Fear is a powerful thing. Many people fail to take risks because they fear failing. Despots know this and utilize fear to control others. Evil flourishes when people allow their fear to subvert their desire for liberty. Fear overwhelms our rational thought and drives us toward making choices that are contrary to our best interests. Choosing to live a life that is marinated in fear as opposed to living in liberty is somewhat like a tiger preferring the cage to the wild. You are alive, but are you truly living? People who are free dare to dance. People who are fearful scurry for hiding places. Psychologists tell us that negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement are useful for manipulating behavior, and fear clearly fits into the negative mold.
Fear of ostracism and fear of retribution or pain appear to be the most common forms of internal justification for compliant behavior. Tyrants and terrorists are fully aware of our inclinations to avoid discomfort so they capitalize on our fear. Fear is an instinctive reaction that generally leads to one of two responses: fight or flight. People who resist oppression are the fighters, and those who succumb to it are fleeing pain. Our reactions to tyranny and terror are very personal, but whole groups of people can be motivated to pursue a collective strategy by inspirational leaders. Leaders can sound the “retreat,” or they can lead the charge for liberty.
Tyranny is not necessarily the product of a single forceful individual in a position of power. It can be achieved by a bureaucracy or an overwhelming, over burdening mass of laws, rules and regulations by a collection of individuals who when standing alone would not be tyrants, but when their efforts are compounded, the result is a state of tyranny. Terrorism operates in a similar fashion. It can be a single mastermind, a group of fanatics or a gaggle of well-meaning politicians who spread fear and anxiety throughout the land. Terrified people are indecisive people, so terrorists and regulators capitalize on the people’s inability to act decisively and proactively.
We fear terrorists because they can strike at any time, any place. We fear tyrants because their strong arms of oppression will punish us for any deviation from their laws. The common element is perpetuity...constant fear. In both cases our voices for liberty are reduced to whispers for survival. Our shouts for freedom morph into whimpers of apology. While we may survive the terrorist attack or the tyrant’s control, we are, in essence, already dead. Clearly liberty has no value for zombies.
Here in the United States we have experienced an interesting phenomenon. Our leaders of our REPUBLIC have used our fear of terrorists to advance the rule of tyranny. Our desire for greater safety has led us to accept the early vestiges of enslavement. Our acquiescence to our governments’ calls for more power in order to protect us has drawn us down the path toward tyranny. True, the federal government is mandated to protect and secure our nation, but it has a greater responsibility to protect and defend our liberty. Our fear of outside threats has seemingly given the government carte blanche to run roughshod over our personal freedom. For our liberty to prevail, we must resist tyranny as forcefully as we denounce terrorism. There is no such thing as freedom from fear. The minds of people are fertile enough to imagine monsters of every type under our beds. Liberty can only survive when we reject fear as a lifestyle….and it does not matter what the source of our fear is.
The fear that is used by terrorists and tyrants springs from the same root. Sometimes fear can be a healthy thing for people because it may restrict our compulsion to act stupidly by taking unnecessary risks, but fear is more commonly manifested as paralysis. Liberty is too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of fear and indecision. We can never allow our fear of half-baked loonies to cause us to run to the momentarily safe arms of tyranny. The New Hampshire motto says it best: “Live Free or Die.” Freedom is fleeting, and death is inevitable. Why not live for liberty? It is better to live in freedom and die while pursuing a glorious purpose than it is to die slowly while bound in chains.
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