don't act, after 11 years of Saddam playing the world as a fiddle, I'm more than worried.

Posted by: Forbes Tuttle at October 10, 2002 06:08 PM

If we don't kick down Iraqi doors looking for the bomb, eventually we'll have to kick down doors in America looking for it.

Think about it.

Posted by: Brian Waxx at October 10, 2002 08:17 PM

Actually Good ole' Ben said "Those who would trade liberty for security loose both and deserve neither." I know this because my history teacher keeps saying it every chance he can get.

Posted by: Marc at December 15, 2002 02:02 PM

Both Bushes should have left Saddam alone. Just because his war planes hit one US Battleship by mistake, when they were fighting against Iran, the US has had a grudge against him.

When the US leaves Iraq the equivalent of a puppet government will govern under the directions of Iran. Iraq will be just another Iranian controlled state.

Saudi Arabia is the real enemy. If Saddam was allowed to take them out there would have been no 9/11. Who gave Bin Laden $300 million dollars to play games with? The Saudi Arabian rulers.

The majority of terrorists are Saudi Arabians. They use them like European Countries use to use Privateers to attack other countries without actually going to war.

We should have continued to support Saddam even after the war with Iran. We would be getting our oil cheaper like he offered.

With US support he would not have had to try to develop nukes and if he tried to use them on Isreal, he knew he would be nuked out of existance.

Posted by: Random Passage at September 3, 2003 06:32 AM