On the topic of why good men don't run, I heard an interesting and illustrative quote on the subject. Many people, as posts here already show, think that what they do suffices. Do we do enough?
Mark Levin asked former Red Sox player Kurt Shilling yesterday:
When are you going to run for office?
I dont' know that I ever will. My family gave 19 years of our life; my wife, my kids gave their lives to Major League Baseball and my career, and I'm not sure. I look at public office, and I look at that job as 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year. There's never an off day when you're serving the people, and I don't know if I can do that to my family again. When it got down to it, I just don't feel like I'm qualified to do something like that.
The Red Sox are actually the only team I have ever seen play live. Baseball does play a fundamental part of American history and culture. Although Kurt poured effort and sweat and tears into baseball and sacrificed, he won't do it for the freedom that allowed him to play that sport. Much as I value baseball's contribution, I do not think that 19 years in baseball excuses you from your duty. Years ago, I swore this oath:
Mark Levin asked former Red Sox player Kurt Shilling yesterday:
When are you going to run for office?
I dont' know that I ever will. My family gave 19 years of our life; my wife, my kids gave their lives to Major League Baseball and my career, and I'm not sure. I look at public office, and I look at that job as 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year. There's never an off day when you're serving the people, and I don't know if I can do that to my family again. When it got down to it, I just don't feel like I'm qualified to do something like that.
The Red Sox are actually the only team I have ever seen play live. Baseball does play a fundamental part of American history and culture. Although Kurt poured effort and sweat and tears into baseball and sacrificed, he won't do it for the freedom that allowed him to play that sport. Much as I value baseball's contribution, I do not think that 19 years in baseball excuses you from your duty. Years ago, I swore this oath:
On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. -Boy Scout Oath, Lord Baden Powell
There is no reference to baseball in there per se, but it does mention God and country. Those with the capability have the responsibility.
Since I cannot say this any better, I trust to the Founding Fathers to say it for me:
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." -- Samuel Adams
Freedom came at a great price. It does not maintain itself. Everything without an investment of work tends to disorder. Entropy and chaos increase unless we resist it. What do you do? At what price will you maintain them? Do you struggle? In the end, all we have is our integrity. It is an inch and it is small, but only in that inch can men truly be free. People may think that what I offer doesn't matter very much, but JRR Tolkien through his character Frodo reminds us that even the smallest person can change the world. In that small inch of my integrity, on my honor, I set out to prove that truth, justice, and freedom are more than words and that they matter.
The Lexington Minutemen did not stand on the green contingent on whether they thought they could win. They showed up anyway. I owe it to their memory, and to the memory of those who died at Tripoli, Trenton, Iwo Jima, Gettysburg, Fallujah, Wonsan, Chihuahua, Omaha Beach, Grenada, New Orleans, Antietem, Pearl Harbor, the Hanoi Hilton, and hundreds of other places known perhaps only to those who were there, to show up and stand fast.
Since I cannot say this any better, I trust to the Founding Fathers to say it for me:
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." -- Samuel Adams
Freedom came at a great price. It does not maintain itself. Everything without an investment of work tends to disorder. Entropy and chaos increase unless we resist it. What do you do? At what price will you maintain them? Do you struggle? In the end, all we have is our integrity. It is an inch and it is small, but only in that inch can men truly be free. People may think that what I offer doesn't matter very much, but JRR Tolkien through his character Frodo reminds us that even the smallest person can change the world. In that small inch of my integrity, on my honor, I set out to prove that truth, justice, and freedom are more than words and that they matter.
The Lexington Minutemen did not stand on the green contingent on whether they thought they could win. They showed up anyway. I owe it to their memory, and to the memory of those who died at Tripoli, Trenton, Iwo Jima, Gettysburg, Fallujah, Wonsan, Chihuahua, Omaha Beach, Grenada, New Orleans, Antietem, Pearl Harbor, the Hanoi Hilton, and hundreds of other places known perhaps only to those who were there, to show up and stand fast.
"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." --Captain John Parker, Lexington Militia, 19 April 1775
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