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We have seen the face of cowardice, and it is Michael Wolfensohn. Worse, Mr. Wolfensohn is everything that's wrong in America.
A member of the town board in New Castle, New York, Mr. Wolfensohn (mbwolf@town.new-castle.ny.us) saw a great threat to his community last month. So, as Faulkner would say, he vanquished it, horse and foot.
The city councilman's victory, the great threat he defeated, the cancer from which he saved his poor, helpless, unsuspecting subjects, is astonishing. He beat down two 13-year-olds who were selling cookies.
More comical, and instructive of the character that we're dealing with, is the way Mr. Wolfensohn did it: He called the cops.
Kevin Graff, Andrew DeMarchis, Zachary Brass, and Daniel Katz, all young teenagers, demonstrated remarkable foresight and initiative, according to a local newspaper: The four boys started selling cupcakes, cookies, and other baked sweets in the park. They planned to use their earnings to grow the business, and eventually open their own restaurant.
It is unclear whether four 13-year-olds would have followed through to the degree necessary to run a restaurant. But we know these young men had already expanded their business to include beverages, and they'd made a capital investment, in the form of a cart for carrying product. The only thing that stopped them was a low-life politician and an (apologetic) police officer. Mr. Wolfensohn's words: "The police are trained to deal with these sorts of issues." Really? In 2009, more than 2,500 rapes were committed in New York state, and Mr. Wolfensohn would have us believe his state's police academies are teaching recruits to deal instead with black-market Rice Krispies treats.
The boys didn't have a license, said Mr. Wolfensohn. Neither did George Washington. It could have been dangerous, said Mr. Wolfensohn. Business, and life, are rarely not dangerous. A park use permit requires $1 million in insurance, said Mr. Wolfensohn. I wish I was exaggerating that number.
If this standard applied to all entrepreneurs, today we would not have Macintosh computers, television sets, McDonald's cheeseburgers (or, cheeseburgers), iPods, Napa valley wine, the forward pass in football (or, football), flight, or any of the other fine things that Americans have invented and sold for profit and fun.
These days in America, liberals go ballistic when conservatives want to put a 99-week cap on unemployment checks. They throw a hissy-fit when anyone suggests that a man's health insurance is his own responsibility. They whine and cry and jump up and down, stamping their feet like a misbehaving 2-year-old, at any suggestion that human beings are capable of living life.
In contrast, these kids wanted to work hard, to provide for themselves, to plan ahead, to build something they could be proud of by providing valuable products to consumers in their community. Better yet, they were doing it! And this blithering idiot reported them to the police.
Though just 13, these four teenagers have proven that their manhood; I doubt Mr. Wolfensohn ever will.
One headline about the story: "Michael Wolfensohn Hates American Dream, Cupcakes." That wasn't harsh enough. Mr. Wolfensohn, and his attitude, are killing the human spirit. According to the New Castle town government's web site, Mr. Wolfensohn is up for re-election in 2011. There have been few politicians in world history who more deserve to be thrown out of office (and that is saying something). If someone (anyone, actually) runs against him, I intend to contribute to their campaign.
(Editorial note: I wanted to share an important idea before this year's election. I considered writing something new, but decided instead to renew this piece, which I originally published in April. If I could pick one thing in my archives that I'd like everyone to see, it's this.)
Prologue
I recently had a discussion with a friend about health care reform. I behaved impolitely, but my point stands. It went like this:
Me: Congress is going to blow $2 trillion on this drivel.
Friend: Good. They should spend $3 trillion! The more money we spend, the more people will have health insurance.
Me: Fine. Spend $3 trillion of your own [expletive] money. But when you think you have some moral right to spend my money on yourself, well there’s a special corner in Hell for people like you.
Friend: We have a policy disagreement, and you’re telling me to go to Hell!? Jesus, politics is getting poisonous.
Part 1
Over the last year my favorite columnist, Peggy Noonan, has chronicled the above phenomenon in her Wall Street Journal space. Her latest such piece read like a wise observer’s plea for someone in Washington to “lower the temperature” before it’s too late.
Last summer, when she listed three great threats America is likely to face over the next decade, she was more blunt:
First, economic depression. Second, a WMD attack against an American city. And third, “faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.”
