Darker Days

Thomas Paine

Hopelessness is the final refuge of the coward and the sluggard. No human is immune from the temptations of fear and sloth, and so we are all on occasion apt to teeter on the edge of losing that one glorious flame that holds us on course for our journey of life. Hope means work. Hope can be scary. If you believe for tomorrow, then you are obliged to prepare for it, and in all probability help bring it about. If you have hope in a future, then the future’s enemies are your enemies today. It would be easier to surrender. Easier to imagine the battle has been lost. Easier to abandon the burden of hope, and to live out our days in the melancholy ease of submission. Yet, if we do, will we not be haunted by the words of Winston Churchill and the ghosts of the martyrs who shared such sentiments?

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never– in nothing, great or small, large or petty– never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

We are not the first to face difficult times in the history of the world, or more specifically, our nation. Our country is broken. It is not the first time that has happened; it is the nature of nations to rise and fall, and hopefully rise again. Those were not easy times at the dawn of the Revolution. It must have been hard to muster hope at Valley Forge. And years later when the Brits returned to burn our Capital. What then of the rift of the Civil War, state against state, brother against brother? The Great War? That “War to end all wars”, which sadly, did no such thing. The Great Depression, The Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, Viet Nam, 9-11. We live in a day where we give up easily on broken things. It is a luxury born of our prosperity, and while it might be a reasonable choice for an inexpensive TV or air conditioner, sacred things are not so easily replaced. Marriages, institutions, liberty, our children, our future… these things may break, but they ought not be lightly tossed or given up on like an outdated cell phone or an old pair of socks.

Here in New York, many have decided it is time to vote with their feet. Florida has overtaken us in population, and states in the South like Texas are only too happy to receive our refugees. It’s hard to blame anyone for leaving, especially when they are bringing their children to a better place. Still, I have hope for the future here in New York. That hope was recently bolstered by a couple of decisions made by my district’s representative in Washington, Chris Gibson. I have not always spoken well of Mr. Gibson, but his recent actions lead me to believe that this military veteran is no “summer soldier”. Gibson faced outside money in his recent congressional district in what was supposed to be a hotly contested race. He won decisively. Upon his swearing in for his new term, Gibson announced that this would be his last term in the House, self imposing a “term limit”, even as he had promised he would when he first ran three terms ago. Free of a future in the House, he became one of the courageous few not to vote for status quo John Boehner for Speaker. Leaving the door open for “statewide” politics, it’s pretty clear that he will be running for Governor in 2018. In all likelihood Gibson has seen Cuomo’s unpopularity upstate this past election, the small chance that Cuomo would be a viable Presidential candidate in 2016, along with DiBlasio’s debacle in the City, and decided it is likely to be a perfect storm for a Republican in 2018 if things continue as they are… I know, that’s a big “if”, 2018 is a long way off, but Gibson has the biography, the gravitas, and the poltical savvy to do what Rob Astorino could not… run a viable campaign for Governor. He’s one to watch, and if he can pull it off, he may be one who could turn this state around… and from there, who knows?

IMHO: My apologies to readers outside of New York politics! Just a little local flavor to demonstrate my point. There is hope. Hope alone though, will not suffice to avert crises. Passion, strategy, wisdom, courage, and hard work; all these are needed to forge the path into the future. “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered…” Always our enemy will whisper in our ears, “Resistance is futile…”, “All is lost…”, “All light of hope is gone, the future holds only darkness…”, but allow me to end with the words that Churchill used to conclude his “Never Give In” speech:

“Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days– the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.”