There is something to fear besides fear itself.
There is ISIS or ISIL and the kind of indiscriminate terrorism that reaches into cities, that seizes our souls and takes us back to the darkest moments of our history.
There is plenty to fear. There are nukes and cyber attacks and assaults on our very frame of reference. There is a proliferation of crazy people with guns and the will to use them. There is racial unrest and Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin's shirtless visage.
There is Ebola and Alzheimer's Disease and the possibility that Donald Trump could become president of the United States.
So sorry FDR. Here in the 21st century there is plenty to fear besides fear. No question. The question - now as back then -- is whether we allow our own fearfulness to become more dangerous than the things that frighten us.
It's easy, at times like these, to well up in anger and fear. It's natural to rush to lock the doors and hide from ourselves and our feelings and from everything and everyone we believe threatens our people and our way of life.
People gather for a national service for the victims of the terror attack at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. Thousands of French troops deployed around Paris on Sunday and tourist sites stood shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth while investigators questioned the relatives of a suspected suicide bomber involved in the country's deadliest violence since World War II. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)
It is easy to understand that urge and inclination, to grasp the politics that make governors like those in Alabama and Michigan, Louisiana, Texas and elsewhere slam the doors of their states in fear, to toss the keys and shout to D.C. that they will accept no Syrian refugees.
"As your Governor, I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm's way," Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said in a statement as he sought to declare Alabama off limits. "The acts of terror committed over the weekend are a tragic reminder to the world that evil exists and takes the form of terrorists who seek to destroy the basic freedoms we will always fight to preserve."
And of course the acts of terror committed over the weekend are a tragic reminder to the world that evil exists. But if terrorists want to destroy the basic freedoms we fight to preserve, they found their target.
Because fear does what fear always does. It steals our freedom more effectively than any terrorist. It robs us of who we are, and who we are is the very essence of our freedom.
Fear makes us turn away from more charitable values, to see the enemy at our every gate. It causes us to rush toward the mass appeal - and the confinement - of the mob.
It is easy to look at the horror eight people carried out in Paris and imagine the ease with which it could happen here. It is easy to look with revulsion at the 129 dead in that city and see ourselves and our friends and loved ones in the dark places of the mind.
It is harder to look outside our own locked doors at the humanity in Syria itself, where six million children - more than the entire population of the state of Alabama - have been forced to flee their homes and quit school in hunger and uncertainty.
It is hard at times like these to remember the 12 million people who have been displaced. It is harder than it need be to mourn the 240,000 people killed in the Syrian War or the thousands unaccounted for.
It is easy, as Bentley has tried to do, to lock the door in the name of safety.
It is harder, as Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin did, to offer cautious sanctuary.
"It's the spirit of all Vermonters to ensure that when you have folks who are drowning, who are dying in pursuit of freedom, that Vermont does its part," Shumlin said.
Is it really the spirit of Alabamians to turn away?
There is much to fear besides fear itself. It is true. The most fearsome, though, is what we become when we allow fear itself to determine who we are and what we stand for.