Optimism

We have all heard definitions of an optimist.

“A pessimist says that a glass of water is half empty. An optimist says that it is half full”.

The little boy who is always an optimist about everything, so his parents decide to cure him by giving him a room full of manure for Christmas. With a joyful whoop, the little fellow starts digging in the pile. “With all of this manure, there has to be a pony here”.

And my favorite: “a pessimist says that there is a little bad in every woman. An optimist says ‘I certainly hope so’ “.

So with optimism in mind, let us think about our country.

The Fourth of July is celebrated as our country’s birthday. Some brave men got together and hammered out a declaration that changed the world. John Adams, later to become our country’s first vice president and its second president, said that we should celebrate this day with “speeches and feasting and fireworks”. Most of us do just that.

But on this Fourth of July I sat in a church, and I heard the speaker bemoan the condition of our country, charging off its problems to the failure of our people to recognize that the Creator influenced those brave men that signed our Declaration. He castigated our politics and our way of life and called for us to return, in essence, to the “good days” of history when all was well and straight and true.

It was fine to be reminded of these things. But as I listened I thought about our country’s history.

I have been a student of this history for most of my life. I know, for instance, that the decision to break away from England was by no means unanimous. I know that our American Civil War could have been averted if men of good will had listened to each other and had been willing to work out peacefully the problems of slavery and foreign trade and states’ rights. I know that, from day one, the press (or the media, as we call it now) has been one-sided,leaning one way or the other, and trying to influence either the people or those folks in office.

I know that there have always been folks who have extraordinary influence with politicians, and who have used that influence for their own personal well being.



I know that each president, except for those who died in office early, has been castigated by his political opponents, as ours is today, and as President Bush was a few years ago, and as our next one will be. The latest finger pointing was just last week, when President Obama removed the commanding general from Afghanistan. We forget, or some of us may not know, that one of the strengths of our country lies in the civilian control of our military. Truman removed General McArthur in Korea, who had been a hero of World War II. Lincoln removed General McClellan, who wasn’t much of a general, and who also had political ambitions, much like McArthur’s. Franklin Roosevelt fired General Short and Admiral Kimmel after Pearl Harbor had been attacked, even though he was as much at fault as anyone for the Japanese military success.

We blame a president for profligate spending of our people’s dollars, when we should know that the Congress must appropriate the money, and we (speaking collectively) want our representatives to “bring home the bacon” in the form of special projects for our town or county or state.

We blame a president for treaties signed with foreign powers, and we forget that the Senate must approve each treaty.

We blame the Congress for passing improper laws, when we ourselves do not bother to protest or to track and criticize the members except near election times.

In spite of all this, I am an optimist about our country and its future. After all, our country is only two hundred and thirty four years old, a span not quite three times my own age. It is possible that I could have shaken the hand of a man who shook the hand of a Signer of the Declaration of Independence!

In 1953 I was privileged to see the musical “South Pacific” on Broadway. It still had most of its original cast. It was grandly and beautifully staged, and to a Southern boy it was magical.

“South Pacific” was a love story and a war story and a story of intrigue and a protest against racism, all happening on a small island in the midst of a huge ocean. And in one song Mary Martin stepped center stage and sang “I am only a cock-eyed optimist, immature and incurably green, but I am stuck like a dope, with a thing called hope, and I can’t get it out of my head”.

So here I am, an optimist stuck with a thing called hope, believing in my country and feeling that we will recover from whatever ails us and we will get better and better.

As soon as we throw the rascals out!