Part 2
A few days ago, another friend marched up to me, beaming, asking if I’d “heard the good news?” He then bragged about some daily tracking poll that, at that moment, indicated Obamacare was more popular after it passed than it was before, and that Congressional Democrats were surging after their victory.
I’m praying that all three of Ms. Noonan’s predictions prove incorrect. But for as long as there are people in America who hope Congress will blow $3 trillion instead of $2 trillion, and for as long as there are people who think it’s “good news” that theft and tyranny are more popular today than they were yesterday, I suspect the “faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements” will smolder and gain strength.
If you meet someone who says this is a good thing, you will know you have met a fool.
Part 3
One of my undergraduate history classes examined pre-Civil War-era America. Once, a classmate asked our professor exactly when the North-South divide began. I’ll never forget his answer. He said: Some settled Jamestown in 1607; then some settled Massachusetts in 1620. They grew apart from there.
In other words, America has been divided from the beginning, in some ways that are minor and some that are irreconcilable.
And, yet, Americans have built the freest, strongest, wealthiest, most generous, most upwardly mobile nation the world has ever seen.
The difference in values between Americans is striking, though it is not surprising. A lot of things are perfectly natural in San Francisco, but make no sense in Kansas. (The Golden Gate Bridge, for example. And Nancy Pelosi.)
This concept isn’t new. The Constitution’s framers were keenly aware that their document wouldn’t become law and couldn’t work unless it guaranteed dramatic autonomy for Americans in different parts of the country. Even in 1787, what worked for Boston wasn’t the same as what worked for Savannah. (Perhaps one is superior, but that point is irrelevant, and the one war that’s been fought to settle the question is one too many.)
Part 4
Americans are proud of their country, and rightfully so. (Texans often don’t see eye to eye with New Yorkers, but the average Texas Ranger and the average New York City firefighter probably share common feelings for al-Qaeda.) But America is a vast country, both in geography and in ideals. And we are an intellectually active country: Most of us have a vision of what works, and a vision of right and wrong, and they generally aren’t arbitrary.
America is too big and too diverse for central planning to work. Just as the colonies couldn’t be run from London, America cannot be run from Washington. That’s why we have dual sovereignty (a novelty among nations) between the federal government and the states. That radical, seemingly impossible notion was probably the greatest gift the Framers left the world. It enables America to flourish.
The Constitution lists a small, distinct, all-inclusive set of powers held by the U.S. government: International and interstate relations, coining money, granting patents, and protecting fundamental rights. And that’s about it. When the Constitution was amended for the first time with the Bill of Rights, the Tenth Amendment insisted that all other powers — those not specifically granted to the federal government — are affairs for the states.
This is not an accident.
Cowboys in Arizona don’t have much in common with attorneys in Boston. The average Floridian who fled Cuba probably doesn’t worship the same god as the average Californian who emigrated from Vietnam. Alaskan crab fishermen surely don’t understand the lifestyle of Pennsylvania mill workers. Yet all are countrymen. And they can get along because each is left to their own devices.
If the Bostonian followed the Arizonan from pasture to pasture, critiquing, we’d have a different story.
America has many beautiful aspects, and one of the most important is this: If a man doesn’t like state income taxes, he can move to Florida. If he’s morally opposed to the death penalty, he can move out of Texas and into Massachusetts. If he seeks a homosexual marriage, he can leave Kansas for Iowa. If that happens, we Kansas will stay out of his business. Even if we want to interfere, we’ll have no legal power to stop him because Iowa gets to make its own rules.
These are facts: In America, many of us think income taxes are repugnant, and many think they are necessary. In America, many of us are morally opposed to the death penalty in all cases, and many are morally opposed to the thought of it being unavailable. In America, many of us think marriage ought to be limited to one man and one woman, and many think a dude should be allowed to marry another dude.
That can work, but only in America.
Part 5
My friend was right about one thing: Politics is getting poisonous.
The anger is bubbling beneath the surface now, at a more dangerous rate than at any time in recent memory. As long as it stays beneath the surface, it’ll be just a passing story reported in contemporary news. But if it boils over, we’ll have ugly chapters to write in our history books.
This is because Kansans who oppose gay marriage do so with moral convictions matched only by those held by Iowans who embrace it.
