In an op-ed in the Guardian, Soros writes that “it is an egregious mistake to do what the terrorists want us to do,” urging his readers to “resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, however hard that may be.”
Offering a thin veneer of pseudo-science, Soros explains how fear negatively influences rational decision-making.
“Scientists,” Soros says, “have discovered that emotion is an essential component of human reasoning. That discovery explains why jihadi terrorism poses such a potent threat to our societies: the fear of death leads us and our leaders to think – and then behave – irrationally.”
The fact is that the major theme emerging for the upcoming presidential elections is the question of national security. More and more Americans indeed believe that this will be a virtually single-issue election, with the defense of American citizens and American interests front and center in voters’ minds.
The Democratic alternative to strength in the face of evil is willful ignorance. We can pretend that evil doesn’t exist and then we have nothing to be afraid of. The alternative offered by Trump and Cruz is to call evil by its name and to attempt to counter it with strength.
“Jihadi terrorism,” writes Soros, “is only the latest example. The fear of nuclear war tested the last generation, and the fear of communism and fascism tested my generation.”
In this analysis Soros is correct, and in this context history offers an important lesson. President Jimmy Carter faced these threats with weakness, and hurt American interests in the process. President Ronald Reagan, on the contrary, called the “evil empire” by name, and answered with strength. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.
Finally, Soros should remember that the “fear of death” that he bemoans means different things to different people. For centuries, Western civilization has offered a more effective answer to the “fear of death” than looking the other way. It is called Christianity.
For an atheist like Soros, death is the definitive end to human existence, something so terrible that one must look away and pretend it doesn’t exist. For Christians, however, and all those who hope in eternity, death does not have the final word.
Hope in eternity takes some of the sting out of death, and infuses courage to confront evil without looking away. It is this honesty and strength that Americans are calling for today.
