If you're part of a group or political movement, word to the wise: try very hard to not get yourself list of terrorist organizations.

'Cause if you do, even showing the world you're really just trying to do some good by - like - ending apartheid in South Africa is no guarantee you'll get off any time soon.

Last week the president signed a bill, HR 5690, taking the African National Congress - the party that, yes, ended apartheid - off the US's official list of terrorist groups. You could say it's about time; the ANC has been the ruling party in South Africa since 1994 and, in spite of some of its funky ideas about AIDS, has been a role model of humanity and sound leadership for nations making the transition to democratic governance.

The impetus for the over-due removal is the upcoming 90th birthday celebration of Nelson Mandela, the ANC's former leader and still spiritual guide. Apprently it was getting awkward having to get a special waiver for Mandela - attesting that he's not a terrorist - everytime he entered the states. Now with the ANC's new legit status, Mandela can come and go as he pleases (with the necessary visas and fingerprinting).

Of course, the 14 plus years it took to clear the ANC is mostly just an embarrassing oversight - but it also points to an important lesson about fear and inertia.

Fear is a great motivating force - it gets people in action, doing things like sprinting from tigers or putting potential terrorist groups on watch lists. The absence of fear, however, isn't equally action-inducing - instead, it leaves us in a sense of inertia, doing nothing. That's cool if you lose the tiger and stop running, but if the "terrorist" group turns out to be not so terrifying, with inertia they're still stuck on the list.

This lesson plays out all the time in Congress where it's pretty easy to make laws when there's an imminent threat or fear (PATRIOT, Military Tribunals act of '06, the new FISA law) - but rolling back those laws is almost an impossibility. As a result we tend to get heaped up with laws that came out of a moment of urgency. The answer? Still working on it, but how about this one: fear fear.