Fear, itself

America, as a nation, is just over 230 years old. In that time, it has grown from collection of colonial sub-states into a behemoth empire, with comparisons to other historical empires being continually revised and updated as American power waxes and wanes. Such a birth and growth as America has enjoyed has not been without creating external enemies, nor could it have been expected to avoid such. It was in meeting, challenging, and sometimes conquering those enemies which solidified and expanded the American empire.

Those enemies have always had faces and names. Some were other nations, operating on the world stage in their own fashion in such as a way as to cross American interests and thus gain American enmity. Some enemies were ideologies with delineated doctrines which countered that of America and "Americanism". The human reaction to any enemy or threat has always been fear, tempered by resolve or even anger. American citizens were and are no different and great pride has been taken in the American response to its enemies throughout its historically brief tenure.

The times changed, as did the enemies, but with the constant factor that an enemy of America was a thing, an entity which could be pointed to, measured, and even defeated or contained.

Such is no longer the case.

In 1932, newly sworn in President Franklin Roosevelt sought to comfort the American people against the enemy of economic depression plaguing the nation. The poverty had reached its height and millions were living in destitute conditions. Not knowing another American enemy would defeat the current one in only a few more years, Roosevelt told Americans:

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

His words proved prescient for both his time and the modern era, when a new enemy has emerged unlike any other.

America is afraid.

We as a nation have been told for nearly a decade to fear a nameless, faceless "they". We have tried to put labels, names, and faces to this enemy. Names like al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein are only a few. Yet, those are not new actors on the world stage nor are they new enemies. They were always around, variously either used by America as agents of its agenda or demonized when they got out of hand.

Instead, their names simply became meshed into that larger enemy we have been continually told exists, yet now has newfound power since the events of September 11, 2001. On that day, our President changed the word terror into Terror. The act of terrorism also benefited from the capitalization of its first letter and America's newest enemy became that which is synonymous with fear itself.

We are afraid of being afraid. We are afraid of that very thing which is fear, which causes fear, and which breeds more fear. The effect has been profound. The old rhetorical instruments, used by Senator McCarthy in his rabid hunt for "subversives" or Communist agents, have been adapted. Dissent is once again equated with disloyalty and when an American citizen criticizes the manner in which America is conducting itself abroad, that citizen is labeled as a "terrorist sympathizer".

Verbiage of treason has been invoked against such dissenters by the likes of McCarthy acolytes like Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly. While this is nothing new nor unexpected... warnings of such a thing were handed down by the Founding Fathers themselves... it is almost laughable when we consider the moral and even logical hypocrisy of the pundits.

If the enemy is terror, ahem, Terror, then only those who would seek to instill fear in others could be said to be aiding the enemy. Since we are now afraid of fear itself, only the introduction of more fear could be considered treason. In the usual hysteria of the usual witch hunts during times of crisis, the self-described defenders of America have become the very thing they claim to fight: fear.

The likes of Coulter, O'Reilly, and their like-minded colleagues are only the tip of the iceberg. This infiltration of fear into our midst extends to the highest echelons of our elected government. If it is Terror, if it is the fear of Terror, then our own government has betrayed us to it. Starting with President Bush and moving into the Congress, on both sides of the political spectrum, there exists traitors to our national identity. They are agents, knowing or otherwise, of fear. They speak fearfully. They tell us to be afraid. They point to any of a variety of names already mentioned as the root of that fear but always are left with the fact they are telling us to be afraid of fear itself.

Yet, the identification of an enemy cannot serve without a strategy for its defeat. If the enemy is Terror, then we must not be terrorized. We must not be afraid. We should neither fear Osama bin Laden nor President George W. Bush. The former can be shown this in the fight we engage him in and the latter can be shown the exit from our government. The same applies for all who seek to make us afraid. We remove their ability to cause that fear. We take from them the power to terrorize. The Ann Coulters of this country are easily neutered by simply continuing to counter their terrorist propaganda. The elected officials need more stern reminders that they serve at our tolerance only.

For this reason, atop a heap of others related to the damage caused to my country, I call for the immediate impeachment of President George W. Bush on the grounds of treason against America and its people. Joining him should be any in his administration or the Congress who could be shown to have aided or abetted his betrayal of our nation to the enemy of fear.

I am an American citizen, and I am not afraid.