We need FDR again
Cowering in fear was not his way
“We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” With these brave and historic words, Franklin Roosevelt rallied a nation reeling from unexpected attack at Pearl Harbor.
Now we are “attacked” by a single goofball, incapable of igniting the explosives in his underoos. Are we showing bravery, or fear? All I hear are calls for more restrictions on our freedoms, more hassles and delays in the airports, more fears from every direction.
The entire “security” system at our airports is a joke–it is truly more security theater than real security. While they are searching some grandmother because the underwire in her brassiere set off an alarm, a known terrorist is allowed to get on a plane. TSA is good at ‘randomly selecting” a 98 year old orthodox Jew on every flight because he travels on one-way tickets, but missed the 10″ bread knife Gail mistakenly brought to Dallas in her purse.
It’s easy to say that freedom isn’t free, but hard to face up to the consequences. More than 40,000 people die on our roads every year, and we are willing to pay that price as the cost of being able to move freely around the nation. What price, realistically, should we be willing to pay to keep our other freedoms? Sooner or later, someone will bring down another airliner. Do we want to suffocate the entire airline industry to avoid that? Are we willing to be strip-searched before every flight? Even though it is politically incorrect, should Arabs have to go through a special screening line?
There is another way, if only we had leaders who could lead. We need less security theater, not more, in our airports. Security that is targeted at real threats, not imaginary possibilities. We need more assets employed in the nations where terrorism arises. Whether or not Bonnie takes her embroidery scissors on an airplane is irrelevant to our safety. Listening when the father of a terrorist stops in to the US embassy to warn us is critical. Improving our relations with the Arab community instead of trying to be the bully cop on the corner will pay enormous dividends, even if it isn’t the grandstanding thundering politicians so love.
Most of all, we have to face the situation with courage, not fear. Running scared, giving up our rights willy-nilly in the vain hope that we can stop the inevitable is a losers game. The costs of bravery are high, but the cost of cowardice are much, much higher.
Totally Unauthorized 
Better an ill Roosevelt than no Roosevelt at all.
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD!
The New Deal was packed-to-the-rafters with Left Wing Radicals. These were men (and one woman – Francis Perkins) with a serious agenda. Their main concern was for the welfare of the common man and woman. Not until (and not since) Johnson’s Great Society a generation later would the betterment of the American people be the chief focus of the executive branch of our government.
There aren’t many people left who even remember the Great Depression. All but a few of them have since passed on. A child born on the day the stock market crashed in 1929 would have turned eighty this past October 29. The problem is that hardy anyone alive today has a first-hand appreciation of what true progressive policies might mean for this doomed country – if only they were allowed to be put into practice in 2010. Liberalism saved America once. It could do it again. If only….
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Hey, Chris, How fun that you have a blog! Or is it Susan Rowley’s blog? I’m confused.
My comment about nothing to fear but fear itself is this: I wholeheartedly agree that the guy with the explosives on his body should never have been allowed on a plane. Somehow the system allowed his name to go on a list so long it apparently is not useful at all. This guy should have been on a “red alert” list and not allowed to board a plane without one-on-one interrogation, body search etc. Individualizing the list(s) of suspected terrorists should be doable in this era of internet technology and will not require generic special lines for Muslims, which would not pass Constitutional muster.
I also agree we need to improve our relations with the Muslim community, both here and abroad — (versus being the bully cop). Indeed, that alone, will yield huge dividends. My time is up! Susanbee, aka Gail’s sister
Hey Chris, I was told by Lisa, The Flower of Danville, to be gentle in my response to your screed, so I have only the following few points to make:
1. The complete Roosevelt quote was “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and being quoted out of context.” This Roosevelt gem was from his first inaugural address in 1933. And as maybe 15-20% of the graduates from Berkeley or Stanford can tell you, the attack on Pearl Harbor was in 1941, which FDR called “a date that will live in infamy,” (a quote which is easily mistaken for the “fear itself” quote).
