Sometimes I'm amazed at how the world just keeps rolling along.

I remember first learning about the end of the world. It was in the early 60s. Nuclear war was imminent. A president was killed in broad daylight for all the world to watch. There was a jungle war to prevent those damn dominoes from falling. "This is the end" filled the radio airwaves.

The Weekly Reader. Remember that? There was a heap of gloom and doom for a little boy to absorb. That's where I first heard about climate change, it was, back then, supposed to be the start of a new ice age. I also learned about the problem of finite cheap energy in the form of oil and what may happen when we run out. There was also whispers of global famine and other fear inducing articles.

Books and movies about dystopias and disasters and destruction made me think about survival. I thought about how I may survive certain catastrophes. I bet most of us have. We've all been taught to fear from a very early age, "Don't touch that hot stove"! "Don't look at the sun"! "Don't pet that bear"! Fear is needed to keep us alive. To a certain extent.

Courage comes in many forms. I believe it is inherent in all of us. Fear is the great inhibitor that may push it to the side or the catalyst that may bring it front and center. It may lay dormant, sometimes forever suppressed or it may ooze from every pore. Some may bluster about their courage only to fold under duress, some may be as timid as a mouse but rise as a lion in the face of adversity. Courage is an attribute that may manifest itself in ways that are totally surprising to the individual.

I guess this shouldn't surprise me, but it's still disturbing.

US President Donald Trump has warned that his policies will be "violently" overturned if the Democrats win November's mid-term elections.

He told Evangelical leaders that the vote was a "referendum" on freedom of speech and religion, and that these were threatened by "violent people".

The House Freedom Caucus of the U.S. Congress has built a reputation for bullheaded pursuit of far-right policy, but not for pursuit of freedom, as its name would indicate. It has pushed federal government shutdown, caused the speaker of the House to quit, and scuttled the Republican bill to cut health care for not cutting enough. But, measured against the four freedoms once set down by President Franklin Roosevelt, the caucus seems more in pursuit of serfdom than freedom.

In his "Four Freedoms" speech, given eleven months before the nation's entry into World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt set down a standard of freedom:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.

Let's see how the caucus measures up to those four essential human freedoms.

These would be searches of various electronic items in spy and terrorism cases.

WaPo source

On September 30, the Mirror broke the story.