Guest AuthorOur nation appears to be at a crossroads. The November general election will test us. One candidate will end up as the face of what Ronald Reagan described as “the last best hope of mankind.”
We all must reflect upon who we want to be as a people. Will we stand tall against the best annals of our ancestors or will we instead choose to match them when they stumbled?
The words of Thomas Paine cannot be improved. At the darkest hour of the struggle for the birth of our nation, Paine, best known for the phrase, “summer soldier and sunshine patriot,” wrote these words, which capture the truth that our November votes are about more than choosing a president. They will be about choosing where we will go as a nation.
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
So who will we be? Will we be the eternal patriots, thinking only of what is best for our nation and not what benefits the few? Will we advance those who do not seek the Shining City on a Hill, but instead seek to advance themselves for their own glory, not for the glory for which we were created?
To do less than our best toward building our people up by inspiration and installing aspiration is to fail at the tasks assigned to us at our birth.
We have been given much as a people. As Americans, we won the birth lottery. Will we squander the riches bestowed upon us by advancing candidates unworthy of our efforts?
Or perhaps instead we will realize that much more is at stake than a victory in which we send our leaders a message that we’re angry and displeased.
The light of freedom as an example to the world cannot be allowed to be darkened by candidates from any party who would divide us a rather than unite us. We must not support candidates who put voice to anger rather than provide solutions and who place vitriol where inspiration would better serve our country.
Do we better ourselves by supporting a candidate who seems to view access to power as a passport to personal enrichment? Do we build a better tomorrow by selecting a candidate who appeals to the worst within us?
Are we truly expecting to hand the keys to the Shining City to someone whose honesty and integrity is questioned by more than half the electorate?
We should not delude ourselves by believing that the harsh campaign rhetoric will disappear once the key to power is acquired. We have survived as a free nation since 1789, the oldest republic in the world, through the power of ideas that live in the hearts of a people aiming for a better tomorrow. It would be shameful if we succumbed to those who fuel darkness and greed rather than light and opportunity.
As Paine wrote in a far more difficult time, “it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
We need a leader who leads us to a better place, not one who divides us.
The study of our own history reveals so many roads that might have been taken. The choices made were not always correct. Reading history gives us a snapshot in time, where the words of those who came before serve to both teach us and inspire us, even in the most difficult of times.
I am devouring Jon Meacham’s excellent ‘”Franklin and Winston,” and I am struck by the impact of careful, shrewd, and calculating leaders in the midst of colossal disasters on the world stage.
Our current global situations may be on a path similar to the world of 1939, but we are not there yet. How we choose and who we choose just might determine whether we live in a world or peace or turmoil.
Over our history we have selected our leaders using many ways and we have seen both elected and handpicked competence and calamity. Luckily, more often than not, at least one party has had sanity in their process.
I am not so sure this year. I fear that the consequences of poorly choosing do not seem to be in the minds of voters, who are focused on anger and nativist attitudes, using litmus tests to drive the national discourse.
Elections do have consequences, serious ones. The costs of the bad decisions we make now may be far worse than we imagine. It is time to awaken to what we might be doing to ourselves.
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Ed H. Moore resides in Tallahassee, Florida, where he is perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
