Having had a week to reflect on Utah’s recent Primary races
and talk with friends, family and neighbors about the outcomes, I know
unequivocally that I supported the right men and woman in these
races—regardless of whether they won or lost.
As I dig a little deeper trying to make sense of why good
people have a harder time winning and the psyche of the average American voter, I cling
to a helpful mantra I heard about from a good friend. I return to it quite often
these days:
It’s a marathon, not a sprint!
The Fourth of July seems a perfect day to pay homage to this
particular mantra.
Sometimes the good fight just takes a little longer than expected. After all, it took centuries
of misrule to break the camel’s back for the colonies but it did finally happen
and the birth of the United States and the U.S. Constitution won the endgame.
While it appears from Justice Robert’s recent Obamacare
ruling, President Obama’s executive orders that seemingly silence
immigration law, AG Holder’s “Fast and Furious” crap shoot, and the
current administration’s subversive national security leaks that the idea of
"desperate times call for desperate measures" seems like the appropriate dictate, I would warn against heading down this path.
As I stood yesterday in my kitchen listening to my teenage
son and his friends discuss their fall school debate schedule, how the
Obamacare ruling would likely be the debate-topic de jour, and talk about a friend’s recent humanitarian trip to Haiti and how thankful this friend was to
be back in the United States after experiencing the destitution and anarchy of Port-au-Prince, it occurred to me that the American Dream might be broken for the
moment but it’s far from dead.
In fact, this dream of freedom and hope seems more today than ever before like a global necessity.
What this kitchen conversation cemented in my mind was the thought
that no matter how battered our country, its Constitution and the political
environment may appear to be at this moment in history, “American individualism”
and the right to freedom that comes with this ideology mindset has been hardwired into
Americana DNA for hundreds of years.
For this, I am thankful and hopeful that come November 2012
our country, Utah included, will be sprinting down Heartbreak Hill toward the marathon finish
line.
