Fear is the mind-killer

From Fear an Iarthair:

Rush said, a couple of times last week, that the left, through their MSM mouthpieces, will often tell you who they're afraid of, that is, they try to demonize and destroy the people they fear the most, and by that standard, it is clear that they fear Sarah Palin.

I've been thinking about that all week. The more I think about it, the more I think that it's not so much Sarah Palin they fear as it is a possibility that she represents.

[...]

She may not be an economic sophisticate on par with Thomas Sowell, but she knows enough about economics to know that free markets work better than statist controlled economies. She's unashamedly and unabashedly America first. She's committed to smaller government and more liberty. She's firmly committed to the traditional family. She loves guns and hunting and darn near every non-PC point of view and activity you can name. She thinks the Constitution doesn't give government unlimited power. She's a fierce partisan for her point of view. In short, she's about what most people I know are like.

And I think what really scares the left, what really drives them nuts about this woman, is their underlying sense that there may, just may, be enough people like her left in this country to shift the country away from the direction it is currently headed, if only they can find someone to rally around.

We think it is significant that though she is not an economist, Sarah Palin knows enough about economics to read Professor Sowell, understand the practical consequences of what he writes about, and quote him as an expert source in her arguments. That's common-sense conservatism, and the Left fears it.

Consider these two sentences from Frank Herbert's "litany against fear" in Dune:

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration..."

Though written for a science fiction novel, that excerpt from Herbert's incantation rings true in the struggle between common sense conservatism and statist collectivism. The side which manages to think clearly despite its fear of what the other seeks to accomplish will win. And there's nothing the statists fear more than the prospect of this nation returning to the principles upon which it was founded.

Another great writer, George Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, showed us what a collectivist system carried to its illogical conclusion might look like. Such a vision could be nightmare for those who cannot manage their fear. So far, the Left seems to be having more difficulty dealing with what it fears. Though the stakes are high, let's keep it that way:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

- JP