Posted by
John David Powell on Friday, July 31, 2009 8:24:46 AM
You know it is time
to take a closer look at a deal when the smarmy pitchman warns you to
act now before it is too late. Unless a safe is falling on your head,
it is usually a good idea to step back, take a deep breath, and review
what is on the table.
We frequently use fear as a motivator, sometimes with
good intentions. The fear of blindness temporarily stayed many a boy
from personal exploration. On the other hand, some people play into
deep-seated fears of social exclusion, racism, or terrorism to gain
some level of control over individuals, whole classes of people, or
nations.
One can make an argument that
the United States government overreacted in some of its anti-terrorism
laws and measures following the Sept. 11 attacks. We and our leaders
responded in good faith to the fear that additional terrorists were
poised to kill more Americans using airplanes and other weapons. The
seduction of fear led to National Guardsmen patrolling airport
terminals, armed with weapons that had no bullets. We continue debating
the necessity of the past administration’s efforts to protect our
nation, which included water boarding, wire tapping, and the Department
of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano this week said she disagrees with Bush Administration
measures that fed into fears and did not include the participation of
the American people in improving the country’s resilience against
attacks. “The consequences of living in a state of fear, rather than a
state of preparedness, are enormous,” she said.
Frank Furedi, a professor of
sociology at the University of Kent, contends the seduction of fear
feeds into the Precautionary Principle, which is designed to eliminate
the risk of harm. Furedi says people no longer believe in acts of God
or naturally occurring events. For example, accidents are preventable
injuries, and we need to fix the causes. If a teenager dies in a car
wreck, the family blames missing guardrails or poor road maintenance,
and demands laws that keep teenagers from driving at night.
He also believes society no
longer expects individuals to rise above adversity. Society, instead,
treats people as victims scarred for life. Enter the poverty pimps and
community organizers who convince people that racists, bigots, and the
wealthy will never let them succeed because of their race, their
gender, or their economic status. Only they, the poverty pimps and
community organizers, can affect justice for the oppressed.
Individual responsibility
does not exist in a precautionary culture, according to Furedi.
Thoughtless people, greedy corporations, and incompetent government
watchdogs cause a plethora of societal woes. So, we divide the
citizenry into vulnerable or at-risk groups that need government
protection from a government we do not trust, and we roll over to the
seduction of fear by allowing that government to throw money and
regulations at circumstances within our control.
If we believe the national
news media and Washington fear mongers, each one of us is in danger of
losing our home to foreclosure or seeing our home’s value plummet
unless Uncle Sam steps in with mountains of cash. People across the
country bought into that fear, causing the value of homes in unaffected
areas to fall. The government, meantime, pumped billions of dollars
into the system to save troubled mortgages given to individuals who
could not and cannot afford them.
Buried in a wire-service
story this week was a statement from the chief economist of the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation who estimates the number of home
foreclosures could reach 5 million by 2011. That’s a big number,
especially if you are one of the 5 million, but it represents just over
6 percent of all homes in the country. In other words, 94 percent of
home mortgages are safe and have been.
Another example is the
current healthcare debate. Eighty-nine percent of respondents to the
latest Time magazine poll said they have some form of healthcare
coverage, and 86 percent of that group said they are very satisfied or
somewhat satisfied with their plans. A Gallup poll last November found
that 83 percent of Americans said the quality of their health care is
excellent or good.
Proponents of sweeping
changes in healthcare coverage and healthcare delivery use the
seduction of fear to make their case rather than rely on reasonable
examinations of the underlying causes and effective cures.
The seduction of fear only leads to the reduction of reason, which comes with a price tag no one can afford.
Mundus vult decipi