The three great virtues, listed in the New Testament,
are "faith, hope and charity." In my Catholic youth, I was taught that
"the greatest of these is charity."
No one said it, but I'm beginning to suspect that "the least of these is
hope."
Nevertheless, I want to be wholly virtuous, so here goes:
• I hope that
there will be peace on Earth.
Just because there hasn't been peace since life began is no reason not
to hope that it will happen soon!
• I hope that our nation,
unlike the Roman Empire, survives -- despite media bread and circuses,
the national debt and trade deficit, political correctness, a young
population unaware of our history and Constitution, open borders,
dysfunctional homeland security, and an Islamic jihad aimed right at us.
• I hope that our
commonwealth survives, despite the sense that our ship of state has been
sinking for a while. The rats are thriving, especially in Boston, but
productive citizens are escaping in droves.
Deval Patrick sold hope and the majority of voters bought it without
demanding much in the way of details. So, now are we to hope that we get
an invitation to some of the more exclusive events that are part of his
$1.5-million inaugural celebration? Would that satisfy the hope urge?
Can the rest of us hope his ego doesn't eventually insist on human
sacrifice and, like Caligula, a catered wedding for his horse?
• I hope that Proposition 2½
survives so that uncontrolled property taxes don't take too much of our
Social Security checks as we age. Of course I also hope that Social
Security and other pension plans survive the refusal of politicians to
face their deficits and unfunded liabilities.
• I hope we individuals
survive the coming Medicare, Medicaid and general health-care crises as
the population ages.
• I hope the planet survives
overpopulation, asteroids, nuclear weapons, shifting magnetic poles and,
of course, global warming.
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking recently said, "I don't think the human
race will survive the next thousand years." Well ... well ... I hope
he's wrong!
There, I've done my part about all of the above. I hoped with all my
heart. You're welcome.
Hope has often been a political ploy. You can track its popularity in my
political lifetime: Ronald Reagan made us all feel good about America
and made us hope for the fall of communism. Of course he backed this up
with action, and this hope was realized.
George H.W. Bush had no time for "the vision thing," of which hope is a
part, so the voters rejected him in favor of Bill Clinton, who,
serendipitously, was from "a little town called Hope." He, and then
George W. Bush, had a lot of us hoping that there could be, one way or
another, after thousands of years, peace in the Middle East. This
doesn't seem to be working out.
Here is my theory about hope: It's a kind of knee-jerk response to
disgust. The Democrats just took over Congress because almost everyone
was disgusted with the Republicans and hoped, for no reason based on the
country's past history, that the Democrats will be better.
Here in Massachusetts, after Michael Dukakis, whose touted "Miracle"
turned out to be "Illusion," voters hoped for something different and we
can all agree, Bill Weld was different. But like Reagan, he ran on a
clearly articulated agenda. Now voters get excited about Deval Patrick
and Barak Obama just because they use the word "hope" a lot.
It helps that we have no history for them. We can look at the brand-new
guy and see whatever we hope to see.
Liberals saw someone in Patrick who would restore old programs and
create new ones. Other voters saw "change." None of them addressed the
real problem -- the existing Legislature -- by changing faces there,
however. I predict that in two years all the incumbents, secure in their
seats anyhow, will copy the Patrick model and talk about nothing but
hope during the election.
They are already using the Patrick technique of saying something nice
about an opponent before attacking. We'll be hearing "you're better than
that" until we want to ... scream?
No, we've become too passive to scream. We'll hear it and we'll "hope"
they stop saying it.
Having been around a while, I see patterns in most politics. Iraq is
becoming like Vietnam, where we didn't fight to win, and, consequently,
lost.
In Massachusetts, voters elected a reformer in Mike Dukakis, in 1974. He
soon disappointed his liberal base by cutting services, then angered
everyone else by breaking his pledge not to raise taxes.
I already hear liberals expressing their disappointment in Patrick's
first priority -- his wildly expensive inauguration -- as the state
begins to face certain economic realities. Don't ask me what he'll do
about them: His transition team isn't allowed to talk to the press. Just
kiss "openness" good-bye and hope for the best.
Well, fortunately, I don't have to do anything about all this: I hope,
therefore I am, and that's enough. Now I can relax and enjoy the
holidays. Hope you can do the same.
Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation. Her syndicated columns appear weekly in the Salem
News and other Eagle Tribune newspapers; bi-weekly in the Tinytown
Gazette; and occasionally in the Lowell Sun, Providence [RI] Journal and
other newspapers.