“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is really fear.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” —Master Yoda, The Phantom Menace or: How I Learned to Distrust Prequels

If the past week has illuminated any commonality between America’s liberal and conservative ideological binary, besides the willingness to change Facebook profile pictures in times of Allied distress, it’s the increasing prioritization of, and desire for, theoretical safety over the virtues of liberty so often trumpeted by Americans of all stripes. In both cases, there’s a marked lack of self-awareness—conservative denial of refugees stemming from a predictable and oft-skirted xenophobia, and a burgeoning belief among young liberals that the solution to perceived offensiveness should be the promotion of safe spaces and mandates against negative speech. Both sentiments are symptoms of the same disease: Fear.

What do we fear at the close of 2015? Trojan Horse terrorists and the mental ramifications of potential alienation, apparently. While both fears are unhealthy, they’re also rooted in an honest and endearing distress: We don’t want our families and friends to suffer. We want their safety in this scary world. We don’t want them to be bullied. We don’t want them to die. Yet our self-fulfilling prophecy, an extrapolation of what that little muppet Yoda so succinctly breaks down in the terrible, aforementioned movie, is that our fear often leads directly to the suffering we’re trying to avoid, or worse, to suffering we never anticipated.

In the case of Yale and safe spaces, we see students whose means toward creating safety involve shielding themselves from “negative” expression and ideas. But wanting to do so through authoritarian means undermines the value and strength of free speech, creating this paradoxical form of liberal fascism that, if its demands aren’t met, immediately smears those who do not consent to its authority as Others: bigots, racists, or enablers.

In championing this method, proponents either forget or have not yet realized that authoritarianism never ultimately provides the safety for which liberty is traded—it only seeks to increase its power. We can’t forget that the Left, too, has potential for authoritarianism.

What’s more, entertaining different ideas is—for both college students and human beings who want to grow—a necessity. How else can we learn? Pushed further, we can think on John Stuart Mill’s discussion of truth and its brushes with criticism, whereby we understand the consideration of not only complex philosophical ideas but ideas that are directly incendiary to our own performs one of two actions: Strengthening the conviction we already hold true, or changing our minds. Either conclusion is desirable, and both lead to growth of some kind.

Those committed to a free world must also be committed to the tolerance we expect from others, tolerance for speech and ideas with which we do not agree. It’s a cornerstone of American life. To paraphrase the old Voltaire misquote, we don’t need to agree with what someone says, but we must defend to the death their right to say it. This is the sacrifice we make as a virtuous people.

In the case of the conservative response to Syrian refugees, we see the American Right’s xenophobia put on display in a way it often is not, lacking its traditional obfuscation because of the situation’s perceived direness (i.e., Mexicans won’t blow us up, so the clock’s not ticking). Here we see a devaluing of others’ liberty, the potential loss of their lives, and our own virtue for our own safety, a response bred again from fear.

Conservative politicians have used the refugee situation as an opportunity to both pander to their base and hold them hostage, pulling the strings of paranoia with a startling lack of tact. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush have upped the ante by playing the religion card, saying we should only let Christians into the country. While these are shameless political acts, their roots in everyman fear are more tragic than monstrous. After all, this is largely a nation of decent human beings; but many are turning against our country’s values out of plain fear, which only serves to further fuel the fire.

To turn away refugees because one is scared is mindless, accepting of a false sense of security that sacrifices American virtue. It’s also willfully ignorant of the statistical realities that: The Paris attackers were homegrown, French and Belgian, with one of the bunch holding a forged Syrian passport; and most domestic American terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by non-Muslims. If we throw statistics out the window, we’re still faced with the fact that turning away refugees means helping ISIS achieve their goals. They want us to turn away refugees, because in doing so, we not only thicken their ranks, but give in to the fear they want us to feel.

We must not be complicit, but more than that, we must remember our heritage. “The New Colossus,” the poem engraved within the Statue of Liberty, does not read “Give me your white, your Christian/ your vetted masses yearning to escape Muslims.” It reads, “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This is the American ethos condensed into one line. We are a country born of persecution and immigration, one that prides itself on helping others. We must recognize our fear of outsiders, as we recognize our fear of contrary ideas and speech, and better ourselves by overcoming it.

The common question from the conservative crowd is “Why us? Why should we help?” If sticking it to ISIS is not reason enough here, then let us appeal to virtue once again, remembering that virtue without risk is not really virtue. Why do we choose to accept the risk? Because we are strong enough to bear it. We are not cowards. We are Americans. We must stand not only for our own liberty, but liberty and justice for all.