Fear itself

Normally I'd have a lot to say on this, but another long-promised task is interfering for now, so let me just say this: Fear is slowly destroying America from within. It boggles the mind that can spend more than $704 billion on a war that -- now we're told -- was all about bring democracy and American values to a nation 11,000 miles away, but we won't spend $200 million to bring what used to be American values to lower Manhattan. (I also still have questions about the $200 million number worked up by NYC top cop -- shouldn't we already have a ton of expensive security in the neighborhood hit by 9/11?)

Anyway, FDR, who warned America about the price of fear, must be rolling over in his grave right now -- so, too, must be John Adams, who said famously that "[f]ear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."

I wish he'd been right.