We Have Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

Americans attribute that famous saying to FDR in his own 1933 Presidential Inauguration address in the Great Depression, but it was 400 years earlier. In the sixteenth century, the great French writer Michel de Montaigne (pictured right) – the man who pretty much invented a whole new genre, the essay – wrote: ‘the thing of which I have most fear is fear’. Although it depends on which translation you read. In another, the wording is slightly different: ‘The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents.’

Although we all have heard something borrowed, something new, something old, and something used, some things are just constant, and fear is real when things are out of control in the world. Unfortunately, as JRB has quite often boasted about his progressive ideas akin to FDR, he has single-handedly really outdone others as well as himself by pushing the world into a fearful economic chaos without any endgame in mind.

For more than 40 years in the U.S., neo-liberalism has dominated economic and political debates blaming free-market and growth-at-all-costs approaches to economic and social policies. Additionally, JRB argued the biggest challenges of Climate Change, systemic racism, and wealth inequality made problems worse.

Actually, capitalism offers solutions to all those challenges. The largest reductions in carbon emissions have come from natural gas, thanks to the market innovation of shale fracking. Genetically engineered crops have increased farm yields too. The wealth created by competitive labor markets have helped minorities employment grow by reaching out to train many for trades in new high paying job skills. Globally, extreme poverty has plunged to less than 10% from 45% in 1980 while world GDP has more than tripled. 

People are no longer geographically tied down, they are a global community. They have fast broadband, smart-phones, computers, and other technologies enabling everyone to share knowledge. 

In an 1817 letter to George Ticknor, Boston University from Thomas Jefferson equated knowledge with power, safety, and happiness:

This last establishment [a state university] will probably be within a mile of Charlottesville, and four from Monticello, if the system should be adopted at all by our legislature who meet within a week from this time. my hopes however are kept in check by the ordinary character of our state legislatures, the members of which do not generally possess information enough to perceive the important truths, that knowledge is power, that knowledge is safety, and that knowledge is happiness.

My Ukraine - United States War History

In 2008, I went on a family vacation to the Baltic Sea nations of Poland, the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, including the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. We also traveled to Russia into the port at Saint Petersburg. 

It was an incredible trip because  my family experienced firsthand these people that have suffered so much in recent years in wars. Their national pride was obvious as they rebuilt and restored many of the towns and villages that were destroyed in the second world war end other regional wars during the 1950s.

The citizens that we encountered were a proud people who appreciated their National heritage and their freedom from Russian communism. Their International threat proves to all liberal Democrats that Socialism is deadly and a weak leadership of the United States is presently unable, or unwilling, to fight for its own Constitutional rights. This is our rule of law, but all Americans are being sold we can change it and so many are not buying it – no sale! It is another big wake up call for Americans to stand tall to defend it or we lose it.

I hope this international dilemma will not be forgotten by my children and grandchildren and then wasted on the trash heap of history. We have to remember every day as we go forward to fight left-wing, communist, socialist attacks or we also lose our own freedom.

As a sidenote, it is interesting that the Ukraine government issued firearms to all its citizens 18 to 65 to defend their nation. In the United States we have our Second Amendment rights which defends the right to bear arms, so we all have our own personal weapons. It is laughable that both China and Russia realize that of the 340 million people in the states, there is over 500 million firearms in homes all across the nation.

If our nation was attacked on its soil, it would be a bloodier, deadlier, catastrophic war than the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War when we lost over 625,000 lives. Now, that is a chilling reality! 

 God Bless America!