"a nation of ninnies"

The other day, the US media hyperventilated over a supposed terrorist threat -- an alleged plot to simultaneously blow up several US football stadiums. The story had absolutely no credibility. James Fallows gets right to the point:

When did we become a nation of ninnies? Yes, there are dangers in modern life. But to put it mildly, this is not the first generation to be imperiled. (By starving, being eaten by a bear, being scalped if you were a white settler, being killed by small pox if you were an Indian, being lynched if you were black, being dismembered in a factory, being shot as you stormed Normandy Beach, and so on.) We don’t look back on those hardships as having created a culture of fraidy cats. The British like to think that they endure hardship with the spirit of Winston Churchill, not Mr. Bean. We’d be better off acting like Gary Cooper, not PeeWee Herman.

Fallows also points out that the term "Homeland Security" has fascistic undertones. And what is fascism anyway, but a system designed for people willing to trade away real freedom for the perception of security?