Fear is the mind-killer.
Also, accusing others of insanity is counter-productive.
I am a progressive if I have to define myself.
(I have some interest in gun rights because I lived rurally for many years in the US, and had situations where my home was in danger and the local police department´s jurisdiction did not reach to my unincorporated hamlet. Therefore, I had to rely on the San Bernardino Sheriff Department to handle my issues. One night my duplex dweller kidnapped someone and three police cars surrounded my house when I was on night shift at Fort Irwin as an Army nurse, and my wife was home alone in our barebones $15,000 house that you could ram a straw through to break in. That was when I realized gun owners are not all evil.)
Anyway, there are two things I address here, and they both involve language and terminology. Powerful people from George Orwell to, ominously, Newt Gingrich, grasped this concept, and have used it to great effect.
- Why do so many people on this site insist on using the words ‘fear,’‘scary,’‘afraid,’, ´terrifying,´ and others?
The moment you admit you are afraid to an enemy, you are dead. As an Army veteran, I get this. As someone who has read at least some books and news, I get it. As someone who was recently in Ukraine with a militia, I get it.
NEVER, EVER ADMIT FEAR TO AN ENEMY.
All of you people here who constantly use these words, allow yourselves a mental area where you allow yourselves to be afraid. To live in a world of fear. I am not saying fear is unnatural, but we all have to manage fear, and not live in places of fear.
Do you all think that the GOP has been living in fear as they wiped our Roe v. Wade? They may have mobilized peoples’ fears in order for greater action, but they never once said, in anything I have ever read of theirs, that they should ‘be afraid.’
Why? Because they know what Frank Herbert stated in Dune –‘Fear is the mind-killer. It is the little death that brings total obliteration.´
In other words, living in fear is disempowering. Fear is real, and all people experience it. The difference these days between the Right and the Left is that, generally speaking, the Right immediately moves beyond their Fear into ideologically-induced Action, and fights to make changes. As I perceive it, too many people on the Left indulge in stating they are ‘afraid,’ things are ‘scary,’ and, to me, these words and sentiments are disempowering.
For example, more Americans believe in women’s reproductive rights than not. But the anti-life activists just won. Why? Because they never cared if things were ‘scary.’ They knew things were scary. But they also knew they were in a war.
Insisting that things are ‘scary’ and you should be ‘terrified’ are recipes for disaster, in regard to people getting involved. The Left should use powerful, strong terms, even military. Are the Ukrainians all stating they are ‘terrified’ and ‘scared’ and ‘afraid while they are fighting the Russians? How on Earth would they have the morale to fight? And I was there this Spring.
2) This idea that the Right-wing is ‘insane.’ This lets them off the hook.
Almost all of them are NOT insane. They are tactical, strategic, ideological geniuses. Get it? That is why they win and we lose. And for us to walk around stating they are Insane all the time ignores the fact they they won the Roe v Wade war due to strategy and tactics – which is not the hallmark of an insane entity.
You can go to your grave stating that the Right is insane. Well, enjoy your coffin.
WAKE UP!! They are NOT INSANE. They are just as sane as you – they just believe different things. Yes their things are maybe not related to science, but that does not mean they do not know how to plan battles and wars, and trust me, as a former conservative, for them, this is war.
(Note: I am 54 years old. I was in my teens a leftist. I joined Rev. Moon´s Unification Church in 1986-1991 and became a political/religious conservative for the next 8 years. You can assure yourselves I am ‘insane’ because I joined that church. But ignore it at your own peril, because Rev. Moon created the Washington Times, which was the chief media tool for supporting Reagan and the Right until the creation of Fox News in 1996. And the Right geniously embraced it under the radar).
You know, I no longer live in the USA. I can easily walk away from all this. But the USA is my home country, and what I believe in, that is, pluralistic, secular democracy, is about to be obliterated. Can we all stop being ‘terrified’ and calling the other side ‘insane,’ and start looking at our enemy with clear eyes and become the strategic entities we need to be to win?
Thanks. My first diary. As Craig Ferguson used to say, I look forward to your letters.