Keeping Fear Alive: 14 People & Things Doing Their Part (PHOTOS)

There's no getting around the fact that politics are fueled by fear, from smear ads convincing us the other candidate is going to raise our taxes and take away our guns, to people trying to tell you that the President wasn't born here and is going to kill our grandmas. That's why we're not surprised that Stephen Colbert wanted to hold a March To Keep Fear Alive (Now part of Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear). Colbert just wants to continue the time-honored tradition of scaring people into making important decisions. So, we chose 14 people (and animals/things) who keep fear alive in politics as well as our daily lives. We gave them our own rating from 1-10 Colbert heads (of course), but tell us what you think by voting for the scariest one!

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Dick Cheney

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WHY FEAR? Remember in the aftermath of 9/11 when Dick Cheney used to go on TV every few weeks and remind Americans that there was a 100% chance of more terror attacks? And then remember when he shot that guy in the face? And then remember when he told Sen. Leahy to go f*** himself on the Senate floor? And how he doesn't have a pulse and how he's basically a cartoon villain?

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WHY FEAR? Remember in the aftermath of 9/11 when Dick Cheney used to go on TV every few weeks and remind Americans that there was a 100% chance of more terror attacks? And then remember when he shot that guy in the face? And then remember when he told Sen. Leahy to go f*** himself on the Senate floor? And how he doesn't have a pulse and how he's basically a cartoon villain?

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This Fear Monger

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Not As Scary The Scariest!!!

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Comments

[histoftomorrow]

09:27 PM on 11/03/2010

This is How the Midterms will be Remembered 1,000 Years in the Future: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlffdZtWOKc

[Ddms]

03:25 PM on 11/01/2010

I HATE it when people compare their political adversaries to Nazis or Communists. It's usually nothing more than sloganeering. But an exception has to be made for Glenn Beck and Adolf Hitler.

Both portray their homeland as victimized by leftists and minorities. Both rose to prominence in hard economic times and after unpopular wars; both blame radical left-wing politicians for the mess.

Both want a return to a glorious past that never existed - Beck, a God-fearing Christian nation; Hitler, a racially pure Aryan nirvana. Both amassed enormous middle-class followings. Beck even has a non-stop soundtrack called "FoxNews."

Hitler-Beck re-write history, pretending to rectify lies perpetrated by the subversive minorities who have "taken over" society's educational institutions. To Hitler, Germany was controlled by Jews, Communists, liberals and "degenerates"; Beck thinks America is controlled by liberals, socialists, secular humanists, globalists and homosexuals. Thus: "WE WANT OUR NATION BACK!" (As though the nation belonged to the Tea Party. And even though the present government is democratically elected.)

Beck and Hitler both project intense FEAR, HYSTERIA, SUSPICION AND A DESIRE FOR RETRIBUTION. When times are tough, feelings like those are highly contagious. Beck's ratings reflect that.

To Hitler, Germany's role was world domination. To Beck, the United States must be a global superpower.

Sorry to burst the balloon, but when an influential national figure like Glenn Beck bears so much resemblance to a monster like Adolf Hitler, fear is a good thing, a Very Good Thing.

[Jim8]

12:46 PM on 11/08/2010

Agreed, Beck is dangerous.

[karela]

10:12 AM on 10/31/2010

I didn't vote for fear ratings here because the biggest fear mongers among them will be using our fear ratings as bragging rights that make them more credible with their "base". What more could they ask for than that we be afraid of them? It's all good fun to us, but the Sarahs, Glens and O'Reillys of the world are not known for their humor----and neither are the people who vote for them. BTW, it's an indication of how much sarah and glen have eclipsed Limbaugh that he didn't even make the list! Imagine Nicholas Cage making the list and Limbaugh NOT. Ha!

[Libby123]

12:53 PM on 11/07/2010

I don't think that Beck , Palin, O'Reilly or Cheney are too concerned with the opinions of Huffington Post readers. After all, none of them have ever actually used factual numbers to support their assertions.

[PaintingAnemone]

05:34 PM on 10/30/2010

Is it just me, or does Sarah Palin look slightly insane in that picture? Her makeup: flawless. Her attire: just the right mix of sexy conservative. But I'll be darned if the light in her eyes doesn't make her look like she might bite a chunk out of someone's neck at any moment. It doesn't help that her teeth are bared.

OMG, or maybe I'm just giving in to her high fear count! *gasp* Shame on you, HP! Didn't you guys learn anything from today's rally?!

[Kathy Wittig]

11:25 AM on 10/28/2010

The Castle, I know very well. Its called "HOME"

[MoralHumanist]

02:14 AM on 11/02/2010

The Last Castle.... Good movie.

[Kathy Wittig]

11:22 AM on 10/28/2010

Fear monger or just plain stupid...

[nfatt1]

07:16 PM on 10/27/2010

For the Tea Potty, fear is women wearing wigs.

[Q45]

04:26 PM on 10/30/2010

Then they should definitely fear Palin, she wears a wig.

[Vantunow]

06:26 PM on 10/27/2010

Sarah Palin - and it is not close.

She is incapable of self-inspection and self-doubt - very definition of a psycho.

[Chicookie]

09:12 AM on 10/27/2010

WHAT ABOUT BEARS!?!
Colbert would be displeased with this list!

[RevBookburn]

10:51 PM on 10/26/2010

Great one. My favorites were Paladino and Dickless Cheney.

[Jill Irish]

07:03 PM on 10/26/2010

My cat for Prez in 2012! She can put on lipstick as well as any pit bull, and just bites the toes of people with whom she is annoyed. It is effective, at the proper intellectual level, and does less damage than, say, stomping on someone's head with a (human) foot. If she likes a piece of legislation, she will lay on it and purr.

[T4]

02:44 PM on 10/26/2010

Interesting there is not one picture of a megabanker or the fed or any of Obama's fin advisors - aren;t they the scraiest people onthe planet? Are n;t they thepeople who wrecked the economy and brought the word foreclosure and unemployment in the eharts ofmost americans, except those receiveing thei Obama bonuses of course. good list but these guy keep false fear alive - thebankers behind the sceenes as puppet master are the real engineers of real fear

[Jill Irish]

07:04 PM on 10/26/2010

This is so very true. And where is Alan Greenspan, who allowed the wrecking to proceed for so long?

[MoralHumanist]

02:16 AM on 11/02/2010

Banksters are in control. They want you to never know they control the siphoning of huge portions of the GDP to them.

We (the people/countries of the world) owe them (Private people) 47 trillion dollars.

They got us by the balls.

[Foxy Pachyderm]

02:09 PM on 10/26/2010

None of these jokes were funny. Not even the ones against Kanye West and Nicolas Cage. HP thinks any left-wing joke is funny. I watch Jon Stewart (and I'm a Republican) and I laugh when he makes fun of Republicans, because he's funny. Funny is funny. This wasn't funny. Not even a little bit. Fail, HP. Fail.

[superjules]

05:21 AM on 10/27/2010

You're funny.

[isis]

12:48 PM on 10/26/2010

Considering that bad smells make people more conservative and that smells also activate the limbic system, I nominate this

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/17/candidate-sends-stinky-message/

[Preesi UGess]

12:19 PM on 10/26/2010

This entire post was lame