I was thirteen years old when I heard I Want To Hold Your Hand by the Beatles.

It was only a few weeks after President Kennedy was assassinated.

I didn’t realize it right away, but it was the perfect song by a perfect group to hit the airwaves in the waning days of 1963.

Holding another person’s hand, while viewed as a romantic gesture in the song, can also be seen as a demonstration of comfort for a suffering nation.

Back in 1963, it seemed that America’s grief united the nation rather than causing a political rift.
America is not so lucky today in how we react to tragedy.

In a little less than an hour, Opening Day for Major League Baseball will take place. Sadly, there are three little children in Nashville that will never experience the joy of this day. There are no songs that will comfort us, and certainly, there seemingly is absolutely nothing that will bring our nation together in its grief.

We have lost our way, and instead of coming together to address the epidemic of mass shootings, America reacts much as it did to the Covid pandemic, with an illogical interpretation of our fundamental rights as a people.

President Roosevelt spoke of the Four Freedoms in 1941. the fourth, perhaps the most important, was the Freedom From Fear.

Fear has taken hold of our political system.

I am not going to list all the fears that Americans have, just read a Florida newspaper sometime.

The one fear I cannot understand or even tolerate was uttered by an older woman the day after the Parkland mass shooting. When I said (what I thought was a rather obvious observance). “That was a terrible thing that happened yesterday.” She replied, “I just worry about the Second Amendment.”

We have to stop worrying about that.

That’s a fear that is killing our nation.