Glory and failure!

Tuesday – August 9, 2011

Glory and failure!

I sat down today and I thought long and hard about what to write. Can’t say there isn’t anything in the news. Can’t say that I couldn’t make a case for what is in the news, good and bad. Can’t say that I don’t put words on paper, after two years, I think I have proven that I can.

So what can we discuss or what can you read that hopefully contains something that you can take away and share?

Let’s start with a bit of history. On today’s date, in 1790, the ship Columbia returned home to Boston after a three year journey. This ship’s story is now hidden in the pages of history, but it had a glorious past. It was the first ship to sail the great oceans of the world with the U.S. flag flying, as it cut through the waves, as its captain circumnavigated the sea.

The ships captain, Robert Gray (May 10, 1755 – c. July, 1806), was an American merchant sea-captain who is known for his achievements in connection with two trading voyages to the northern Pacific coast of North America, between 1790 and 1793, which pioneered the American maritime fur trade in that region. In the course of those voyages, Gray explored portions of that coast and, in 1790, completed the first American circumnavigation of the world. Perhaps his most remembered accomplishment from his explorations was his coming upon and then naming of the Columbia River, in 1792 while on his second voyage.

This story is a story that started with a dream and ended in glory. The journey was not a failure. The journey created the routes of commerce that helped open our nation’s trade routes to the world. It also demonstrated to the world that our nation, after its recent victory of the Revolution, was a nation on the move. It demonstrated that a new great American tradition of exploration was about to begin with a new flag atop its mast.

I am wondering today as I write this FORUM what stories of glory do we have to tell our kids today, our grand kids or any body that will listen. The story of glory in our nation is becoming one of lost murky tales that always fault the American tradition instead of building upon that great tradition of our glory.

Just this month alone the market has crashed. We are finding out more about the extra cost of the Healthcare plan that many of us opposed. These extra costs will only contribute to the soaring deficit that is now impeding future stories of glory that will be replaced with future stories of failure. Our military has suffered a great loss that will take years to overcome with the deaths of 22 Navy Seals from the glory filled Seal Team 6. This month has seen a president go on the defensive with blaming everything and everyone else for this nation’s financial downgrade. Just today, we are learning that there will be a Senate inquiry into the S&P downgrade. Just today, the president’s team has released its strategy of how they will destroy Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican Candidate for President.

This month we have heard the president blame the world and our recent economic meltdown on a Tsunami and other natural disasters. The only disaster that has been caused is by the man who coined the term man made disasters.

Today, we have learned that a new Gallop Poll has 51% of registered voters saying that the president does not deserve re-election.

We have witnessed the failure of our government and our leaders to challenge NASA with a goal and a mission that would have guaranteed our nation’s foothold and continued footprint in space. Instead, our nation will hitch hike a ride into space on a Russian space ship. This is not glory, this is failure at it’s highest levels. Where and how is the American flag going to wave in the future?

Many in the country have not felt that glorious feeling of being able to go out and get that job that was advertised or that they heard about through the grape vine. That grape vine does not exist and that is a failure. Instead, they feel failure when they have no where to turn. Our economy is now being propped up artificially with low interest rates to artificially sustain the economy with more artificial federal buying of our own securities. This is not glory this is the failure of a big government.

Many are blaming Congress. Many are blaming the Tea Party. Let’s look at who is really to blame. Let’s start asking the right questions and looking for the right truth to be told. The path to glory is a hard climb. But the path to failure is one that should never be walked upon.
Glory is being free to create wealth and do with wealth as you please. Failure is having your wealth assessed as punishment for being successful. Social justice when it is used to even out the outcomes based on equal opportunities is a failure. Glory is accepting opportunities and making them better opportunities for those who need a real break.

Ask yourself why do we accept failure and why not demand glory? That is what our flag stood for in 1790. It’s time we search for a way to make it wave a little easier.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: Failure and glory are sometimes two things that stand together side by side. Failure and glory is something you choose. When the path to failure is consciously chosen, you have to accept the results even if every one is questioning the results. When the path to glory is chosen, there will be no question about accepting the results.