Salon reports on a fascinating (but not surprising) study finding that, other things being equal, the more fearful a person, the more likely she or he will be a political conservative. Here’s the intro, but you ought to read the whole article and then at least the executive summary of the study itself. 

A new study in the American Journal of Political Science looked at the relationship between fear and political ideology, and it found that people who experience higher levels of fear tend to be more politically conservative than those who are less predisposed to feeling afraid. While the researchers emphasized that their findings in no way suggest that every conservative is more fearful than every liberal, the study did identify a relationship between a fearful disposition and increased support for anti-immigrant and other segregationist policies.

“It’s not that conservative people are more fearful; it’s that fearful people are more conservative,” Rose McDermott, professor of Political Science at Brown University and co-author of the study, said in a press release.

Now, it’s probably important to insert a big caveat here.

As the study’s co-author Peter Hatemi, associate professor of Political Science, Microbiology and Biochemistry at Penn State, told Chris Mooney at Mother Jones: “Nothing is all genes or all environment.” But together, these things make us who we are.

So researchers looked at environmental and biological factors in related individuals to gauge the relationship between fear and ideology, and the findings do suggest a strong correlation…

Quick! What is a president’s first responsibility?

If you answered, “To protect the American people,” or, “To keep Americans safe,” then you’ve been snookered! Bush was the first one who started saying that, and Obama has gone right along with it. Fact is, though, this is the presidential oath:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

A free people do not need a protector. They need a leader. Remember FDR’s famous words, from his first inaugural speech?

The only thing we have to fear… is fear itself!

 FDR was a genuine liberal. He used the plural pronoun “we.” He didn’t say, “You do not have to fear, because I the president will protect you and keep you safe.” He said, “We can work this out together, not ‘Father knows best’.”

Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Conservatives, that’s who.

They’re also afraid of Latinos, Blacks, homosexuals, pointy-headed intellectuals, scientists, fluorinated water, black helicopters, The United Nations, environmentalists, labor unions, wall street regulators, socialism, Barack Obama, and on and on. These fears make them suckers for conspiracy theories of even the strangest, most unlikely types. Think about how miserable it must be to live that way!

But don’t forget!

People who are fearful can be worse than annoying. They can be downright dangerous. Fear (especially fear one cannot acknowledge even to oneself) can turn quickly to prejudice, hostility, anger, and even violence. Think about the word homophobia. My computer’s dictionary defines it as “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people.” And the same entry gives its origin (in the 1980s) as a blending of homosexual + phobia. That’s right. Fear of homosexuals is expressed as “extreme and irrational aversion”!

Fear is dangerous.

Everyone knows the aphorism “A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man [or woman] dies but once.”