Search Results: fear

Late Friday night, Tennessee House Republican Caucus chair Jeremy Faison posted “President Biden has finally approved [Tennessee governor Bill Lee’s] state of emergency request,” making it sound as if the delay in federal support for the state during the devastation of Hurricane Helene was Biden’s fault. In fact, while Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina all declared emergencies and requested and received federal approval of those declarations before the hurricane hit, Governor Lee did not.

Instead, in keeping with an April joint resolution from the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature calling for 31 days of prayer and fasting to “seek God’s hand of mercy healing on Tennessee,” Lee proclaimed September 27 “a voluntary Day of Prayer & Fasting.”

Lee did not declare a state of emergency until late on September 27, after flash flooding had already created havoc. President Biden approved it immediately.

The extraordinary damage from Helene in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia continues to mount. At least 91 people have died, and search and rescue teams are at work across several states. More than 2 million people are without power, and western North Carolina is isolated after its roads washed out. A fire at a chemical facility in Conyers, Georgia, outside Atlanta forced the evacuation of 17,000 people nearby. The National Weather Service office in Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, wrote to the residents of the western Carolinas and northeast Georgia: “This is the worst event in our office’s history.”

Faison’s implication that Democratic president Biden, rather than Republican governor Lee, was to blame for the slow federal response to Helene in Tennessee illustrated the Republicans’ attempt to create a fake world to motivate their base with fear and anger while leaving Democrats to come up with real world solutions. And since those solutions are popular, Republicans are claiming credit

Ben Franklin once wrote "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

But he was referring to the gov of the colony of Pennsylvania accepting money from the British Penns to not raise taxes on the Penny family colonial holdings in order to raise money to defend its borders during the French & Indian (Seven Years) War.

But can you really say you're free if you're in danger from crime, for example? If kids have to go to school in de facto prisons with armed guards, bullet proof glass, etc, churches need armed guards, some people saying they only feel safe if they're armed in public, etc are we really free?

Isn't freedom from such fear we need to be armed everywhere and turning schools into fortresses and churches protected by guns true freedom?