So long as each state is allowed to decide for itself, neither has much reason to get upset. But in America today, that kind of decision is increasingly made at the national level. Obamacare is the newest example. When Massachusetts enacted its version of an individual mandate, it was within its rights to do so: The people of that state are empowered to oppose it politically, and if they fail (and if they decide it’s a deal-breaker) they’re free to move to New Hampshire.
I think Massachusetts’s program is too expensive, is unworkable, and is less noble than its supporters claim. But I don’t pay taxes in Massachusetts, and I don’t have to live there, so it’s none of my damn business.
Until Obamacare passed. Now it is my business. So are the elementary schools in Minnesota, after No Child Left Behind. Marijuana farms in California, too, because of the national War on Drugs. And the list goes on.
Part 6
America is not homogeneous. It is not uni-religious. It lacks a single, bland view of the world.
America is spicy, and some of the ingredients are incompatible. But so long as state sovereignty is enforced, the explosive combinations don’t mix. Unfortunately, those factions are being forced into each other and stripped of individuality by a federal government with an appetite “to help people” but not enough sense to see that many of us would rather fend for ourselves.
Politics is getting poisonous because ideas that are deeply revered by some of us, and equally repulsive to the rest, are enacted into national law, moments after one side wins an election. Politics is getting poisonous because there is more and more influence available; and most of us either resent the fact that it exists at all, or insist we can use that influence to save the world. Politics is getting poisonous because we are being forced to mind everyone else’s business (and they are being forced to mind ours).
Epilogue
Over the next generation, America might further nationalize. That would pit Americans against one another in ways that will, probably, lead to our destruction. Or, America might relax. It might breathe deeply, and take stock of how it has grown so rich and powerful, so fast, with so much diversity, so peacefully.
Politics is getting poisonous because, as the federal government does more and more, it exercises inappropriate influence at an unprecedented rate. There was a time when politics in Washington didn’t matter as much, when it had only limited influence over us.
That influence doesn’t seem limited anymore. If congressmen vote for a bill today (even if most of us told them not to), they harm us tomorrow, in ways that are clearer and more perceivable than ever before. I hope they learn as much, and soon.
My freshman year at Fort Hays State University, I was assigned to write a paper about a controversial topic. I picked "compulsory military service."
During my research, I decided to e-mail my representatives in Congress to ask if there was much chance of the idea being implemented into national law, and how they'd vote on it if the debate came to the floor.
The first response was from Sen. Sam Brownback: It was a short form letter thanking me for corresponding, and (in a way that was understandably bland) briefly explaining his opposition.
Sen. Pat Roberts trumped that vanilla response a few days later, with a more personalized e-mail. Mr. Roberts included the following inside information: "I have spoken with the chairman of the relevant committee. He has not scheduled any hearings on the matter."
Then, about a week later, in my mailbox I found a big document-stuffed manilla envelope. Inside was a form letter like those from the Senate. But this package also included a thick, detailed report, recently commissioned by Congress to help members decide if "compulsory military service" was worthy of discussion. As it turned out, that report was the best source for the paper.
The manilla envelope came from Congressman Jerry Moran.
I'll share one more anecdote, and I hope it illustrates that Mr. Moran is — in addition to being an excellent congressman — a genuinely good man.
One night a few weeks before the 2006 election, a group of FHSU students organized a voter registration rally at a bar in Hays. Knowing the kind of intense effort it takes to orchestrate such an event, Mr. Moran decided to attend.
It was when I was a reporter for The Hays Daily News. I covered that rally and — political nerd that I am — I was disappointed in the turnout. That stereotype about young people being apathetic is true; only about 20 people attended the registration drive, and most of them were political science majors who participated all the time anyway. It was an election year, but with such a paltry crowd it was obvious that no lucrative vote haul was available that night.
Based on the size of the group, Mr. Moran clearly was not just politicking; that night, he was not just trying to win votes. But he visited with the political science nerds about electioneering. He visited with other students about national policy. He even visited with me about the type of coverage he'd seen from other newspapers in the state.
Mr. Moran stayed at that small rally for hours.
