Something is missing in how we define the world today, and our place in it. Hard to put your finger on, but palpable, a terrapin’s slowness, pulling in our collective head, failing to teach, too often surrendering to dread. We need to reverse that.
Time is passing, and valuable. As Franklin reminded his peers about fears. “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”
No time is without challenge, ours no different. But we need to take stock of rights Franklin and others passed on to us, and not stop teaching about them.
You can sense it, can you not? A collective sigh, almost resignation, a deliberate stepping back, maybe from exhaustion, distrust, being harried to exasperation, disgust. It would be so much easier, would it not, to just give up? We must not.
What you see is less willingness to speak, even to defend speech, let alone to question government directions, mandates, overreach, misfires, and mischief.
What you see is less trust, candor, and open talk, more fear of being misunderstood for doing good. That cannot stand in this country. It violates the basic notion of who we are, the principles of self-governance, shared mission, and mutual caring.
We cannot go from king to knight to pawn, suddenly all afraid – or the republic will not go on. Independence is premised on defending independence. A government elected to enact the people’s will collapses without common talk.
Who we are at heart – who we have always been – is a free people confident in our judgment, unafraid to hear critics, debate differences, and invite correction.
To shut each other down, to declare – at the executive level or with some neighbor – we are unwilling to hear, just sick of conversation, is to admit our defeat.
The point is not to stay at anchor, halyards clanking, but to hoist the sails, tame the wind. We are by nature an untethered, restless, reckless lot, but that is how we got here, and changed the world. We offend out of eagerness, frustration, less intent.
We are at our best daring and doing, unbounded and generous, unashamed to speak about our faith, family, and personal roots – magnanimous, secure in our boots.
Looking back, we are a hard-to-hurt bunch, thick skinned, obstinate at times in pursuit of truth – but determined that America is good, and we strive for that.
We need to get back there. Our history is tenacity and pluck, pioneers, workers and dreamers, builders, fighters and savers; we color outside the lines then redraw the world, recreate the possible with our imagination. We have always done that.
So, where are we now? Just caught in irons, down in the mouth, out of flower – apparently prone to retreat or to cower. We must not do that in this perilous hour.
We cannot trade courage for comfort, rest at some mooring, run from the storm, make that the norm. There is no destination in that choice; that is a non-starter.
If we do not resolve to defend core principles, we lose. Needed is the attitude of our Founding Fathers, who had lots of reasons to give up – and did not.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong one. “
Historically, we cherish peace but never over principle; we do not surrender to fear, refuse to step up, or give in to despondency or distrust.
The point: What is missing is the courage to stay engaged when it matters. When the wind rises, talk gets risky, seems another thankless reach – that is when we hoist the sails, take to the airwaves, and teach. We can all do it.
Put differently, when the choice is forced, when the flag is rent, we mend her or surrender; we explain and suffer critics, to regain our ballast, or we all go over.
Some lessons are timeless. We must all teach as we were taught. That takes patience, it is not fast – but that is what produces the kind of freedom that will last.
Nautically, we are better tacking into the wind than running from it. We are most alive when navigating a rocky channel, defying silence, not becoming islands.
Indifference to cultural, political, economic and security conflict is downright dangerous. There is a better way, embracing the storm, outpacing fear, teaching.
A hundred years after Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt taught us about freedom, wrote 47 books, one called “Fear God and Do Your Part.” Time for us, now.
We should be unbowed. We are not head-ducking terrapins, but Americans. We should take heart from history’s span, lean in, step up, do what we can. What is missing at this hour, is just belief in our power. We have it, must use it.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