In his 1933 speech, FDR was talking about how he was going to implement the new theories of J.M. Keynes (who, sadly, got no credit in the speech) and use government spending to increase aggregate demand to stimulate the economy out of the ongoing depression. While his actions were not effective, Mr. Degan’s above comment notwithstanding, and it took a world war almost a decade later to get any appreciable increase in output and employment, it gave economists decades of lesson notes and publications; I’m sure the current Global Warming controversy will do the same for physicists and climate scientists. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
2. Sorry, Chris, and you know I love you like a brother (well, someone else’s brother), but you’re dead wrong if you think we were attacked by just this one guy on the flight into Detroit. He was recruited, trained, equipped, and given plans and instructions by a large, well-financed, and very focused organization. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but these people are trying to kill us!!! The Qu’ran tells them to kill the unbeliever (us), to shun our company, and kill those who reject their religion; they take this very seriously (to the absurd point of Sunni killing Shi’ia) and we’d better do so as well.
3. It’s hard to tell from the rest of your piece what you’re advocating – all we know for sure is you don’t like being searched and otherwise inconvenienced when you travel with Gail. Fair enough – it annoys me too. What’s worse, the TSA keeps grabbing my Sweet Flower of Danville – a 49 year-old white, white lady who’s maybe 118 pounds soaking wet – and putting her through The Drill before we get on the plane to go to the Fresno Sectional bridge tournament.
This is clearly a waste of resources when they should be focusing on folks who fit a certain profile given the history (and ongoing practice) of these incidents. I don’t care if it’s politically incorrect – El Al profiles like crazy (separating risks into low (Jews), medium (non-Jew, non-Muslim, and Muslims from particular “safe” countries like Singapore), and high (other Muslims and single women)). They have a great safety record, and their “intrusion” on privacy is not an issue with passengers. This is not “safety theatre” – it is deterrence and prevention. It seems that you support this point as well, Chris, so I’ll grudgingly agree with you.
This latest incident just emphasizes the importance of looking at liquids – if you have to leave your shampoo at home, cowboy up and stop by the pharmacist or chemist on the way to your hotel and restock, Bub. Imagine the resources they could free up if the TSA concentrated on the high-risk passengers rather than Lisa. Imagine the number of kids at Ft. Hood who might be still alive if we weren’t so afraid of insulting Muslims in this country because the Army fired some true believer for his internet postings.
4. Chris, you may be surprised to find I am in agreement that we need another FDR. Just as he was willing to separate the Japanese from the rest of the country while we were at war with Japan, I would support relocation camps for Muslims living here but who refuse to assimilate. Note that this would avoid the obvious racist and xenophobic characteristics of FDR’s program, as this would not target all Muslims. My program would include Muslims who support the imposition of Shari’ah Law on their women and children; deny free speech rights to everyone; require women to wear the hijab; deny them full inheritance rights; refuse to loan or borrow money in a way that generates interest; makes the leaving of Islam a capital offense; prohibits dating; or prohibits making friends with the kuffir (us). This is an incomplete list, I know, but I just can’t agree with either you or Susan on the issue of “improving relations with the Muslim community” as a way to defuse this conflict. I tried that when I got into “chat rooms” run by Muslims, starting in 2002. I found that Muslims over there are much different than Muslims over here, and it was like talking to someone from a different planet. They aren’t interested in free speech: to them Islam is not a religion – it’s a “way of life.” This is as unacceptable to me as is the fundamentalist Christian who calls for laws that reflect the “teachings of the Bible.” But while both of these ideologies are clearly a big step back from the Enlightenment, I’ve never heard Pat Robertson tell his viewers to wrap their kids in dynamite and put them on the bus. I’ll put our crazies up against their crazies any day. I’m afraid that the more we learn about Muslims in the Middle East, the more we’ll understand that we just can’t do anything about them. If they’re willing to assimilate and embrace American ideologies like free speech and equal rights for women, that’s fine – just remember that few will be willing to do this, and their imams will fight this to the death, using the bodies of their flock.
5. Finally, calling the would-be bomber a “goofball” just trivializes the importance of the war we are in with these Islamofascists. This man is a wealthy, educated son of a bank executive, and there’s nothing goofy about what he was trying to do, regardless of the unmentionable and brief methodology chosen. Even Senator Boxer has taken a few jokes out of the drawers in her office, making this incident the butt of jokes of some very immature humorists.
Jack Fulcher