Fear and loathing in America

 By Milt Higgins March 2016

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said during his inauguration speech in 1933 during The Great Depression. 

The president’s message to American citizens was that their fear was making things worse.  People were running to banks and emptying their accounts causing more damage to the economy. You could call the Americans behavior irrational, but when fear comes knocking you can bet reasoning jumps out the window. 

            Fear drives the choices people make, and every choice has consequences, good or bad. There are legitimate fears.  To restore order in a household, a child must know at all times unacceptable behavior has consequences and fear their parent’s actions once they crossed the line. 

Fear seems to be the weapon of choice during this presidential election year. The candidates use fear to terrify us and manipulate our emotions. In some cases, it’s used because the candidates don’t have a legal solution, and they knowingly understand that a vast majority of U.S. citizens don’t have a clear understanding of how our government works.  

Fear is nothing new in politics. Think of President Ronald Reagan issuing a “War on Drugs,” when in fact, prior to him declaring a “war,” marijuana and cocaine usage for 18-25 year-olds had dropped by 15 percent each of the previous three years, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That didn’t matter. The President’s proclamation of war gave him vaster power just by using the “war’ term; and don’t you dare resist this action, question its funding, and “just say no” to that because the conversation stopper is, as always “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

How many times in the past eight years have you read or heard the fear and angry tone of “keep the big (federal) government out of our lives,” implying the states know what’s best for their residents.  However, history has shown the most discriminatory and oppressive laws come from the state and local government.  Think Jim Crow era and today’s fear tactic that voter identification laws are needed because of exaggerated rampant voter fraud are carried out by non-citizens.

From 2000-2014, 31voter fraud incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots)  were reported out of 1 billion ballots casts, in general, primary, special, and municipal elections, according to Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on constitutional law and law of democracy. When alleged ballot stuffers are caught their names read mostly read like good wholesome American names. 

Now picture Elizabeth Eckford sitting alone on a bus stop bench with camera’s and reporters surrounding her in Little Rock, Arkansas after the governor ordered the National Guard to block her and eight other student’s entrance into Central High School because of the color of their skin.  All because of fear.

In “Federalist Paper No. 10” James Madison wrote about how a strong federal government will guard against ‘factions’ (groups within political parties; i.e. special interest groups, trade unions) or groups of citizens with interest contrary to the rights of others or the interest of the whole community, it will guard against those dangers than would a small republics (individual states).

Fear alters the mind from what is truly important, especially if you view the fear as imminent. If you turn on the television or scroll through your social media pages, there stands fear in front of your face, taunting you. According to Harvard University psychology researcher Daniel Gilbert, negative emotions, such as fear, hatred and disgust tend to provoke behavior more than positive emotions such as hope and happiness do.

Coastal Carolina University’s honors lecturer Dr. Jeremy Killian wrote an eloquent analogy that gives credence to Gilbert’s theory.

“Think of it this way.  Imagine that I’m at a bar speaking with a beautiful girlfriend.  I’m having a nice time, and she is the focus of my attention so that most of the other features of the room fall into the backdrop of my consciousness.” 

“Then, imagine that a drunk and disorderly man shoves me aside to have a word with my girlfriend.  Because of his slight, I become angry, and the focus of my attention shifts from my girlfriend to the offender.  Not only does my emotional state change, but the way that I see the world changes as well.  The beer bottle sitting on the bar, which, while I was having a nice time with the woman, was barely noticeable before, suddenly begins to look a lot like a weapon.  Because of the change of circumstances, my emotions have cast a certain glow over objects that might help me to accomplish my goal--which in this case is to rid myself of the offender.  In point of fact, the room has not changed, nor has the sensory information I’m receiving from the room.  What has changed is the order of importance of that sensory information processed by my consciousness.  That order of importance has been altered by my emotional state.”

Fear has brought about some positive things like the construction of super highways, space exploration, and the Internet in response to the threat of nuclear war, but when it rears its ugly head for personal political gain in a harsh unreasonable rhetorically filled manner to manipulate people’s emotions, it leaves one to ask, “who exactly are the terrorists?”  

In the words of President John F. Kennedy “So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”