Cowardice

(MotiFake)

Apparently, we Americans are becoming hopeless cowards. I can't explain why, since I don't understand it myself. But the evidence seems to be overwhelming, don't you think?

Of course, the obvious example is when a handful of religious fanatics made us collectively pee our pants on 9/11. Yes, it was a great tragedy, especially for the people involved and their families. And there was plenty of heroism shown that day, especially by the New York firefighters and police who risked - and lost - their lives trying to save others.

But for the rest of us, we had a better chance of being struck by lightning than of dying in a terrorist attack. Nevertheless, in our panic, we were willing to let a demagogue do anything, anything at all, as long as he promised us safety. We abandoned habeas corpus. We gave the government sweeping new powers to spy on its own citizens. Heck, we even approved of torturing prisoners of war. America! I would never have believed it. We went through World War II, when we really were in grave danger, without government-sponsored torture. That was left to our enemies. This was America. We wouldn't stoop so low.

But in this century, we were also eager to let George W. Bush invade an innocent (though oil-rich) country. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and we knew it. In fact, Saddam Hussein, as a secular leader, was the sworn enemy of al-Qaeda. And Iraq was no threat to us at all. The UN was still searching for those non-existent WMDs. (Remember that we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud scare tactic? Those kinds of tactics work on cowards.) Even if there had been WMDs, we could have let the UN smoke them out. That would have been rational. But we were too scared to be rational, I guess.

Of course, all that was just an excuse used by right-wing ideologues to get what they wanted in the first place. And we Americans were such cowards that we went along with it. Did it matter that we were invading an innocent country? Of course not. This way, we'd fight them over there, so we didn't have to fight them here. In other words, we'd send our young men and women to die in an unnecessary war, just because that would supposedly keep us cowards at home safe in our beds. (Since there was no draft, we didn't have to worry about fighting, ourselves.) As long as we were promised safety - whether or not that promise made any sense is another story - we were quite willing to let our young soldiers die for no reason, not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

But there is more to being cowards than this, much more. I won't claim that all believers are cowards, but there has to be a reason why the United States is far and away the most religious developed nation, despite a complete lack of evidence backing up those beliefs. For the most part, true, we simply believe what we've been taught since infancy, the exact same reason most Iranians are Muslim and most Indians Hindu. But most Europeans have shaken off that early conditioning. So why can't we?

And when I talk to believers here, since they can't justify their beliefs any other way, they almost inevitably fall back to "I don't want to live in a world like that" (i.e. the real world, a world without a god magically promising them eternal life). Well, no one wants to die. It's scary to think that I'll just cease to exist - and far too soon. It's a shame how brief our lives really are, and it's hard to imagine the universe, which got along fine for billions of years without us, continuing for billions of years after we're long gone and forgotten. But isn't it cowardice to refuse to face reality? Citizens of other developed nations do face that, by and large. Are they simply braver than us?

But as I say, I won't accuse all believers of cowardice. The fact is, we tend to believe what our parents told us, especially when that's what we really, really want to believe. Few people have the independence of thought - and the courage - to overcome that. But let's look at other beliefs, other ways in which we Americans frequently refuse to acknowledge reality.

Isn't it cowardice to refuse to accept the scientific consensus, when it comes to a scientific issue like evolution or global warming? It's not that you know more than the scientists who specialize in those fields, of course you don't. And neither do politicians or political pundits. When you dismiss the scientific consensus, you're just picking what you want to believe. Yeah, if you don't "believe" in global warming, then you don't have to do anything about it. Everything will magically turn out for the best, as long as you can keep your head stuck in the sand.

(Icanhascheezburger.com via Bad Astronomy)

The fact is, whenever you refuse to accept the clear scientific consensus, a consensus backed by the evidence from peer-reviewed, independently-confirmed research, in order to just believe what you want to believe, that's cowardice. Refusing to face the facts, just because you don't like them, is cowardice. Close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears if you want, but know that it is cowardly.

There's more, much more. The hysteria we've seen since the election of our first black president is clearly cowardice. White Americans have finally been hit between the eyes with the fact that America is becoming browner. We're becoming more diverse. Minorities are becoming more numerous and more visible, especially Hispanics (leading to complete hysteria about immigration), but other minorities, too. The current hysteria about Muslim Americans is another example.