Any western Kansan who pays even a moderate amount of attention to current events can see that Mr. Moran has been a top-notch congressman for the last decade. He took Kansas common sense to Washington and, applying it at different times, knew enough to vote for enormous tax cuts, and against No Child Left Behind, the over-expensive Medicare Part D, umpteen stupid "stimulus" bills, every immoral taxpayer-funded bailout, and Obamacare. Mr. Moran's conservative common sense is exactly what we need in the U.S. Senate right now.
And he's one of the good guys. That'll make it fun to vote for him.
America should learn something this week: A great many of us need to grow up.
Yes, I'm writing about Arizona's new immigration enforcement law. More importantly, I'm thinking about where we are as a nation.
Arizona's problems
Illegal immigrants constitute a full 8 percent of Arizona's population. Many (without evidence, I'd guess it's an overwhelming majority) of those people merely moved to America to exploit its economic bounty, as almost all Americans came here.
But a significant portion has contributed to a violent underground:
— On Friday, urgent national news blared on Foxnews and CNN's web sites: A border patrol officer was missing for several hours, and he'd suffered a gunshot wound. He received it from a person he suspected was running drugs from Mexico into Arizona.
— Earlier this month, Arizona police arrested more than 40 people in a sting on a human smuggling ring.
— In 2009, a study found the kidnapping capital of the world was not in Baghdad or Afghanistan, not in an Eastern European human sex-slave trade hub, not in some impoverished and war-torn African nation. It was Mexico City. The runner up: Phoenix, Arizona.
National problems
If we go back far enough, we can trace every single American's lineage to someplace other than here. The one way that we are from common stock is that we (or our ancestry) came here from somewhere else. The day America forgets that, America ceases to be what it should be.
But any country must have a baseline rule of law, or it will lose the respect of its own people and those around it. A nation that cannot enforce its own border exudes incompetence. And those who take advantage of that incompetence bear the shroud of illegitimacy that all cheaters wear.
Especially in this nation of immigrants, we must not tolerate a disregard of immigration rules. Doing so cheapens the achievement of those who came to America the right way. And it masks the indefensible bureaucracy that clogs the process of immigrating — the bureaucracy that carries a 3-year wait to get a Green Card and 2 years (by their own tally) after sending in the paperwork to become a citizen.
For our nation to hold its head up proudly, two things must happen: Our border must be enforceable enough that cheating is not tolerated, and the flaws in our immigration system must be fixed. Until they happen, America is less than it ought to be.
• • •
Those two things have not happened. Worse, it seems the federal government (for decades) has willfully abdicated its immigration responsibilities. Every serious observer agrees that the federal government's failures led to Arizona's actions.
And Arizona's action, to a serious (and grown up) observer, appears quite reasonable. The federal government won't enforce it's laws, so that state decided to adopt some of them, and therefore allow their own authorities to enforce them.
Title 8 Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part IX, Sec. 1357 of the United States Code grants federal agents the power to "search for aliens" in any vehicle — without a warrant — and to "arrest any alien who is in his presence" that is entering the country illegally.
Arizona's new statute grants that state's police officers the authority, during any "lawful contact" with a person, when he has "reasonable suspicion" that the person is an illegal alien, to make a "reasonable attempt ... when practicable" to determine if the person is an illegal alien, "except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation."
In other words: Arizona's new statute contains a paragraph — with four qualifiers and an exception — that grants its cops the authority to enforce the law.
The reaction has been troubling:
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the new law as "national suicide."
Congressman Connie Mack equated Arizona to Nazi Germany.
Headlines say: "Arizona Immigration Law Causes Fury, But Will It Ever See The Light of Day?", "Arizona law a dangerous approach to border issues," and "D-Backs, union have concerns about Arizona's new immigration laws." Always a tone of illegitimacy. Nary a word about the real issues surrounding the new law's passage.
A lead story on Yahoo, from a sports reporter, invented the following lament-filled hypothetical: "An 18-year-old from Venezuela playing in the rookie league jumps in a friend’s car to head to the grocery store. The friend rolls through a stop sign. A police officer witnesses the infraction. ... The Venezuelan player, accordingly, is asked to furnish paperwork proving his legal residence. ... If he happens to have forgotten his passport and work visa at home, his friend would get a traffic ticket and the player would get ... hauled off to jail."
