Optimism

Well, here we are again. Together at the Blog. But I've seen the light! I'm a changed woman. Yes, a little reading and a chance encounter with an offbeat video has crystalized a couple of fundamentals for me.

I'm in the mood for sharing.

Bill Whittle. (Bow your head when you say the name.) Bill Whittle of the Blog Eject! Eject! Eject! wrote a book. It's called Silent America.

Remember my saying that America is an Idea? That we're different from other nationalities because we're not about kin and blood ancestors but a common American Idea? And that you become an American by accepting the IDEA?

In the essay called Trinity, written on the Fourth of July, 2003, Mr. Whittle writes...

"It's our birthday. This is one for us. Americans. This includes all you Americans living in foreign lands with foreign passports, speaking foreign languages and holding foreign citizenships. You know who you are. If you're an optimist, if untrammeled freedom makes you giddy, if you think you know of a better way to do something and just want a chance to try, if you can tell right from wrong and still care about the difference, if you're soft hearted and tough minded, if you think we could all get along just great if we'd all just leave each other alone, if you don't like to fight but know sometimes you just have to, and most especially, if the idea of leaving the huddled masses and joining in the pursuit of happiness has a mystical appeal for you, then you are already an American in your heart. Welcome home. Get here any way you can. We need people like you."

He gets it too.

The other thing he writes about, that affected me more...that was instrumental in the dawn breaking on marblehead here...is his eternal optimism. His take on America is robust and proud and sure and joyful. And I realized that like so many Conservatives I've been focusing on the negative, the failures, the dangers, the Liberals, the idiots, the crap, the manipulators, the traitors, the cowards, the blindly ambitious...the enemy. I do it so much I forget how insanely great America is. Whittle reminded me. And I can't thank him enough.

America is a place full of very busy people. We work more and harder and longer than any other country. We create more wealth than any 100 countries. Some of our States have bigger economies than most nations. We've got more stuff and bigger stuff and faster stuff and louder stuff than almost anyone else. It wasn't planned that way. It happens because everyone is busy on their own plan, working their own game, creating their own opportunities, making things happen, following their dreams, chasing their bliss, creating, striving, driving, promoting, hustling, discovering, inventing, improving, reworking, and updating.

Around here, you never know what's going to happen next. This month is was the iPhone...last year it was X-box. Before that it was a moon shot, television, the atom bomb, airplanes, computers, CDs and DVDs, lasers, the internet, MacDonald's, Disneyland, Hollywood, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Gold Rush, the automobile, vacuum tubes, Polaroid cameras, incandescent light bulbs, bubble gum, the transistor, the telephone, copy machines, baseball, X-rays & CAT scans, cell phones, Jello, genetic engineering, birth control pills, Scotch Tape, Band-Aids, computer mouse, the Ferris Wheel, Post-It notes, steamboats... (And let's not forget the banner year of 1911, when the greatest handgun of all was designed by American John Moses Browning!)

The point is, America is a dynamo, a whirlwind of creativity, inventiveness, risk taking, fortune making and losing. That's because even though it's madly auditioning to play Big Brother in the upcoming millennia show, the U.S. Government was designed, ON PURPOSE, to stay out of people's way and to leave them alone. And it's still working pretty well all things considered. Being in the People's Republic of Kalifornia, sometimes I can forget that the rest of the country is mostly still free and still living the American Dream. (I gotta get out of here!)

And I've decided that I'm going to keep that in mind when I start to get pissed and pessimistic. I'm going to stop promoting the bad stuff by obsessing on it. It's time to remember, remind each other, revive and continue the American Way, this crazy, individualistic, collection of hustlers and geniuses who become all they can be because our forefathers created a land of opportunity by leaving it up to each of us to do whatever we want, to take responsibility for our own actions, and reap the rewards of our risks, investments, our dares and hard work—by trying their best to make sure the government couldn't interfere too much.

And that brings me to this: We've heard for a long time now how bad it is that Congress can't get anything "done". We say that we want the two parties to get along, and get something "done". Newflash: Anything they get "done" is invariably bad for the rest of us. They are full-time, professional politicians, no longer the "citizen legislators" Jefferson visualised. They spend all their time thinkng up new ways to interfere in the lives of Americans. I finally realized that the best thing that can happen is for Congress to be gridlocked for the rest of my life. The less they "do", the freer we are.

Mark Twain...or someone equally clever said: "No man's liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session." And that is a stone cold fact. The Founding Fathers set up the system for precisely this result: a situation where factions maneuvered each other to standstill, making it as difficult as possible to pass new laws, knowing as they did, that most were inimical to the liberty they established this Union to honor, perfect and defend. So the next time someone bitches because the Republicans stonewall the Democrats, or vice-versa, remind them of this fact, and join them in a cheer, a toast, celebrating another example of the system working as it was meant to: by being difficult, cumbersome, unwieldy and the most inefficient the Founders could manage.

(It's not for nothin' we consider them geniuses!)

Well, I didn't get to the offbeat video. Remember that? But that'll have to wait till tomorrow. Today was for remembering that America is GREAT. And, you know, that was Reagan's secret...to his success and his popularity: his belief in America, and his eternal optimism.

If we remember to be positive, optimistic, not only will we feel better, but we'll draw more people to our ideas. Who wants to hang around a poop-butt who's always a downer? God knows the whiners have had the microphone long enough. Things aren't perfect, but Goddamn it, you know what? I'm pretty damn happy, and so's everybody I know. Life is good in the freest country in the world. And I'm going to start remembering to be grateful for it, and to remind everybody I talk to how good it is to be an American...and how lucky we are...and the whole damn world is, that America exists!

Of course I don't mean turning a blind eye to what is wrong. But I mean not allowing the suicidal Lefties to define the debate, name the terms, establish the vocabulary, determine the landscape of our differences, or the tone of the dialogue. The hell with that.

I'm not going to fight with an attitude of loss, fear, depression, catastrophe, or impending doom. From now on I am going to bring a victorious, joyous, celebratory, positive conviction to the fight.

Winners and Leaders inspire; losers and hosers whine. Let's act like winnerrs!

The Gunslinger