All we have to fear is us

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It’s easy, particularly in an election year, to lose one’s perspective. To permit ourselves an unusual amount of procrastination. Even to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed or even immobilized by fear. We recognize that some politicians use the fear factor to manipulate opinion in their favor, moving some people to support the candidate who promises to keep them “safe” in “dangerous times.”

Others accept the notion that we may be doomed, so what’s the use in doing anything. Why vote, why try to prevent adverse events, why even plan for tomorrow or the day after? Thousands of people die every year from catastrophic events: hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, earthquakes, floods and mudslides. Even in a country considered relatively safe, we are powerless to prevent these calamities. The most we can do is to prepare as best we can to mitigate the damage.

Those who live in forests and foothills prepare for wildfire by clearing dead weeds, removing dried leaves from rain gutters and flammable materials from decks, and by storing water. Local government helps by mandating nonflammable roofing and sprinkler systems and enforcing brush clearance laws.

In tornado country, government provides warning systems and houses have storm cellars where people find safety when the warning sounds. In the Gulf States, hurricane warnings are a fact of life, houses and businesses use storm windows and plywood to protect glass and people have evacuation routes planned.

In earthquake-prone California, state and local governments have changed construction codes to make buildings safer. In developing countries, thousands of people are killed each year by collapsed walls in buildings hastily and cheaply erected with no safeguards.

We are always amazed that people who have just survived a wildfire, earthquake or flood say they will rebuild in the same place. “We wouldn’t live anywhere else,” they say. “We’ll be better prepared next time.”

The same attitude persists in all the countries of the world where acts of terrorism have been killing people for decades. The IRA in Northern Ireland, the PLO and Hamas in Israel, Chechen separatists in Russia, Basque separatists in Spain. Algerian militants were setting off bombs in the Paris Metro and threatening to disrupt Millennium and Bastille Day celebrations. Thanks to very good intelligence and police work, few of these plots succeeded and very few people were injured.

The point is, people all over the world accept the risk that something may happen to them as a result of a terrorist act. Regardless of preparation, one can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that occasionally a terrorist act will affect more people at one time, and be more dramatic, doesn’t deter people from going on with their daily lives. It doesn’t make them cower in fear, pick up and move to a safer place or declare war on perceived enemies. Like earthquakes and floods, some calamities that can’t be prevented occur. For most of the world, this is an accepted fact of life.

While Americans have had their share of natural disasters, they seem to think they’ve been sheltered from all but a few acts of terrorism. Those who were not in the Oklahoma Federal Building or the first World Trade Center attack tend to see 9/11 as the first terrorist attack on this country, because the plan was huge, well executed and caught dramatically on film that was rerun endlessly on national TV. Americans seem to have forgotten the children killed at a Jewish school in California, in African American churches all over the Southern states. They forget our very own hooded terrorists in white robes hanging young black men, setting houses on fire and beating to death those who marched for civil rights. Was this not as dramatic as hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings? Over time, we lost more lives. All they wanted was freedom. Freedom to worship in their own way, to educate their children, to vote their own conscience.

Are Americans focused on terrorism now because they feel personally more vulnerable? Or has ratcheting up the rhetoric about terror, declaring war on foreign terrorism produced such fear that we behave in irrational ways? Shall we flee our cities (where we are more likely to be killed in a drive-by shooting or a convenience store holdup) before another catastrophic attack?

The terror we face now puts us pretty much on the same footing as the rest of the world. They do not flee their cities. They haven’t declared war on individuals not linked to a nation state. They don’t seem to vote against their own best interests. They believe that diligent police work, solid intelligence shared by other free nations, sensible immigration policy and enforcement will keep them as safe as can be expected.

Sure, it’s a dangerous world. It always was. But that shouldn’t stop us from raising our families, living where we choose, supporting those thoughtful leaders who care to preserve not only our country but also the health of the whole planet.

Being fearful and militant will serve us poorly if we no longer have a country worth protecting.