The nature, scope and source of the anthrax assault on the United States may be much more evident by the time you read this. Already, it is clear that the scattered, partially successful attempts to distribute the deadly spores have had some success in frightening millions of people who have no reasonable likelihood of being affected. Some are calling for authorities to restrict or even suppress reporting of additional cases, lest the fear spread, or become a panic. But this kind of response to adversity is incompatible with the requirements of liberty or self-government. The situation we must confront should make us all ask ourselves who is finally responsible for controlling our fear. It is a question with serious implications for a free people.
Bravery is the virtue of having the right amount of fear, and confidence, in the face of real danger, and of acting accordingly. It requires reason and disciplined passions. This is a combination we should know something about in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Bravery never develops in a people shielded too much from danger. In such a people, accustomed to safety, any real threat is apt to provoke a sudden and disabling storm of fear that makes it impossible to act as the brave man would. This is actually a kind of long-term challenge that we face from the multiplying safety and ease of modern life. The possibility of a crucial virtue, bravery, is reduced if we face danger only from the accidents we never really expect and the sickness or death we scrupulously seek to avoid, or hope will be eliminated by science before our turn comes.
For much of American history, particularly on the frontier, threats to life and property were a fact of daily existence, and not just for the men, but for every woman and child as well. American liberty was in significant measure claimed and defended so that the necessary striving in the face of such threats would not be obstructed by the arbitrary power of government. The serf in Europe might not have been able to take effective action to defend himself, his family and his property, but the free men of America could. Liberty did not find its highest purpose in securing the right of self-defense and self-preservation, but it did find a crucial and fundamental purpose in this right.
The American people came of age facing their share of the dangers that make human life everywhere a vale of tears. What has made American character different is that we have faced those dangers with the unique blessings of liberty that make possible effective personal and local action to defend the precious things of life. As a result, Americans have tended to be people accustomed not only to difficulty and danger, but also to having the confidence that flows from meeting dangers well by our own action. This is the source of American bravery.
It is a source we need to draw on now, rather than look to government alone for safety. Our forefathers lived with the dangers of Indian attack, crop failure and natural disaster, death in childbirth and from infectious disease, accidents while at work in the field and many others. The presence of danger produced manly capacity to look it in the eye and wrestle it to a fair fall. Sometimes, certainly, circumstances and prudence dictated that the way to combat an evil was through government action. But almost always, as in resistance to violence on the frontier, government action was the culmination and completion of the actions of citizens. In America, government action against evil is not a substitute for the bravery of the citizenry, but its result. This is but a particular instance of the general truth that our government is our instrument, for we govern ourselves.
The anthrax threat is terrorist, but if the fear it provokes awakens a renewed determination to see to our own safety, we turn the tables on the terrorist. He will have provoked not fear, but bravery. The enemies of America will surely be disappointed, for example, if their attacks remind us of the true purpose of the Second Amendment.
If we respond to the sudden danger of biological attack with a prudent and thoughtful blend of personal responsibility and governmental coordination and intelligence, we can make this threat a catalyst for the strengthening of liberty in the face of danger. Let it be the first in an unbroken series of miscalculations by our terrorist enemy, who does not understand liberty or the character of a free people. Seeking to destroy self-government by fear and violence, may he find that he has instead only strengthened our courage and our determination to govern ourselves with dignity and responsibility.
