I’m fond of saying that history is the guide to our future.
Unfortunately, it is most often a guide to what IS going to happen, rather than a warning against what to avoid.
I am sure that I do not need to catalog the broad spectrum of fear that has begun to grip the nation in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. We have seen it all before – from loyalty tests to internment camps, from special watch lists to cynical politicians riding the wave for their own special interest benefit.
More importantly: every single time in the past that we have abandoned our Constitutional ideals in the face of fear, we have regretted it, apologized for it, outlawed it, paid a heavy moral price for it. Afterwards.
Every. Single. Fucking. Time.
Once. Just once I would like to see us control our lizard brains with our supposed higher-order functions. Once, just once, I’d like to see us turn to our fear-mongering politicians, our propagandist pundits, our bleeding-lead journalists and say:
“STOP! STFU!. You will NOT rule us with fear this time. This time we are going to remember our history and we’re not going to repeat ourselves.”
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
