Guilty By Fear

I know, they probably thought they were doing something good, but in all honesty, the callers in the following article showed little respect for their fellow human.

Article referenced is African-American man stopped by Michigan cop for walking with his hands in his pockets.  Hopefully you can read the whole story or view the video on YouTube of this situation. 


It doesn't take much these days for someone to call the cops.  While that may be a good thing if you see someone doing something, just because it is out of fear and suspicion, its not always a good thing.  Yes, most of this paranoia is because of pure and unadulterated fear.

We've become a society that doesn't trust our fellow humans.  We arm ourselves because the bad guys are out there and were the good guys.  We put down anyone that doesn't agree that more guns are good.  We've become a society that sees fear lurking at every corner and requires us to record everything around us.


We've become a society where we scream about protecting our privacy, yet we give it away out of fear.  Fear plays such an important role and it hides itself so well, that we can no longer see it.  Fear has taken over common sense.  Fear has taken over reality.

I know someone that freaks out about flying because if they see a Muslim person on the plane, they automatically assume the individual has sinister motives.  I mean, come on.  That is about as racists and bigoted as you can get and its all out of fear and ignorance.

There are reports that if a gay couple is holding hands, that somehow they scare people so much and the police get called.  It isn't that this couple is harming anyone else and it isn't like straight people are treated the same way.  Its just out of fear and ignorance.

There are not enough guns in the world to protect you from your own fears.  There are not enough laws that can be passed to protect you from your own fears.  There are not enough walls or fences that can be built to protect you from  your own fears.

Your fears live inside of you.  They are part of your nervous system that has run amok because you haven't dealt with your own issues in life.  Ignorance and the media and the stress that isn't released all adds to the fear that we project on to others.

When I was a kid, we were taught to fear the communists.  They were going to come into our schools and hurt us or take us away.  The thing is, I never met a communist and if I did, they never did this to me.  However, we were taught to fear them.

Now, we are taught to fear a terrorist.  Yes, they've done some pretty awful things, but how many of us have ever met a terrorist in real life?  Could we even spot one if they were close by?  Yet, our whole society has morphed into a life where we fear the terrorists through the actions we take, the billions of dollars we spend, and the procedures we enact.  Its all out of fear.

A kid can get detained these days for walking down the street or carrying skittles.  They can be shot for whatever reason, even if the true facts never come to see the light of day.  Is it right or wrong?  Who knows?  Generally in this situation, there are only two people who know the truth as they see it and often one of them is dead.

Fear will do you in.  Fear will consume you.  The more fear grows, the more it takes over your life to the point that you no longer have a balance sense of reality.  The more fear grows, the less human we become and the less we see anyone out there as human.

Following every news media report about whatever is going on in the world, only adds to the fear.  It doesn't help.  The constant replay of videos and singular focus on a particular news story does little to add to society.  It often does more harm, then good.

We all need to do a major inventory of how fear is impacting our lives.  Its more prevalent than you think in the world, in our country and in each one of us individually.  Stop and take a look - its there!

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Blog Post And Images (c) 12/1/14 by Don Shetterly

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