Why do Republicans run for the president of US? The charge of anyone in public office, the principle responsibility, is the well being of the community. The health, safety, prosperity and general well being of the populace, of the electorate, of ALL the people, of US, is the president’s responsibility. Looking at the deeds of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld over the past 8 years, I can’t see the people’s welfare even on their radar. Perhaps a blip or an afterthought on the mismanagement of Katrina but nowhere near where it ought to be. Government for Halliburton and the rich is not government of the people, for the people and by the people. Government is like parenting. It’s about protecting the children, the family. Hey, we need to survive and thrive! Yet the responsibility comes back to us. Why do we elect people who have only their own best interests on the table? Why do we allow ourselves to be duped by the likes of Carl Rove into electing millionaires, now billionaires, to serve our interests? They are incapable of doing that. They are not even interested in the electorate but only in dismantling the government that is supposed to serve the electorate so it won’t require them to pay taxes! Yet, we do it. We pave the way to their feast of self interest that cuts our social security and medical benefits. Ronald Reagan cut the public housing budget 87% while in office! Do you wonder why there are so many homeless on the street today?Be wary of Republican mantras like “compassionate conservative.” More of them are headed our way this election year. GW’s compassion ends at the electrified fence around his ranch in Crawford.

I don’t mean to categorize all Republicans this way. Certainly many of them have the sense that they live in a social context, that humans depend on one another becausae we are herd animals, and even the most self made billionaire has had to rely on many others to get his stash together. But somehow as a party and a political force, communal consciousness gets left behind, as if that part of the Republican DNA has been snipped out leaving only the acquisitive gene of salvation by personal striving: “In God we trust. All others pay cash.”

It’s a Hobbesian view of the world with each arrayed against each. Such an isolated and combative posture breeds fear, and indeed, the rallying cry that has worked so well for the Republicans has been fear, fear of Al Quaeda, fear of Iran, of the Taliban, of liberals, of Democrats, of entitlements, of intellectuals, of science. After eight years, I conclude that fear has been properly enthroned, and while it is clearly not good for the economy, it’s had some clear effects. In a climate of fear and threat the obvious response is to reach for a weapon. What after all, is more natural than self defense, aka, homeland security? We have mobilized against fear. The military is our new religion. We pray with the pledge of allegiance, hand over heart. Display of the flag is the litmus test of Godliness. Our soldiers are our saints, especially the wounded, in our holy war against all that threatens us.

Fear breeds its own reality and its own opposition. As we station our priesthood in bases around the world, nations like Korea and Russia respond in kind, recalling scenarios familiar from the Cold War. They feel alarmed by bases around their perimeter, by alliances formed without them. They seek protection in nuclear weapons. Did we mention Iran, where the weapons may be real or imagined on our part? Fear sees its reflection everywhere and in everyone. It self replicates and spreads easily from one to another. We are none of us immune, although some of us are predisposed. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Paradoxes abound. In a country where the most fearful embrace Christ as Lord and proclaim, even demand, that a Christian God be the centerpiece of our national identity, it is a contradiction that the Anti-Christ of fear should sit on the national throne, one arm draped around the shoulders of an uncomfortable Abe Lincoln. If God is love, if our righeousness protects us, if God watches over the lilies of the field and so much more cares for us, why all the body armor and M-16s? How have we elected the Pope of Peril and the Archbishop of Dread to lead America for eight years? The only answer is that a large part of the electorate has placed its faith in fear.

My attempt in this writing is to recognize fear as an unhealthy component of our national identity. My own paradox is that in naming fear, I spread it. I can feel how juicy the words are as I move in that direction. There is something emotionally luscious in the tar baby stickiness of it, the elixir of preachers. The antidote to fear is not rational discourse or science or even accurate information, all of them good in themselves. The antidote to fear is joy. Be the change you seek, said Ghandi. Love those who persecute you with their fear, said Jesus (slightly paraphrased). Stand against fear in celebration of human possibility. Dance. Embody the Creator’s light in your smile, in a loving attitude, especially toward those for whom fear is a reality. Love is the virus to spread. We do it by joining hands with others, the only real security we will ever have. Community. “Yes, we can.”