What if they had given up?
A Presidents’ Day reminder of why we must fight
It is coincidental that I was inspired to write a commentary about not giving up on Presidents Day, which remembers George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. If either of them had given up during the toughest times of their presidencies, then we would not be here today. And where we are, just to be clear, is standing as a free nation united, but losing our freedoms and becoming more divided every day.
I put him on and started by asking him to please tell me it isn’t so that he is not going to vote in November. He said it’s true, because he had given up on changing what’s happening in our country at the hands of an irresponsive federal government.
The good news is that the fat lady has not sung. (A note for our hypersensitive friends: This is a metaphor referring to how some operas end their grand finale, and is not as an insult to fat ladies. In fact, the reason they are singing the finale is that they must be one of the best singers in the cast.)
Stated another way, and paraphrasing a popular biblical passage, “As for me and my house, we will fight.” My house refers to everybody who is not ready to surrender to the political class.
The actual inspiration for this commentary comes from a recent caller to a radio show. I was speaking on a third-segment monologue when I noticed on the caller screen that a caller wanted to let me know he was not going to vote in the November 2014 elections. Since I had not received an “I’m giving up” call in quite a while I decided to skip the monologue and go right to his call.
I put him on and started by asking him to please tell me it isn’t so that he is not going to vote in November. He said it’s true, because he had given up on changing what’s happening in our country at the hands of an irresponsive federal government.
He proceeded to delineate a list of reasons, which were all accurate, when I interrupted him and said, “I could give an equally long list of reasons as to why you should not give up, but I want you to focus on just one. Your grandchildren!”
If you give up then you are no longer fighting for your grandchildren whether you have any or not. They can’t fight for themselves right now, so you are going to just give them the crappy situation we are in the right now. There was silence, and I moved on to a monologue. It wasn’t the one I originally intended. It was one I had given before about a Holocaust survivor whose first name was Berta.
She and others were rescued by allied soldiers just before being put to death in a Nazi gas chamber. When asked by a reporter if she had ever given up, she said no. When the reporter asked why, she said, “Giving up is a permanent solution to a temporary condition.”
The caller made me realize that a lot of new listeners may not have heard that story. It has become one of the most compelling reasons I have ever heard about not giving up. It represents a victory for the human spirit, and a victory for real hope instead of hopelessness.
We are not facing death. We are facing destruction. If we do not continue to fight politics as usual, then we will surrender to history’s prediction of what happens to great nations when their own government gets too big and too arrogant. It’s not easy, but it’s not over.
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