Watching the news today about the need to monitor private communication and protecting the companies that do. The justification is our fear that if we do not, terrorists will be able to better communicate and plan another 9/11. This seems to be another piece of the multifaceted political offensive by the Republicans, which boils down to the slogan: “Elect us for your protection”.
The second item on the news was the latest on the formaldehyde-in-trailers problem. It seems that the contracts issued for the FEMA trailers may not have required building materials approved for use in inhabited structures, so formaldehyde used in the plywood (and now known to cause cancer) is leaking out in intolerable concentrations, and making people sick. People naturally are afraid of getting cancer and something must be done. Unlike the fear of terrorists, this one was ignored as long as possible. I am not sure if it is real, because our biology lab in school always reeked of formaldehyde from bottles of specimens being cut up. In those days we did not know about carcinogens.
So we have to know about something to know whether to fear it or not. If we don’t know, we may not fear it (ignorance is bliss) but have bad results (9/11). However, if we do know about it there are things we can do. In cancer we can take steps to prevent it or we can wait for it and cut it out. With terrorists we can deal with problem before it develops (find out why they hate us and see if a negotiated agreement can be reached ) or we can wait till they develop, find out where they are and kill them. This, of course causes more hate and breeds more terrorists - cutting out the cancer can spread the cancer cells.
So some fear is justified because it wakes us up to a beneficial course of action. Both King David and King Solomon stated “Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom”. Note they say “Beginning”. From there begins our quest for a better life in harmony with a loving God.
I hope fear of formaldehyde causes us to relocate the victims, and to better select our contractors in the future. And would it not be nice if fear of terrorism would bring about a new approach to the world by our still great nation?