On Friday night, a Google search of "Arizona racist" yielded 3.9 million hits.
• • •
And now comes the growing-up part. (I will frame this in the most un-controversial terms I can.)
The United States government has declined to enforce this country's sovereignty, for at least a decade. This has allowed a wholesale disregard of one fundamental set of laws, and it has caused Americans reason to question their government's motives and abilities. One glaring result is the blood spilled and the people kidnapped by Mexican drug cartels operating in Arizona and other southwestern American states. And when Arizonans decided to do something about it — something identical to what federal law purports to do — mainstream America has denounced them by branding their actions as racist, on par with the Holocaust.
This is an issue of international relations. It's a realm where the federal government has legitimate authority (and duty) to act. Arizona's new law is not the answer. The answer can only come from federal authorities, and it is as simple and as mature as enforcing our existing laws.
That answer has not come, for the last decade, because each step towards adulthood has been met by thoughtless accusations of racism. One side of this issue is terrified to bring it up, for fear of being branded a bigot. The other side doesn't want to act, because they like holding that bigotry card and playing it whenever it's politically fruitful to do so.
The message for Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Mack, the headline writers, the Yahoo sports reporters, and the web-masters at 3.9 million internet sites — and everyone in Washington who has any authority — is a simple one.
Stop behaving children.
Prologue
I recently had a discussion with a friend about health care reform. I behaved impolitely, but my point stands. It went like this:
Me: Congress is going to blow $2 trillion on this drivel.
Friend: Good. They should spend $3 trillion! The more money we spend, the more people will have health insurance.
Me: Fine. Spend $3 trillion of your own [expletive] money. But when you think you have some moral right to spend my money on yourself, well there’s a special corner in Hell for people like you.
Friend: We have a policy disagreement, and you’re telling me to go to Hell!? Jesus, politics is getting poisonous.
Part 1
Over the last year my favorite columnist, Peggy Noonan, has chronicled the above phenomenon in her Wall Street Journal space. Her latest such piece read like a wise observer’s plea for someone in Washington to “lower the temperature” before it’s too late.
Last summer, when she listed three great threats America is likely to face over the next decade, she was more blunt:
First, economic depression. Second, a WMD attack against an American city. And third, “faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.”
Part 2
A few days ago, another friend marched up to me, beaming, asking if I’d “heard the good news?” He then bragged about some daily tracking poll that, at that moment, indicated Obamacare was more popular after it passed than it was before, and that Congressional Democrats were surging after their victory.
I’m praying that all three of Ms. Noonan’s predictions prove incorrect. But for as long as there are people in America who hope Congress will blow $3 trillion instead of $2 trillion, and for as long as there are people who think it’s “good news” that theft and tyranny are more popular today than they were yesterday, I suspect the “faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements” will smolder and gain strength.
If you meet someone who says this is a good thing, you will know you have met a fool.
Part 3
One of my undergraduate history classes examined pre-Civil War-era America. Once, a classmate asked our professor exactly when the North-South divide began. I’ll never forget his answer. He said: Some settled Jamestown in 1607; then some settled Massachusetts in 1620. They grew apart from there.
In other words, America has been divided from the beginning, in some ways that are minor and some that are irreconcilable.
And, yet, Americans have built the freest, strongest, wealthiest, most generous, most upwardly mobile nation the world has ever seen.
The difference in values between Americans is striking, though it is not surprising. A lot of things are perfectly natural in San Francisco, but make no sense in Kansas. (The Golden Gate Bridge, for example. And Nancy Pelosi.)
This concept isn’t new. The Constitution’s framers were keenly aware that their document wouldn’t become law and couldn’t work unless it guaranteed dramatic autonomy for Americans in different parts of the country. Even in 1787, what worked for Boston wasn’t the same as what worked for Savannah. (Perhaps one is superior, but that point is irrelevant, and the one war that’s been fought to settle the question is one too many.)
Part 4
Americans are proud of their country, and rightfully so. (Texans often don’t see eye to eye with New Yorkers, but the average Texas Ranger and the average New York City firefighter probably share common feelings for al-Qaeda.) But America is a vast country, both in geography and in ideals. And we are an intellectually active country: Most of us have a vision of what works, and a vision of right and wrong, and they generally aren’t arbitrary.
