The challenge

As I said in my first post here, I don't pretend that my writing here is likely to have any effect. I hope it will and that in combination with the work of others it might do some good. That's all anyone really should aspire to do. But I certainly did not want to do nothing or to snipe from the sidelines at the daily news of deception and incompetence without at least suggesting a way out. I want instead to advocate doing something, namely focusing our discontent into a palpable political demand.

There is no good prospect that this will come to pass. After all, the forces that usually underly popular demand are somewhat lacking. Though there are certainly excellent reasons for the majority of our people to be upset at the state of the economy and over the Administration's purposeful fiscal conduct to secure and exacerbate this situation, these concerns are mostly separate from the essence of the political and moral crisis at which my words are directed. And so, we have no equivalent of the Stamp or Townshend Acts galvanizing the well off to join with the less well off to dump tea into Boston Harbor.

Nor do we have a draft. The youth on our campuses are surely angry, and we have seen some signs (here and here, for example) of the sort of turmoil that became common during the latter years of the Vietnam War. But conscripting our youth to fight in an unpopular war is kindling for social action, and we have none. Though we revile the images on television and the accounts of the horrors faced by our soldiers and the civilians among whom they serve, most of us are safe assuming that we will not be asked to play a direct part. Were it otherwise, the streets would be filled with protest.

And so we face a great challenge. When his comfort is not already threatened, what can move a person to make demand on his rulers? While laudable, it is not the height of courage or conviction for a man to rise up and demand change when his prospect of stability is already under siege. Nearly all of us would answer the call to duty when the threat to our freedoms has blown open our own doors. No, the real patriot is the one willing to forsake comfort, when doing nothing would do no harm to his own affairs, because he wants to support or save the values that animate his country.

This is Keizer's last paragraph:
"I wrote this appeal during the days leading up to the Fourth of July. I wrote it because for the past six and a half years I have heard the people I love best—family members, friends, former students and parishioners—saying, 'I’m sick over what’s happening to our country, but I just don’t know what to do.' Might I be pardoned if, fearing civil disorder less than I fear civil despair, I said, 'Well, we could do this.' It has been done before and we could do this. And I do believe we could. If anyone has a better idea, I’m keen to hear it. Only don’t tell me what some presidential hopeful ought to do someday. Tell me what the people who have nearly lost their hope can do right now."

It's time to demand accountability. Though you need 60 Senators to pass anything of substance and 67 to override a veto, you only need 41, and maybe fewer if you're smart, to block legislation. We have the numbers to shut down this government. We will see whether those who say they are with us also have the will. That should be our goal, the 65% of us who disapprove of the Administration. Showing them, strongly, that we will stand with them, if only they will have the spine to stand with us.