This is America. We are a diverse nation. We may have started as English, mostly, but we've taken successive waves of immigrants in the past and turned them into... us. When my Irish Catholic ancestors began migrating to America in large numbers, there were riots (and maybe others of my ancestors took part in them). I don't know if my German ancestors also created such a ruckus, when they began filling up the plains states, but we Americans absorbed them, too.

So how can we be so cowardly as to fear this happening again? African Americans are Americans - and have been for a very long time (though racism has long tended to keep them apart). Barack Obama is not an African, whatever Tea Party signs say. He's an American. Hispanic Americans are also Americans. And so are Muslim Americans. But now that white Americans - and particularly white men - feel that they're no longer automatically on top, lording it over the "lesser races" by the luck of birth, we get this Tea Party lunacy. That's cowardice, it really is. I'm confident enough in America not to fear the integration of new Americans, and I'm brave enough to accept the competition. But are brave Americans the newest minority?

I hear right-wingers chanting over and over again that America is the greatest nation on Earth, as if simply repeating those words will magically make it so - and more importantly, keep it so. But at the same time, they stubbornly refuse to accept the challenges of the 21st Century. China has been investing in education and infrastructure, growing their economy like crazy and planning for the future. But we Americans seem to have given up on competing.

We've let our educational system fall behind. We've let our infrastructure decay. We certainly haven't invested in 21st Century technology. All we'll spend money on is our military, while the rest of us hide under the bed (or in the closet). Instead of accepting the competition and working to better ourselves, we just pray for Jesus to return. Yeah, we'll all laugh then, won't we, when we're raptured up into the sky? We'll get the last laugh for sure,... in our fantasies. But who's going to be leading the real world then? Not cowards, I assure you.

It's cowardly to just give up on competing in the world. Yes, China is a huge nation and it's beating our pants off right now. How can we compete? Well, remember when Japan was the unstoppable economic juggernaut in the 1980's? Oh, what will we do? We just can't compete. Except that we could, and we did. Who really worries about Japanese competition (in general) these days? No one can reliably predict the future, because the future isn't fixed. It's always up to us. But if we give up, like a bunch of cowards, then there's no way we'll succeed. Carrying a rabbit's foot and chanting the magic mantra "we're the greatest country on Earth" won't change that.

Cowardice isn't always about being afraid to die. Often, it's about being afraid to live. And it's certainly about being afraid to face reality, especially when things don't seem to be going your way. Are Democrats cowards? I keep hearing of the "enthusiasm gap." Those Tea Party lunatics aren't really a majority in America - far from it, in fact. But the right-wing plans to vote. Democrats are discouraged, depressed, apathetic, lazy. Democrats are, in fact, cowards. (Yes, it's cowardice when you can't get out of bed, or off the couch, to do what needs to be done.) If we won't continue to fight, no matter how discouraged we get, no matter how bleak the situation seems to be, that makes us cowards.

Of course politicians are cowards. That almost goes without saying. Republican cowards jump on the Tea Party bandwagon, no matter what they really believe. Democrats - well, Democratic politicians, at least those in Congress, are notoriously spineless. They went along with everything George W. Bush wanted to do, because they feared his popularity. They supported the Iraq war because they knew that the American people wanted to strike back, even at the wrong target. And now they refuse to stand up and fight, even after the Republicans have driven us into the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Well, without spines, maybe they can't stand up.

But I'm not going to blame politicians, because they'll do whatever we citizens demand that they do. Imperfect as it is, America is still a democracy. It's our cowardice that's the problem here. It's our refusal to face the facts, it's our lack of faith in the American way, it's our fear of competition, of our own citizens, of reality.

Surely we didn't use to be this way. Our ancestors made it through some very hard times, some very dangerous times. We survived the Great Depression - and went on to walk on the Moon. We survived World War II, and then made staunch allies of our former enemies, while also working to integrate our own society. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. Could cowards have done that? I think not.

Cowards can't lead the world, certainly not for long. And so I fear for my country and my planet. But will I stop fighting? No. I'm not a coward.