“Freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.”

–Governor Ronald Reagan (Inaugural Address; January 5, 1967)

Legend has it that Roman Emperor Nero fiddled as Rome burned. I can’t say for sure. Contrary to my granddaughter’s opinion, I wasn’t around then.

True or not, it serves as a perfect metaphor for what seems to be happening in our great country today. Our executive and legislative branches fiddle away at discordant tunes of little consequence, while the music of most Americans’ lives bears little resemblance to the government’s cacophony.

Yet, it happens. And few, if any, politicians choose to call out the craziness of our day, let alone propose any legislation to better our predicament. Our Washington Google Maps has led us far off track. We need a course correction.

Before he ever resided in Washington, D.C. for eight years, then Governor Reagan was prescient enough to understand the existential danger of government run amuck. That was his concern when he governed California, and remained so when he served as our president.

Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution empowers the federal government with specific duties:

• levy taxes

• regulate commerce

• determine laws of naturalization

• establish the federal court system

• establish a military

• declare war

Every president swears to uphold that document, and should then be expected to first and foremost secure our national safety from threats both foreign and domestic.

While everything else is left to the states in our federalist system, we’ve repeatedly violated that concept. The result? A federal behemoth of bureaucracy, regulation, and oversight.

I wonder if many of us who don’t drift too far right or left of center are closer in spirit to the Libertarian concept of government than we are to a Democrat or Republican perspective.

I suggest this to encourage us all to pay close attention to our respective candidates’ positions, regardless of the parenthetical initial following their names. Had you voted for former Representative Tulsi Gabbard in the 2020 Presidential Primary, you’d have cast your vote for a Democrat. Yet, last week, when she announced her departure from that party, she espoused beliefs that any true Republican could endorse and many mainstream Democrats would likely embrace.

What’s my point? Not all Democrats are wacko progressives and not all Republicans are far-right fascists. There are reasonable people in both of those parties–even officeholders in D.C.; they just aren’t the loudest voices. We need to elect people who will “walk the walk of the talk they talked” during the campaign, not people who capitulate to every whim of their respective party’s leaders.

While I’m not as fearful of freedom’s extinction as President Reagan warned, I do see his point. America might not be extinguished, but it could morph into something that’s no longer “your father’s Buick.” Our democracy is threatened when:

• lawlessness is tolerated

• law enforcement officers are denigrated

• criminals are treated with kid gloves

• the highest court in the land is derided

• our energy policy is in crisis mode

• our international standing is weakened with our allies and mocked by our enemies

• our borders more resemble sieves than obstacles to illegal entry

• our citizens are pitted against each other because everything is simplistically blamed on and reduced to systemic racism

• inflation is at its highest level since the Carter Administration

As President Andrew Shepherd said in The American President (I know it’s Hollywood, but it works here!), “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.” Was there ever a time than now when that statement was more true?

Just my opinion, but ignoring these seminal issues and, instead, staking your campaign’s path to victory on allegiance to a narcissistic former president, or planting your flag on the hill of sixty-two million killed unborn or just-born babies, seems imprudent, at best.

The same can be said for focusing on a bunch of miscreants who stormed the Capitol, or obsessing over some loser’s laptop. Neither issue polls highly in the list of things affecting everyday people like you and me.

Americans aren’t stupid. We know what’s at stake. Tell us what you’re going to do about the issues we care most about.

And then do what you say.