Saturday, October 9, 2010

Fort Worth, a "Shining City on a Hill"

I readily admit, I am partial to the good citizens of Fort Worth, Texas. There were many reasons in the past -- which I have documented on this site -- but ever since I saw this article, I have known, without even the tiniest smidgeon of a doubt, that the people of Fort Worth reflect the very best that there is in America.

It is the icing on the cake that I bring to you now. Fort Worth was the site of a gathering last month which followed in the footsteps of the 9-12 movement, established to honor America as she stood proud in the wake of the dastardly attacks on September 11, 2001.

That gathering in Fort Worth was blessed by the patriotic speech given to it by Adrian Murray, a naturalized Irishman who managed, in just twenty minutes, to galvanize the audience in the grand old tradition of the great American orators of the past. In the videos below (H/T: Moonbattery), Mr. Murray lays out precisely, in the simplest of terms, why the failed experiment that is Obamunism does not represent in the slightest what America was, and is, all about:





To my liberal friends, I say only that this is the way the tide is running -- there is no longer any momentum behind President Obama's agenda for America. The results on November 2 will stand as an indictment of all that has been wrong to date: the hurried passage of monstrous bills which no one in Congress has read; the sheer, arrogant contempt of the representatives in Congress for the people who elected them; and the studied disregard of the economic consequences which they are visiting upon their own districts. As a direct result, there is a giant reckoning which is falling due, and the recent oratory in Fort Worth (and the acclamation it received) is but a small indicator of the country's mood.

There can be no doubt that America's majority feels deserted by those whom, with the best of good will, it elected to office in 2008 in the expectation that they would reverse and halt the trends of arrogance which marked the final years of the Bush administration. They even gave their blessing to the first Afro-American ever to occupy the White House -- only to discover belatedly that the one whom they elected is more beholden to the "my way", Chicago style of politics which enabled his advance, than he is to anything which he pretended to espouse in the campaign.

Those who are about to be rejected at the polls will need to take their defeats to heart, if they are to be capable of serving their constituents in the future. Never again should a member of Congress be able to get away with saying "I don't worry about the Constitution", and then presume that such ignorance constitutes a qualification to run for re-election. Hopefully, those days of coasting on the electorate's ignorance, or apathy, are gone.

America was founded by citizens who argued passionately about the type of government best suited for their new country, but who were able in the end to compromise their deeply held views, in the interest of coming together as a nation. We today have mostly lost that self-governing check on our ambitions. The politicians who now seek our vote appeal mostly to our appetites, rather than to our ideals. As a consequence, we have no one but ourselves to blame for the government we elect. But as Adrian Murray reminds us, we do not have to settle any longer for a government which appeals only to our concupiscence, or to our laziness. The mood that is abroad in the land now summons us all to a higher calling -- to vote in the best interest of the generations to follow after us, rather than to exploit government for our own immediate advantage.

Every American who is worthy of the name can understand the fundamental appeal of that call. Forget being liberal or conservative; forget the labeling which dominates the rhetoric of today's campaigns. Candidates for Congress must pledge to put their country first, rather than their donors, or even their party (if it demands they act against the country's best interest). We can no longer afford what Mark Twain called "the very best government money can buy." If there is disagreement on where America should be headed, then let us have it out in the open, where we can discuss it fairly, and objectively, without being sidetracked by the special interests of the moment.

Either the elections of November 2010 will allow this country to be reclaimed, or they will not. We are at a watershed, and there is no going back -- only going forward. But to go where those who have been directing us until now want most strongly would be a fundamental betrayal of all that which those who founded the country fought for in the first place. We cannot -- we must not -- continue in that direction.

I ask your prayers for America in her coming election. The seduction of stipends, subsidies and support has forever been the Achilles heel of democracies. To betray the finest democracy that has yet existed, in order to exploit the temporary exigencies of our situation, would be treachery of the highest order. Together, we should be able, whether left or right, to agree that "If the government supports the people, who will support the government?" That way lies only anarchy, and eventually tyranny. Democracy deserves -- though it cannot command, since it must be voluntary -- far better.

Indeed, democracy demands that we act as a free people -- not as slaves to those would keep us in chains to the future, while promising us bread and circuses in the meantime. I will resume this dialogue again on November 3: may it at least be then a dialogue, and not an empty rant.

1 comment:

  1. Mr. Haley,

    What you have written is most definitely not an "empty rant." This is something that needs to be said publicly until all have heard it. And it needs to be said without excessive appeals to ideologies, but rather as you have stated it, as a question of principles, both ethical and moral.

    I only wish that I were hearing this view voiced more consistently by the "loyal opposition." The fact that I do not hear them echoing the message is, to my mind, additional cause for concern that things may not "turn out well." I will join you in prayer as well as praying that my fears are unfounded.

    Pax et bonum,
    Keith Töpfer

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