To My Wife on Inauguration Day
by JBEZL
Jan. 20, 2009 00:02

My love,

These days are difficult for us because we take ideas seriously. And what are we to do when we are in a fog of backward ideas hailed by our fellow citizens with religious zeal?

When we face a war on private property by a President who cavalierly wants to "spread the wealth around," what are we to do?

When we know that the opposite of acting by right is acting by permission, what are we to do when our President threatens to plague us with hordes of permission-granters to dictate our health insurance, our doctors and our medical treatments?

What are we to do, we who value individualism and productivity, when the momentous 4-column headline of the day is a tally of how many of our fellow citizens answered the new President's "call to national service" and selflessly worked in homeless shelters for an afternoon?

When so many of our countrymen are obsessed with looking to a government official to fix specific problems in their lives, when government is seen as the prime mover and source of value, when our countrymen worship government, what are we to do?

So many of our peers salute this age when "Europe and the United States now share the same values." We've snickered at the failing socialist model across the pond only to see its embrace in America become a merit badge. In the face of such a monumental reversal, with so few who can understand our tears among their confetti, what are we to do?

My love, when our boys face a world in which the collectivist "we" is sacrosant and the proud, egoistic "I" is old and derogatory, what are we to do?

(Incidentally, the inauguration's opening celebration is called the "We Are One" Opening Celebration)

I suspect it has never been easy for any of history's lovers of freedom, individualism and reason. And we arrived here thanks to so many who, even in darker days, exalted liberty -- even giving their lives for it.

So I say we should remember gratitude today. We may feel we deserve consolation for being the unfortunate generation who watches the tide of America's founding principles crest and roll back to the sea. But I smile because we did see that wave, which had blessed the world with prosperity these 200 years. We lived the proof of the Founders' arguments.

We should not keep silent about our distaste for statism. We should speak up when we hear "socialism is not that bad," and remind everyone within earshot that free minds and free markets go hand in hand. We should stand up for freedom when we can, denounce the creeping ooze of multiculturalism, subjectivism and anti-reason -- and be unapologetic about our positions.

We may fight an uphill battle, but we are the great beneficiaries of even more difficult victories won by the thinkers and revolutionaries before us.

If we speak up even when it's uncomfortable, if we refuse to despair even in the current political climate, if we point out the difference between principles and platitudes, and if we are living examples of reason and intelligence, creativity and productivity, we can know that because of people like us, the world tasted freedom. And when the world heaves and rolls over after this collectivist orgasm, it will be people like us who set it right again.

Edited Jan. 20, 2009 10:41