Consistent. Principled. Action.

Friends,

1) The county just received the Gold Leadership Circle Award, the highest award for government transparency from the State Comptroller, Susan Combs. Collin County gained a perfect score on the criteria.

2) I have been quiet during the health care debate, just doing my part as you have. Now that it is law, the eventual outcome depends on the response by citizens to entitlements versus taxes and debt. Will more government handouts trump freedom? Now that the bill is law, you will hear a great deal from politicians who promise "more."

The idea that democracy is fragile, yet strong has been discussed through the centuries.

Thucydides, a Greek historian centuries before Christ, supposedly articulated a general idea of our representative republic form of government somewhat along the lines, "Democracy satisfies best the human thirst for freedom; yet being undisciplined, turbulent, and luxury-seeking, it falls time and again to austere single-minded despotism."

I have been looking at the history of a phrase used by both Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan in reference to the United States, "the last best hope on earth."

In his speech, A Time for Choosing, in 1964, Reagan said, "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

Thomas Sowell is a reasoned and calm voice and is a "must read" columnist for me. He is not given to sensationalism. Yet he believes that "the 2010 election may be the last chance to halt the dismantling of America. It can be the point of no return." You can read his entire article at http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/03/23/a_point_of_no_return . Can the point of no return for our country be only seven months away?

The 2010 election may be our rendezvous with history. The animating contest of freedom continues - we are in the vortex of extraordinary times.

Sincerely,
Keith

Friends, as the long and contentious battle against a staggering loss of national freedom known as health care reform reaches the point of decision, I want to remember the first inaugural speech of Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 20, 1953. It is a great speech, set against the backdrop of World War II and the Korean conflict.

General/President Eisenhower opened with a prayer, then spoke of faith and freedom and sacrifice in the new world in which the United States found herself. Toward the end of the speech, he said, "We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."

"You can read the entire speech at http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres54.html .

Although the intervening years show that President Eisenhower was too optimistic about the United Nations, he spoke in soaring terms about our own nation,

"We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. These basic precepts are not lofty abstractions, far removed from matters of daily living. They are laws of spiritual strength that generate and define our material strength. Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry. Moral stamina means more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of liberty means the guarding of every resource that makes freedom possible - from the sanctity of our families and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists."

"For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." Let us heed the lessons of history.

Sincerely,
Keith