America is too big and too diverse for central planning to work. Just as the colonies couldn’t be run from London, America cannot be run from Washington. That’s why we have dual sovereignty (a novelty among nations) between the federal government and the states. That radical, seemingly impossible notion was probably the greatest gift the Framers left the world. It enables America to flourish.
The Constitution lists a small, distinct, all-inclusive set of powers held by the U.S. government: International and interstate relations, coining money, granting patents, and protecting fundamental rights. And that’s about it. When the Constitution was amended for the first time with the Bill of Rights, the Tenth Amendment insisted that all other powers — those not specifically granted to the federal government — are affairs for the states.
This is not an accident.
Cowboys in Arizona don’t have much in common with attorneys in Boston. The average Floridian who fled Cuba probably doesn’t worship the same god as the average Californian who emigrated from Vietnam. Alaskan crab fishermen surely don’t understand the lifestyle of Pennsylvania mill workers. Yet all are countrymen. And they can get along because each is left to their own devices.
If the Bostonian followed the Arizonan from pasture to pasture, critiquing, we’d have a different story.
America has many beautiful aspects, and one of the most important is this: If a man doesn’t like state income taxes, he can move to Florida. If he’s morally opposed to the death penalty, he can move out of Texas and into Massachusetts. If he seeks a homosexual marriage, he can leave Kansas for Iowa. If that happens, we Kansas will stay out of his business. Even if we want to interfere, we’ll have no legal power to stop him because Iowa gets to make its own rules.
These are facts: In America, many of us think income taxes are repugnant, and many think they are necessary. In America, many of us are morally opposed to the death penalty in all cases, and many are morally opposed to the thought of it being unavailable. In America, many of us think marriage ought to be limited to one man and one woman, and many think a dude should be allowed to marry another dude.
That can work, but only in America.
Part 5
My friend was right about one thing: Politics is getting poisonous.
The anger is bubbling beneath the surface now, at a more dangerous rate than at any time in recent memory. As long as it stays beneath the surface, it’ll be just a passing story reported in contemporary news. But if it boils over, we’ll have ugly chapters to write in our history books.
This is because Kansans who oppose gay marriage do so with moral convictions matched only by those held by Iowans who embrace it.
So long as each state is allowed to decide for itself, neither has much reason to get upset. But in America today, that kind of decision is increasingly made at the national level. Obamacare is the newest example. When Massachusetts enacted its version of an individual mandate, it was within its rights to do so: The people of that state are empowered to oppose it politically, and if they fail (and if they decide it’s a deal-breaker) they’re free to move to New Hampshire.
I think Massachusetts’s program is too expensive, is unworkable, and is less noble than its supporters claim. But I don’t pay taxes in Massachusetts, and I don’t have to live there, so it’s none of my damn business.
Until Obamacare passed. Now it is my business. So are the elementary schools in Minnesota, after No Child Left Behind. Marijuana farms in California, too, because of the national War on Drugs. And the list goes on.
Part 6
America is not homogeneous. It is not uni-religious. It lacks a single, bland view of the world.
America is spicy, and some of the ingredients are incompatible. But so long as state sovereignty is enforced, the explosive combinations don’t mix. Unfortunately, those factions are being forced into each other and stripped of individuality by a federal government with an appetite “to help people” but not enough sense to see that many of us would rather fend for ourselves.
Politics is getting poisonous because ideas that are deeply revered by some of us, and equally repulsive to the rest, are enacted into national law, moments after one side wins an election. Politics is getting poisonous because there is more and more influence available; and most of us either resent the fact that it exists at all, or insist we can use that influence to save the world. Politics is getting poisonous because we are being forced to mind everyone else’s business (and they are being forced to mind ours).
Epilogue
Over the next generation, America might further nationalize. That would pit Americans against one another in ways that will, probably, lead to our destruction. Or, America might relax. It might breathe deeply, and take stock of how it has grown so rich and powerful, so fast, with so much diversity, so peacefully.
Politics is getting poisonous because, as the federal government does more and more, it exercises inappropriate influence at an unprecedented rate. There was a time when politics in Washington didn’t matter as much, when it had only limited influence over us.
