Fear and Loathing in America

In President John F. Kennedy's oft-quoted inaugural address, he challenged America to "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."  In 2009, that remark would have branded him a socialist, what with its overtones of a "common good" with nary an individual profit motive in sight.  (One wonders how the Preamble to the Constitution would fare in this current climate, with its "promote the general welfare" verbiage.)  President Barack Obama certainly came under conservative fire in the days leading up to today's address to the nation's school children.  The key objection was to the assignment that was initially to accompany the address: students would be asked to write a letter to themselves to discuss what they could do to help the president.

This scared the bajeezus out of conservative parents, who envisioned this man, for whom they didn't vote, indoctrinating their children into the sinister ethos of giving up some of what they had, to help those less fortunate.  (One wonders how Jesus Christ -- another notorious socialist -- would fare in this current climate.)  A suburban Colorado mom was quoted on CNN saying "Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me.  I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."  It was sentiments like this that created another of many modern absurdities: a presidential message for students to take school seriously being labeled "controversial."

Of course, this "controversy," like so many in an age when ignorant voices get amplified by 24-hour "news" coverage, turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.  The message was as unassailable as a call to honor the service of our fallen troops:

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?  Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. ... But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

So much agonizing over such a simple, worthy message.  And yet the rhetoric over the President's every comment is the most polarized since... Well, since the last President, actually, when people like me were sneering at President George W. Bush, labeling him an idiot and an autocrat.  It occurs to me that there's a deep and abiding fear on both sides of the partisan rift.  Liberals feared what the world was becoming in the wake of Bush's foreign policy; conservatives fear what the nation is becoming under Obama's domestic efforts at reform.  Both sides can offer cynical theories about why the other side's fear grows more stark, but that's precisely the rhetoric that deepens the divide.

I've given myself an assignment: try to understand conservative fear of what they're calling a slippery slope to socialism.  For a while, I'm going to suspend my own dogma that this is a product of political spin to protect corporate interests and prevent Obama from chalking up any policy successes.  I'm going to do some reading and listening to see the picture of the future that conservatives fear.  Because in the end, fear is not dispelled by belittling it.  It's dispelled by understanding, and casting a bright light upon its source.  I'll update if I find any revelations.