Fear

"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." Edmund Burke (1729-1797) English statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher.

Fear has become a political tool of modern times. We are inundated more and more by some politically elected and some self made fear mongers. Since the turn of the century we are more and more being warned about the dreadful things that are going to befall us if we don't conform to the ideals of one philosophy.

A few years ago we were being warned repeatedly by the gov. that we were going to be under attack again by terrorists. We had red alerts, orange alerts, green alerts and were advised to be suspicious of anyone around us that might look 'evil'. We very well may be in for more terrorist activity but I don't think flying a green flag or a red one will ward off these attacks. Nor do I think instilling all of us with fear will help matters either. We live under the constant threat of earth quakes, sink holes, wind storms, devestating illnesses and a plethora of other plagues but being scared to death is not going to prevent any of these things.

In 1933 in FDR's first inaugural address he said,"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

The fear mongers play on the less educated and the ill informed segment of society and try to convince them of the 'evil intent' of the people in power. Some of the absurdities that they are spouting are so far from the truth that anyone with any education at all would have sense enough to know how untrue their claims are.