Make that 'refuse to be controlled'

Acknowledging that I have recently started resisting a severe case of Fear of Rejection - which, as Sunni notes in a comment, caused a severe case of paralysis of will - came just before the latest round in the "War on Terror," with its revelations of plans to blow up airplanes with liquid bombs and a new ban on bringing anything on board that might contain liquid. So it's a good time to be talking about fear.

"Refuse to be afraid" is shorthand. Fear is a real part of every person's soul. You can't refuse to be afraid any more than you can refuse to be hungry or refuse to be comfortable snuggling with the love of your life. Any rational human being is going to feel a pang of fear at the prospect of falling out of the sky - perhaps even a pang of terror.

The danger of fear is not the fear itself (Sorry, FDR) - it's that paralysis of will. When I say "refuse to be afraid," I mean refuse to let fear control your actions to the point where you fail to do the right thing. In my personal case, don't be so afraid of rejection that you fail to put the work out there to be judged. In the case of terrorism, don't be so afraid that you allow yourself to be locked in a cage.

Yep, irrational folks believe killing innocents will change people's thinking. Someone out there wants to make a political point by killing a bunch of airplane passengers, many of whom no doubt would be sympathetic to their cause if presented in a more reasonable fashion than "The world must see the righteousness of my cause, therefore you must die!" Of course, doing violence against someone almost never changes minds - but fear of that violence can change the way we act.

Fear can make us unable to see when a disconnect occurs between the problem and the solution. It may very well be prudent to be more vigilant about who is boarding airplanes with what materials - but strip-searching blue-haired old ladies is an overreaction to the problem. Surveillance of those suspected of plotting or having commited violence is a logical course of action - surveillance of everyone's e-mail correspondence is not. Seizing the assets of proven terrorists may make some sense in suppressing terrorism - forcing all citizens to display a federally approved ID card before they can open a bank account does not.

In other words, take proper precautions against the possibility of violence, but don't let the fear of violence control you - and definitely don't let others use your fear of violence to control you. "Refuse to be afraid" means times will come when you have to overcome the fear any normal human being will feel under the circumstances, and go ahead and act anyway.

Pack a proper parachute before you jump, and most of the time you'll land safely. Allow people to exercise the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and most of the time you'll have a healthy group of living, free, often happy people - if one, two or even a small handful of pathological murderers creep into the mix, deal with the murderers, don't suspend the vast majority's rights. That's the disconnect - that's where we need to refuse to let them use our fear to control us.