Famously, Franklin D. Roosevelt informed America that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” A quick glance around will show that our times are eerily parallel to the ones in which FDR lived. Every day, the economy around us shows more and more signs of the recession as jobs are cut, friends and family are laid off and the stock market plummets. All around us there are timid whispers, uncertainty as to what the future may hold. Like it or not, it has been given to this generation to live in these unstable times. According to the general feel, the danger being faced is the loss of stability mainly caused by the loss of revenue.

Sadly, the “general feel” is wrong. There is much more at stake during hard times than a job or even a steady income of money. Freedom is what hangs in the balance during unstable times. Due to media hype, fear quickly overcomes common sense, leading people everywhere to adopt a herd mentality that thinks, “I must have safety, protection from this danger.” In this mode, devoid of good old-fashioned common sense, many people would trade anything for safety; and by anything I mean literally anything.

If there’s one thing in America which we value, it’s our freedom – and rightly so. We are often called the “land of the free” and the “home of the brave.” The danger that arises from troubled times, is that in exchange for security, people are easily persuaded to trade the liberties they have. This is the greatest danger we face right now. More and more people are looking to the government to fix problems all around us. In his time, FDR “fixed” the problems of his generation by creating jobs in the Parks & Recreation Department of the government. This provided jobs to employ people, giving them money, which they in turn spent. Oddly enough, no one bothered to point out that the wages paid to the people occupying the jobs was not the government’s money. Ironically, the money was originally taken from the very same people it then paid.

The government, in and of itself, has no power to kick-start the economy; an economic “stimulus” package is nothing more than renamed taxpayer money. With that fact in mind, I encourage each person to take heart. Life is not fair, nor is it simple, easy, or stable; often times it is quite the opposite. Yet, by possessing a freedom to fail miserably, we also are given the opportunity to succeed greatly. Success, whether it be monetary or otherwise, is never bestowed by the government, it is earned with hard work and determination. Let us not be fooled by lofty rhetoric or ideological promises: governmental intervention is a farce. It steals away each citizen’s freedom to engage in the pursuit of happiness and replaces it instead with a false sense of security. After all, a jail cell is extremely secure. One can never fail, can never go broke, can never risk at all. Conversely, one can never succeed. That is why there are never news stories about successful people in jail. Jail is safe, but devoid of freedom.

If we are not careful, the fear will overcome us and we will rapidly trade away our chances of succeeding in exchange for pseudo security. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This quote has never been truer, so let us fight through our difficulties, persevere and retain our freedom.