That influence doesn’t seem limited anymore. If congressmen vote for a bill today (even if most of us told them not to), they harm us tomorrow, in ways that are clearer and more perceivable than ever before. I hope they learn as much, and soon.
Just after midnight, still pitch black, yes, and the ominous clouds from last night's storm still loom, threatening to pound us again before dawn.
But it's morning, nonetheless, and there's nothing the storm — though frightening as it approached, and devastating as it rained hail down on us — can do to prevent its demise at sunup.
* * *
The last year's debate has shown us that there are more Americans who favor freedom than who favor slavery. (Insert "socialism" for slavery, if you wish, but they are the same.) In the end, even President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Congress to ignore what was "popular," pretending their actions were somehow "right" instead.
I believe we all will be judged by our maker someday, and that those who steal will go to the same place as those who murder. But, today, my intent is not to discuss the rampant immorality in Washington.
Today, my intent is to express my own optimism for the future. It comes from two sources: My study of American history, and my readings about Ronald Reagan.
I'll start with the former. Consider:
— In 1777, Gen. George Washington led a band of 12,000 revolutionists into Valley Forge, Pa., to spend the winter diseased, wet, and hungry.
About a sixth of the men in the army — and that army was America's one good hope — died that winter.
But Washington led those men out of Valley Forge the following spring, and they went on to defeat the greatest empire in the world.
— In 1812, British soldiers entered Washington, D.C., unopposed, and set ablaze the federal buildings, including the White House and the the U.S. Capitol.
But the next day a rainstorm arrived, driving the British out and dousing the raging fires. Americans rebuilt the city.
— In 1865, America lay shattered by war, and remained divided by culture and politics. More than 620,000 American soldiers had died — as many as have died in all other American wars, combined — and the two sides continued to stew in their own mutual hatred for more than a generation.
But slavery was abolished, and, eventually, the wounds healed.
— In 1940, a genocidal maniac hell-bent on world domination had conquered all of America's allies on mainland Europe, and then launched a devastating attack against Great Britain. Meanwhile, Japan had amassed the most formidable navy we had ever seen, and was achieving a similar conquest over the Pacific Realm.
Over the next five years, America awakened and led the free world to victory over both.
* * *
The pessimism I've seen from my freedom-loving friends is understandable. If Obamacare survives long enough to take full effect, it will fundamentally change America for the worst. (Those who say otherwise do not understand Obamacare, or do not understand America, or are trying to enslave us.) We must destroy Obamacare or allow it to survive and destroy freedom. They remain mutually exclusive.
The victorious self-righteousness I've seen in my friends on the other side is deeply troubling, almost enough to move me to anger. But I do not see them as willfully supportive of slavery; I see them as ignorant. And I remain confident that they will eventually agree with me because the legislation will hurt them, too.
I am also confident, after seeing the protest marches (conservatives usually don't protest), and seeing the state of Massachusetts elect (to replace Ted Kennedy!) a man promising to fight Obamacare, and seeing Washington win its "victory" over America, that America will strike back in coming elections. The conduct by Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Obama indicates that they realize they probably will be fired for merely considering what they just enacted — so they had to enact it while they had the chance.
Those of us who love freedom have always known that our cause is greater than the cause of those we oppose: Freedom will always be better than slavery. But, this year, we have seen that our strength of numbers also is greater than theirs. If one party articulates a platform of freedom this fall, it will defeat the party of slavery. (The same holds true for 2012.) America has elected the immoral and the imbecilic before, and it has survived by realizing the mistake and defeating them.
Which reminds me of the second source of my optimism, Mr. Reagan. (Things were arguably worse in America in 1979, before he ran for president.)
And it reminds me of the thunderstorms that often approach on spring evenings, and release their senseless fury into the night, leaving dramatic destruction that isn't even fully realized until daylight.
It also reminds me that, each and every time, the sun does come up, and it vanquishes the storms.
Even with his memory rapidly clouding from Alzheimer's disease, Mr. Reagan said his public goodbye with a note of optimism: "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright new dawn ahead."
We are wise to fear the storm and to seek shelter from it. But we must remember: We maintain the courage to ride out the onslaught because we know the sun will return in a few hours, and then we can rebuild.
