Let us listen to our fears

(Note: See the discussion below the role that rational fear plays in proper patriotism.)

Saying something useful for once, Jonah Goldberg (one of the open-borders types whom Bush’s fanaticism has driven into the opposing camp) takes apart Sen. Kennedy’s bellowed statement on the Senate floor that the choice before the Senate on the immigration bill is between “voting for our hopes, or voting for our fears!”

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Paul K. writes:

When Teddy Kennedy exhorts his fellow senators to “Vote your hopes, not your fears,” someone should remind him that his father acted on fear rather than hope when he got out of the stock market in 1928, the year before the Crash, locking in the multi-million dollar profits that still fund the Kennedy political dynasty.

Would that he had done otherwise!

Maureen writes:

Joe Kennedy didn’t secure his fortune by getting out of Wall Street based on “fear” but based on inside trading knowledge.

LA writes:

But it’s the same thing, isn’t it. It was to avoid a bad thing. To take action to avoid a bad thing that you see coming is to act out of (rational) fear.

Fear is the source of courage. People who fear bad things are courageous in opposing them or stopping them. It’s people without fear who lack courage. Liberals refuse to fear anything, because that would not be nice, hopeful, egalitarian, and inclusive. Not fearing anything, they surrender to everything.

Of course that’s just one way of describing it.

Maureen writes:

Joe Kennedy wasn’t “avoiding a bad thing,” because for him the 1929 crash was “a good thing.” He and his banker friends saw it coming and either got out or sold short. The crash wasn’t a calamity; it was opportunity. Many say it was “manufactured” opportunity by the bankers. You see, I recoil from the idea of your Upright Self giving Old Manipulative Joe anything that even sounds remotely like an endorsement or compliment.

Also, it’s not just fear that motivates us to fight the liberal insanity that is going on—it’s also love. Love for our country, what it has been and what we want it to continue to be for future generations. That’s what motivates me.

LA replies:

I’ll yield the point re Joe Kennedy.

But I believe that as a general principle, genuine love of country and rational fear for her welfare are inseparable. Plato has a whole discussion of this in The Republic. He said the guardians of the city must have fear. Because they love the city, they fear the bad things that could happen to it, and this fear makes them courageous in the city’s defense.

Thus Love => Fear => Courage.

Who is the greatest example of this? George Washington. Think of it. Washington is famous for his stalwart unshakable devotion to the cause of Independence. But at the same time he was the biggest worrier who ever lived. He saw and felt more intensely than any of his contemporaries the terrible possibilities that beset the Rrevolutionary cause. America’s greatest hero was also her greatest worrier.

LA continues:

What generated the great popular campaign against the immigration bill? Fear—fear of what this horrible bill would do to the country. (I felt great fear on that Thursday and Friday in May when the National Suicide Bill was released and its backers announced their intention to pass it in one week without hearings and without debate.) But only people who love the country have that fear.

Again:

Love of country => Fear of the evils that threaten her => Spiritedness in her defense.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 28, 2007 10:55 AM | Send