The kind of courage required for this

This has not been a good winter.  Sure, I'm current with my bills, my in-basket stays full of magazine work, music work and teaching work, and my family and friends are the delight they've always been.

But you know what I mean.  The bleakness  besetting Western civilization has gained a grim momentum.  It's present on very front, from economics to world-stage threats to the arts to human sexuality.  Then there is the mockery of the emboldened Left, whose "who-cares-what-you-losers-have-to-say" taunts and dismissals in comment threads and chats and face-to-face encounters does not in fact ring hollow.  The question of who indeed does care is front and center among our concerns.

So I'm never far from giving up these days.

That's why Dana Loesch's remembrance of Andrew Breitbart on the first anniversary of his death was like manna to me.  It was a swat upside the head.  She was saying to the likes of me, "You stand for things that are good, right and true, and you're not alone.  Do not quit standing for them."

Ive added emphasis to what I feel is the key line of this excerpt:

Be there for each other. If you agree on 80% but disagree on 20%, fine. Whatever. Stick together to accomplish that 80 and when you’ve accomplished that then fight over the rest. Don’t give up on each other. Don’t throw each other to the wolves as a substitute for the bravery required to stand and fight. You don’t have to love one another, but you do have to work together. Promote each other. Recommend one another. Support the up and coming generation. Others must take over when you can no longer fight this multi-generational struggle, so encourage them for your own sake and for the sake of your children. Don’t leave the next generation defenseless because you couldn’t sacrifice your ego.  Maintaining a strong community means no one has to alone carry the burden of “rodeo clown.” More voices, not less. Andrew understood this like few others. No one has to fear repercussions for speaking up, speaking out, speaking loudly.

Bracing stuff, no?  What a way to start a Sunday morning and a week.

The perfect moment for returning to first principles:

The God of the Holy Bible is the author not only of the visible universe, but of moral law.

The free market is the only real economic system.   All others fail.

Males and females are fundamentally different and any talk of "equality" between them must take into account their particular characteristics.

The most commonly held notion of what a family is - a man, a woman, and any children they conceive or adopt - is the best social unit in human history for learning virtue and wisdom.

The United States of America, being the peak distillation of the best qualities of Western civilization, is far and away the most righteous and essential nation-level political entity in the history of the world.

Evil exists and must be confronted.


There.  Re-stating that has definitely had a re-charging effect.

Yes, I'm sad that some of my friendships, some going back over fifty years, are probably irreparably frayed.  Yes,   I'm discouraged that certain career paths aren't open to me because of my unwillingness to keep quiet.  Yes, the task before us is Herculean in scope.

So be it.  There's one more fact that is more important than any of those considerations:  I will not live in a world where the opposite of what I stand for prevails.