Fear in America

Fear in America. Not fear of going down a dark street at night, or fear of heights or fear of some eight legged little beastie. But real genuine "they will hunt me down and kill me" fear for expressing your opinions.

Growing up, I knew bullies. I knew the ugly face of racism. I'd seen first hand the distorted visage of drugs and the desperation of those who would do anything to get them. I had even seen fear in the eyes of those "not like us" if their secret ever got out or if it was even hinted at in public venues. I even knew the paranoid fear of a person who had never experienced any form of religious discrimination. This person would not display any holiday decorations in a neighborhood that had never shown any inclination to be hateful.

What I had never seen before was the real hard fear, the kind where your very life is not only threatened but you actually believed you would die.

I was immediately struck by three things. The first was that this was happening in America. Not in some other country that devalued individual freedoms. Not as a story on the Lifetime network. But here in the United States of America, where you are, and should be, free to express your ideas without physical reprisals from government or individuals.

The second thing I was struck by was the fact that this fear was staring at me from the face of someone close to me. A woman so strong as to hold together a family for eight years during times of illness and near financial ruin. A woman who not only had my love and my admiration but my deepest respect. A woman who stood by me and told me I could do anything while others were busy tearing me down.

Yet here it was. Fear. On her face, in her voice and trembling down to the tips of her fingers. Fear that so wrapped her in its insidious grip for her to utter a vehement expletive so unlike her as to make me sit silent for a moment in surprise.

The third thing that struck me was that I capitulated. No stranger to unfashionable ideas and the expression of them, whether in public or in print. As stubborn as a mule when I get an idea or opinion into my head, I am difficult to dissuade from expressing it. Sometimes to my detriment, such as when I would express a concern to my ex-wife in rather unflattering terms. Sometimes to my loss of a friend, as was the case when I did what I thought morally right though it would be at odds with my friend's actions. But it is often hard to stop from speaking my mind.

Yet here, in the face of her fear, I stood down. For it was a big flashing neon sign of fear; fear for herself, fear for her children and grandchildren, fear of people who didn't deserve to live and breathe in a country where freedom was paid for with the blood of our own.

What had prompted this fear, from this otherwise intelligent and rational woman, was an article I had started to write. It was about a dilemma within another country's legal system. It involved a fanatical religious group, and it was not going to be a flattering article to say the least.

But at the very mention of the article, the subject matter and the slant I was taking, the fear manifested immediately on her face and she told me I was not publishing this article. She told me I was not a paid journalist, though her rather drastic language to this regard was wholly unflattering and filled with the aforementioned expletives that had so shocked me. She said I was not to risk our lives, the lives of our family members, for some stupid article. "They have people everywhere," she hissed. "And our own government flags that sort of thing. None of us need that headache."

My mind exploded with thoughts of freedom of the press, freedom of expression and life within the world's greatest democracy. I wanted to quote some line about evil flourishing because brave men stood by and did nothing. I wanted to say that this was exactly the result a terrorist aims for, this unrelenting fear. And I wanted to remind her that I was indeed paid, albeit not very much (mere fractions of a penny per page view).

Instead, I sat silent and contemplative. I then quietly said something completely unrelated and mundane. The unspoken capitulation of not selling the article hung rank in the air. The article sits, unfinished, on my desk. A reminder of how this topic can still raise such fears in the hearts and soul of a free people.

And so, six and a half years after the cowardly events on 9/11, a fear still hides deep in the hearts of America's children. Hides and taints the very soul of freedom.