Copyright © 2009 Ed Bagley
My prayer for you, President Barack Obama, is that you will be able to answer the call of solitude when it beckons.
It has been such a tumultuous start to your presidency. You came with an open mind, a clear conscience and a good heart. It may well have been your intention to make every decision in your presidency with right thinking and right motives. You have now discovered that the very people you trust can make it otherwise.
Unfortunately, you cannot implement all of your ideas without the help of thousands of people, few of which, if any, you can control. You can control yourself; the others may not be as malleable. They have their own agendas, their own turf to protect, and their own march to prominence to think about.
You surely appreciate that first job of government is not to serve others; it is to perpetuate its existence by first financing its activities and programs so that it is in a position to do so. That is part of the problem—government and its architects serve themselves much better than they serve their constituents.
For example, the same government architects that design a retirement program for their constituents design a better one for themselves. This priority of self-centeredness has made career politicians wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. You, Mr. President, are just as susceptible of falling into this abyss.
You have put your trust and confidence in people to help you on your journey to a new tomorrow and some have already disappointed you. Perhaps they do not have the same moral and ethical fiber that you do. Perhaps their agendas are more self-centered than other-centered.
If curing our nation's economy was as simple as spending our way to recovery, you have succeeded marvelously. It was Lincoln, you will remember, who created the national banking system with the National Banking Act in 1863, resulting in a standardized currency.
Consider too, for a moment, this admonition from President Thomas Jefferson: "I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt."
You are an admirer of President Abraham Lincoln. Consider these words by Lincoln as he struggled to keep our nation together during the Civil War:
"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time."
"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" Yes, Lincoln, a Republican, said that, and he also said this:
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
In such turbulent times, it might be wise to revisit some thoughts by President Ronald Reagan, who guided our nation through an earlier recession:
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this Earth is a government program."
"The Taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book."
"I have wondered at times about the what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U. S. Congress."
"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
Amen, President Reagan, amen.
M. D. Garbrick had this to say about humanity's problems: "Should one look through a red glass at a white lily, he would seem to see a red lily. But there would be no red lily. So it is with humanity's problems. They consist of false mental pictures."
When the tumult and the shouting of special interests becomes too loud to bear, President Obama, I pray that you will answer the call when solitude beckons.
Many times he who talks a lot says little. Silence is a true friend that never betrays. Silence makes no mistakes. Thought works in silence; so does virtue. While all of these thoughts on silence are great, here is an even greater one: It is in silence that we find ourselves.
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