Moments of Clarity

My brother, a paramedic with the Seattle Fire Department, recently gave a speech at a Lincoln Day Dinner sponsored by the King County GOP. He makes a couple of very interesting points, which I think you will all enjoy.

MOMENTS OF CLARITY
Miki Mann, Paramedic, Seattle Fire Department
2010 King County GOP, Lincoln Day Dinner

It was a cold and overcast day in November of 2006 when Nathan exhibited the kind of bravery only seen in an intoxicated twenty-six year-old trying to impress his girlfriend. In preparation for the deed, Nathan had consumed a large amount of alcohol and a sampling of the club drug ecstasy (A drug used to dancing and intended to improve the vertical performance of a horizontal desire). While walking along the waterfront, Nathan had decided to demonstrate his virility by removing his shoes and diving into the frigid waters of the Puget Sound with the stated goal of swimming nearly two miles to Alki beach.

Despite his overarching enthusiasm Nathan’s pace began to slow at 50 yards and, finally, at 75 yards he simply stopped and began treading water while shouting lines from Bravehart to his audience on the pier.

The fireboat dingy arrived quickly and assisted the young stallion to safety. Still brimming with bravado Nathan was placed into the back of our Medic Unit where we replaced his cold, wet clothing with warm blankets and began the process of examination. With every vital signs Nathan would emphasize how GREAT he felt; “Heart rate 90, ” we advised….”see, I’m fine;” “Blood pressure 132/84”…..”Strong as an ox!” This is the way it went all the way to the hospital.

Arriving in the emergency room at Harborview Nathan continued to bathe in the glory of attention as a whole new series of validating vital signs were verbalized. Heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, lung sounds. In a concluding gesture, the examining nurse announced his temperature of 37 degrees to the charting nurse on the other side of the room.

A look of sobriety descended upon Nathan as he fingered me over to his bed side. As you may have guessed, Nathan had not made the intellectual leap between Celsius and Fahrenheit when he politely asked for some more warm blankets and whispered with a great deal of concern:

"isn’t it supposed to be 90-something?"

I am a Republican because I believe that we are at war. Not at war with fundamentalist Islam, not with the Democrats, not with illegal immigrants, and not with the present administration. These simply confuse the effect with its cause. They are merely fronts on a greater war; A war which represents an existential threat to our country. The enemy, I believe, is ignorance.

In Orwellian fashion, a large portion of this generation has fallen for the lullaby of progressive propaganda. Like Odysseus they are mesmerized by the song of the Sirens yet unlike Odysseus they have failed to tie themselves to the mast.

In a world in which the government is our mother, people become immune to the hard lessons learned by the strenuous life. No longer grounded in material reality, they believe that:

• Food comes from government stamps not the soil
• Socio-economic status and not credit worthiness entitles you to a loan
  
• That we have more to fear from our own solders more than any terrorists
  

One of the least enjoyable parts of our job is when we have to inform a family member that a loved one has died. Amidst the mayhem associated with crisis, these words provide a moment of clarity. History gives us other examples such moments:

• When Regan was asked about his strategy for the cold war he simply replied: "we win, they loose" 
• Or signaling the end of the cold war, he stood before the Brandenburg gate, the very symbol of the iron curtain and said: “Mr. Gorbachev, open these gates, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”
  
• Or when Martin Luther King described in one sentence what took John Locke an entire book when he demanded to “be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.”  What a beautiful definition of liberty!
  

Events as well as speeches provide moments of clarity, remember: 

• Two passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center
• An amateur video inside an ACORN office
  
• The deafening silence in response to Andrew’s offer to pay $100,000 for anyone providing video evidence of racist remarks at the tea-party rally.
  
• An exposed exchange of emails at East-Anglia University about the manipulation of climate change data
• The election of Scott Brown
  

Yes, I am proud to be member of the Republican Party.

The party that invited the first black man (Booker T. Washington) into the White House!

The party of Fredrick Douglas (who attended the founding meeting of the party in 1854)!

The party of Martin Luther King (who registered as a republican 100 years later, in 1956)!

Democrats like to claim that they are the protectors of minorities of every stripe but it is the Republican Party which defends the rights of the smallest minority group; the one minority which has been the exclusive victim of bigotry throughout human history … the individual.

In 1835, when he was only 2 years older than Nathan, Lincoln addressed the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois and said

“All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the world in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

I believe the tool of this destruction mentioned by Abraham Lincoln, is ignorance. But, like Nathan, we can awake the stuporous with moments of clarity. If we continue, like Andrew, John, and Kirby, to educate ourselves and challenge ignorance wherever it arises, we can continue to win in this struggle to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and, perhaps, we can inspire our posterity to fight for it in their time; which they will, indeed, have to do.