Of Fools and Cowards

Quite often when we hear a hero being interviewed, and I mean real hero, like say, a Coast Guard rescuer that dives into the swift running current to save a drowning man, they are asked "Do you ever get scared?" And the hero will say something like - "I'd be fool if I wasn't afraid." No one would think of questioning the man's bravery. Being unafraid is a fool's game in the face of life threatening danger.

Fear can be paralyzing but it can also be a lifesaver. Fear is nothing to be ashamed of when it based on fact. I broach the subject because I want to counter a thread I have seen over and over on the leftist blogosphere. The supposition that conservatives are cowards because we fear islamofacist terrorism. Over at the DailyKos blog the post "Why Are Conservatives so afraid?" generated more than a hundred comments that mostly expressed confusion over the GOP's "unfounded" fear of terrorism. This comment is fairly typical...

...when I said how sick I was of everyone trying to scare us to death about everything: 911, Avian Flu, Terrorism, etc, etc, etc. All the media does is give warnings about unsafe toys, unsafe cars, diseases. Now the Republicans are willing to give away their freedoms on hand of being scared to death about terrorism. What they need to be afraid of is BushCo and they don't even realize it. Are they so naive as to think that he is only wiretapping Al Quaida?

by linnie on Mon Jan 02, 2006 at 12:03:16 PM PDT

or this one...

The conservatives I know are the most cowardly people I know. They tremble at the sight of every non-white face. They cringe in fear when they see a homeless person. They are the first to be convinced that some scary non-white person is going to break into their house and rape them.

No wonder they're so fixated on going to heaven, because their earthly lives are living hells.

The idea of "preemption" works quite well for them. They'd be more than happy to kill everyone who scares them and let God sort them out.

And we scare them, too. Because we don't think the way they do. That's SCARY.

by Nordic on Mon Jan 02, 2006 at 12:03:33 PM PDT

Here the Kos patted himself on the back when conservative bloggers took umbridge with his original post...

Their fear and cowardice is exposed when they patently refuse to put on some combat boots and head to the theater of war to fight their boogeymen. They'd rather hide under the bed than confront the object of their fears. Instead, they agitate for more war, more death and destruction, from the safety of their warm, cozy, and IED-free homes.

Of course this is ridiculous pap and I can't lose too much sleep over it, but I can't help but wonder what planet these people live on. While I'm fairly certain that I am relatively safe living in St. Paul MN and that those in Topeka and Peoria, Vicksburg and Cheyene are too, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a healthy fear of terrorists and their evil plots. I can think of 3,000 people in New York who felt the reality of terrorism. Sixty people in London and over 200 in Madrid felt the same sick feeling as their lives were being snuffed out. IED's indeed!

Other comments eluded to the relatively small number of terrorists in contrast to the population of the world as a whole. Again, what poppycock. A single serial killer can terrorize a city of millions. The whole point of terrorism is to breed uncertainty and fear across the width and breadth of a given population. In reality it is the terrorist who is the coward not those that fear him.

I also think that most people and especially the "Bush Haters" are so shortsighted that they refuse to see the writing on the wall. Too many of them think we can simply try to understand the Islamofacist terrorist, address his grievances and he will fade back into the woodwork. In their hatred of Bush they sympathize with the self pitying terrorist and convince themselves that these cold-blooded killers have a legitimate gripe.

I think conservatives by and large know that things (the good and the bad) will never just stay the same and that change is inevitable. Change can be a good thing. Still, we have an obligation to protect and preserve what is good and right and that includes much of what is referred to as Western Civilzation.

I challenge all of you to take the time to read Mark Steyn's piece "It's the Demography, Stupid" The real reason the West is in danger of extinction. The fact that we as Westerners will be marching toward our own extinction at the point of jihadist sword should scare everyone. When will these crazy asses at the DailyKos and DemocraticUnderground and MoveOn.org realize that we ARE in a global war and that the enemy doesn't want our land or our resources, they want us DEAD! How much evidence do these numbskulls need?

The brave and foolish over on the left can revel in their bravery and breathe the rarified superior air up there on their ivory towers while spewing their pseudo-intellectual diatribes toward us cowardly neo-cons all they want. We will continue to sing the Siren Song and hope it's not too late for the Western World.


CW