Our United States of Fear

In his first Inaugural address to the United States in 1933, the infamous Franklin Delano Roosevelt “borrowed” a line from Sir Francis Bacon, telling Americans that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” He called for Americans to take courage and action, some three years after the Great Depression began and six years before the Second World War. Bacon actually wrote in De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, Fortitudo (1623) that "nothing is terrible except fear itself.”

Progressives and their forgetful, bumbling leader Joe Biden, have picked up on this theme and stuffed it down the throats of American institutions and citizens. Democrats curtsey to this fear, accepting everything that comes from woke politicians and corporate executives as gospel. Permit me to count four ways.

First, our U.S. military top command appear more committed to being woke than protecting us from an expansionist China and its deadly Covid-19 virus that Health Emperor Anthony Fauci helped fund. Phillip Keuhlen dissects the 142-page report of the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations and finds its emphasis on wokeness rather than readiness fundamentally flawed. Instead of battle readiness, Biden & Company busies itself with “wokeness” while neglecting to develop a necessary strategy and resources to combat an increasingly bellicose China. Former Undersecretary of the Navy, Seth Cropsey argues the Pentagon with its outdated policies, may not have the luxury of time when a crisis (the new DF-17 hypersonic missile or the likely invasion of Taiwan) occurs. Cropsey says, “There is no articulated plan for the U.S. to defend our allies while conducting offensive operations against China. We build ships, buy aircraft and tanks, and train soldiers with no strategy in mind, lumbering forward under institutional inertia, guided by policies 10 to 30 years out of date…We won’t have five years from China’s first missile launch. We may not have five months.” In the Biden Fantasyland, we should never have to worry about China since son Hunter, the NBA, Hollywood and Joe’s own exceptional statesmanship has made China a trusting American partner. 

Second, progressives expect obedience as they uphold murder and mayhem, or as the journalistic gold standard for reporting, CNN, has called them “mostly peaceful demonstrations” on our city streets, advocating police defunding. As Alfred E. Newman said, “What me worry?” While defunding the police, the only thing we should fear is conservative fear, not Antifa or other progressive thug brigades. As Jim McCoy and I opined, “Police officers are paid less for some of the riskiest and most important things we Americans enjoy—our personal safety. They rush into life-threatening situations where even angles fear to tread.” Major cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, New York City, Chicago, L.A., Portland, Baltimore and Philadelphia that have engaged in the fashionably woke stupidity of curtailing police protection have experienced a spike in the major crime.

Third, the IRS is doubling down under the Biden Administration to claw back every penny they believe citizens owe them…even if they don’t. This will help fund the $1.2T infrastructure bill just passed by the House with 13 RINOs joining the Pelosi pantheon. This bill contains countless stupidities that we neither need nor want. For example, despite California’s fiasco with highspeed rail, $66B is earmarked for highspeed rail, 5,000 new rail cars and thousands of miles of new train tracks. Trains, except in the Northeast commuter corridor have proved costly and inefficient.