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When I was a young
man, fresh from a war that I thought was just, having been pleased for
the opportunity to serve my nation, as had my father and grandfather
before me in the greater wars of their respective generations, and
having completed service in a land tragically chosen by the foes of
freedom as the site of a conflict that would divide and ravage a
beautiful indigenous people, and having spent the flower of my youth
giving of myself in a manner I thought was honorable throughout two
voluntary tours of duty during the worst years of that struggle, a small
portion of which time was shared ‘down country’ by one that would
shame my sacrifice and accuse me, and two million other young men that
shared my experience and service, of horrid crimes against humanity,
which accusations left lasting stains on my heart and painful
embarrassment, I was a Democrat. That is how my parents were raised by
their immigrant parents and all that I knew, a baby-boomer child whose
first awakening to politics was the ascent of JFK, a Catholic, as was my
family, as you might expect, my mother’s maiden name being O’Grady,
and her father a policeman in Stamford, a Connecticut suburb of New York
City, whose livelihood was most likely attributable to Irish-Democrat
patronage, and my father, half-German, half-Irish, from a family that
suffered in the Depression and found salvation through FDR, all of which
experience, though rarely articulated, being transmitted to me and my
six siblings in the ways parents inculcate their young, teaching by
example how to cope within an occasionally hostile world, which is how
the South could be in the 50’s and 60’s, on occasion, when some
therein learned that, despite your race, you held religious beliefs
considered alien and, even, dangerous to the norms and mores of the
larger society. Fresh from the war,
as I said, and being a Democrat, I immersed myself in the then
left-leaning, but now completely leftist, world of the campus, pursuing
not only studies, but dabbling in campus politics and becoming involved
in the McGovern campaign, which captured the Democrat Party by surprise,
like Howard Dean did this year, except that McGovern succeeded, using
college know-nothing kids that believed, as I did then, that they knew
all and were morally superior to all others, and yet were so astonished
and devastated when the larger society crushed our champion in the Fall
election, which defeat took years for many of us to understand, though
some never have, and some then affiliated with that edge of the party
then sought retribution by turning further left, while others, like
myself, plunged forward, maintaining intact core beliefs, perhaps
because these had already been tested more intensely by the world beyond
the campus, an experience that many on that wing have never known,
though many have spent all the intervening years indoctrinating and
seducing young, vulnerable minds with venomous visions and expressing
vituperation about those with a different outlook or belief system, so
much like the world in which I was raised. Four years later, as
a government lawyer rising in a political world teetering at the zenith
of Democrat control of local and state politics, I embraced another
idealistic candidate, the
Governor of a bordering state, who, unlike McGovern, not only surprised
the Democrat political machine, but even gathered the elements of the
FDR coalition, hiding extreme liberalism under a Southern cape, and
strode over the debris of the Nixon years to the White House. The world
coarsened in this time and the catastrophe of the war of my generation
resulted in self-destructive flagellation by Democrat foes of the
American military and intelligence agencies, nobly serving as protectors
of the front lines of freedom in a very real and dangerous world.
The new President’s idealism was a mask for naiveté, and his
so-called humanitarianism a well-intentioned emotion that led to
disastrous consequences. Iran was lost and Americans held hostage,
Afghanistan invaded by an increasingly dangerous Russian bear that now
felt unrestrained, Europe threatened by new pressures in the Soviet bloc
and appeasing leadership in France, the Middle East roiling, as always,
the economy collapsing under the stress of a devastating oil embargo,
unemployment in double-digits, and optimism fading among Americans.
Despite all these dire circumstances, Democrats were joyful that their
absolute antithesis would be the candidate for the Republican Party in
the next election, so self-deluded we had become, relishing the chance
to place our liberalism against the detestable conservatism of our
adversary, Ronald Reagan, the former Governor of California, knowing
that the American people would rise to the challenge, which they did,
though, once again, as in ’72, we were astonished and could not
believe that the American people had made, once again, such a tremendous
mistake. The intervening
years were filled with events that led to my own self-evaluation,
reconsideration of beliefs, and recognition that those beliefs were no
longer shared or supported by the Democrat Party, forcing a personal
awakening, after which I found myself an alien, once again, and came to
see, once my narcissistic and self-delusional ego was shaken, that those
whom I had long considered foes were actually the champions of many
beliefs that I dearly cherished, even though some of these former foes
would not welcome me to an organization that many therein sought to keep
limited and private, but which, whether within or at the doorstep, I
knew was the best agency for protecting and advancing these beliefs most
dear not just to me, and preserving and protecting the land that I love,
though the ties of the heart remained, and still remain, with many from
whom I departed, politically, for they believed differently, and
sincerely so, which I have always respected, though we disagree
passionately, from time to time. Now, I watch them
renting their garments as they witness, once again, the American people
taking a course they believe so wrong, and I take no joy in their
consternation and grief. I am reminded of the experiences discussed
above, and of a saying once quoted by a dear friend, that ‘insanity is
the repetition of mistakes with the expectation that the results will
change’.
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