President Franklin D. Roosevelt is shown at his desk at the White House, May 27, 1933. (Associated Press file)
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Can you imagine any of our leaders or candidates saying this today? If they did say it, can you imagine how their opponents would turn it into something that revealed naivety or worse? And, what would our reaction be?
Would we take it as a call to stand firm for the ideals of America, and support those who said it, or would we see it as more political posturing?
Land of the free and home of the brave? We are so worried about being safe that we’re not even willing to take a chance on the widows and orphans from a war we largely created.
Sometimes, for America to be the America we’d like to think it is, to be the America the rest of the world hopes we are, we have to be willing to take risks. I’m not sure when we became such a small, mean people, but here we are.
We should probably change the line to “land of the safe and fearful.”
Steve Ring, Evergreen
This letter was published in the Dec. 12 edition.
