The American Spectator

And that makes them all cowards. Because, in order to prevent evil, you have to take a risk-not of death, but of embarrassment.

The bravest response for all of us? To have the balls to appear stupid — at any and all times. We need to stand up and demand to see what’s in a fidgety man’s back pack, even if it turns out its nothing more than back issues of the Utne Reader and a “neck massager.”

We need to be willing to face the mobs in the street and the mobs online. We need to punch a coward in the face when it’s called for, and do so in front of his friends. We need to be the scary ones, for once.

Myself? I’m ready to play the fool. I’ve had lots of practice over the years — just ask my friends. The U.S., in fact, as a nation, needs to start acting like fools. We need to be ridiculous. We need to be scary. We need to keep our enemies up at night and make them squirm for a change. When we hear those two competing voices in our heads, we need to listen to the one that dares us to look stupid. Because it’s better than looking dead.