Guest Opinion: Needed - Colonial Courage

True men the likes of John Hancock or John of the Cross or John the Baptist... say what they mean.

DETROIT (Catholic Online) - When I hear the term "Founding Fathers," I can't help but think of the men whose names are at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. I can make out vaguely what Thomas Jefferson looked like if I pull a nickel from my pocket. But it's just a silhouette. We have a few paintings, but no photographs of him and the other 55 signers. Instead, we're left with traces of ink boldly stained in parchment that we can still see today. Those signatures are more telling, it seems, than any portraits could ever describe. Each personalized rendering of the owner's name uniquely bound every single one of them to a bigger cause.

I'm sure that experts in handwriting analysis could help us understand the men a bit more clearly. Perhaps the particular way of crossing a T or the beginning stroke of a capital letter could say whether the man was more this way or that way in his personality or in his thinking. Regardless, their thoughts - and hearts -- were forever forged in writing that day, and it precipitated a daring act that would change the world. It was the separation by a group of citizens from a tyrannical foe, and the first step toward establishing a democracy that lasts to this day. They spelled it out beautifully, and the words remain behind glass in the National Archives as proof of what they told.

Politicians can learn much from the straightforwardness of those men. Those leading our country today don't declare their steadfast intentions as daringly as our Founders did. Today's politicians sound courageous. They even speak proudly of a transparency of their intentions and aims. But what is written and posted one moment in untouchable digital text is changed, replaced, or deleted the next.

Because of their reliance on the internet and the ever-morphing media, our leaders today have become who they think we want them to be. Their identity--put up for all to see on variously sized screens--is the sum of polls and surveys. They're often not the real people we thought we voted for, the ones we assumed would stand at the forefront of our nation's representation to govern and direct us. Rather, they've turned into shifting followers--slaves really--of a popular culture and our latest forms communication.

We can't believe their words anymore. When they really do use ink, they scribble out their autographs quickly on insane legislation that no one truly understands. Hiding behind teleprompters and pre-planned press briefings, they tell us more about their sub-group's agenda or their Party's speechwriter than about their own personal opinions on matters of significance.

On the evening news shows, we're tormented with a million interpretations of what the "experts" think our leaders mean to say. We're often left to settle for replayed video of gestures and body-language to determine if they are telling the truth or lying to the lenses.

A piece (http://www.powerlineblog.com/) written by a professor, Dr. Paul Rahe of Hillsdale College, takes notice of what the current American Father and leader of our nation is saying when he appears before the masses. No, not with his flowery speeches or his emailed video-grams, but with the motions and signals he gives. Dr. Rahe's piece confirmed what I already hunched.

During and after last fall's campaign and election, my wife laughed at me as I yelled at the television set when I thought I saw something rather strange.
"Did you see that?!" I screamed. "I think he just flipped off McCain!!!"

"Rewind it," she said. With our new digital cable and the DVR that came with, I replayed it.

"There! Right there!! Just like he did to Hillary," I screamed again. "See it?"

"You sure?" she asked. "He's not that juvenile, is he?"

The McCain flip-off came just months after he gave the same signal to Mrs. Clinton after defeating her in the primaries. That one, I thought, was more noticeable. I admit, I relished a moment of glee as I saw one candidate I didn't like communicate in the language of the irreverent to another. My chuckle was childish.

After the moment's pleasure, however, I felt old. I felt like my dad. I thought to myself--imitating in my mind the way he would say it aloud-- 'what is this world coming to?'

I realized then that America had elected its first child to the White House. That's not meant as an insult--just a statement of fact. Those gestures are something a man would never think about giving. Men don't play such games, especially at such historic moments as victory speeches.

True men, the likes of John Hancock or John of the Cross or John the Baptist... they say what they mean and mean what they say. They look an opponent--defeated or not--straight in the eye and speak what they are thinking.

I have boys. And I remember when I was one myself. I know what boys do--especially clever ones--when they force you to figure out what they're thinking, rather than telling you directly. When we're in the backyard playing ball, my eight year old falls down in a heap pretending a train just ran over him when he really means to say, "Hey Dad, don't throw to me too close inside the plate because I'm young and afraid of getting hit by a pitch."

A boy becomes a man when he learns the lessons that fathers teach, and fathers--the ones that try--do not teach their sons to be sneaky when they communicate. They don't teach their sons how to insult people. Rather, fathers teach sons how to carry out the role of manhood. Good ones often do so by example. John Hancock was a great Founding Father simply because of the example he gave on paper. His huge signature spoke volumes to those who saw it. It said, "Look, here I am, in ink, bravely and boldly declaring my unity with the rest of my brothers." It was a time of war, don't forget. By his courage to write so large, he was telling a tyrant in no uncertain terms, "If you wish to send your army after us for this, notice me first, and let me be the first one die fighting."

The decision by those Fathers to sign a paper was not popular--especially with those who held power back then. Sound decisions made by men who lead in difficult times usually aren't popular. That is one of the difficult duties of being a leader and a father. Popularity means that the populace, or your kids, always like you. It means that they're pleased with you now--in the transitory moment--and that you, in turn, are comforted by their affection.

Difficult decisions made in hard times are uncomfortable, and are usually more appreciated by historians when the wisdom of the decision isn't clouded over by fleeting emotions of the now.

These are times when wise decisions for our nation have to be made. These are not times for flipping off one's fellow American leaders. These are times when people need to be listening to good, sound directives based on solid counsel "sought from every wise man," as the Book of Proverbs tells us.

These aren't times to listen to the whines of gay men who threaten to close their purses and throw hissy fits, even after courts and elected proposals have declared the wrongness of their desire to legitimize sodomy. This isn't a moment in history to believe aging female baby-boomers whose political rankings, along with their hot flashes, have nearly convinced everyone with their chicken-little shouts that "the earth is warming, the earth is warming."

And this certainly isn't the time to send taxpayers' money overseas to fund population control and abortion. Professor Rahe's observations conclude that our President is angry. What leader wouldn't be if he was bound and held by party loyalty to placate the childish sub-groups that paid for his victory as they nag him on all sides at such serious moments in world history?

We are facing many tyrants in our world. Here at home, the most savage tyrant hails from the cult of self. Within that cult, the "me" is held in higher esteem than the "we," and all authority is questioned and rejected--even if it is a rightful and good authority.

As Christians we have to re-teach the adult children among us how to act and behave and live in a civilized society. We have Scripture and the Church behind us as our rightful and good authority. We also have great examples in the "we" of the saints who have shown us time and again that society is better off when the selfish desires of the "me" are replaced by a love for the "you."

We may not be liked when we admonish and correct. We may even be flipped off. But like our Founding Fathers, we have to stand up for what is right and good. What is right and good comes from God. And strange as it sounds to the children of this world, it's by bending our will to the authority of God--not to the power of tyrants or lobbyists--that we gain our true independence as human persons.

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Len Gutmann lives in the Detroit area. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and is active in his parish's pro-life group. A carpenter and the father of four, he writes with the support of his wife, and at the behest of JPII's call to work for the new evangelization.

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