Once in every generation a noble cause emerges which demands a certain sacrifice of individual aspirations so that a greater good might be achieved.  Such in fact was the very origins of our country – freemen from all walks of life pledged their reputations, their fortunes and their lives to give to us, their posterity, the gift of freedom. If we hope to offer this heritage of freedom to our future generations, we kid ourselves if we think it will cost us no less generosity in sacrifice.
   Sacrifice can be good, however, only if it is the right kind of sacrifice. President Obama has been clear about his intention to demand sacrifice as integral to his presidency.  In the latest stimulus packabe, Obama and Congress have asked an unprecedented hundreds of billions of dollars of the American people for pay backs to Democrat Party constituents.  The amount of money is so staggering that I cannot imagine how we will pay it back except by 1970s style inflation.  Anyone with the courage to question whether such a cost is justified is accused of endangering the economy. But not only do democrats demand this kind of sacrifice. The republican governor of California is imposing sacrifices on businesses and families that are so great, many are needing to leave their communities for new homes elsewhere in the country.   What happens in California is often a precursor for the rest of the country.  Are the sacrifices being asked of Americans today rational -- that is are they the right kind of sacrifice?

  Unless we understand what we are giving up and whether the purpose of this offering is noble, our sacrifice is irrational. It is always the irrational elements within a society which destroy its culture and civilization.   It is irrational to make sacrifices that reinforce immoral behavior and attitudes.  This was the lesson learned after losing the 1960s war on poverty.   We spent and spent to solve the problem of the poor - only to have more poor with worse kinds of poverty.  Our sacrifices then came to be seen as so irrational that even Bill Clinton supported Welfare reform.  Sadly, we have forgotten this lesson and as a nation, turned back to the irrational.

   Part of this turn to the irrational is the dismay of Americans and many other people of good will throughout the world. We are turned inward, questioning our achievements and purpose.  This is because we have let the media spin the myth of failure.   Made aware only of our mistakes, we have no sense of what has been achieved in recent years.  When we cannot see the truth, we turn in on ourselves and lose courage.  A better assessment of what we have lived through needs to be taken up. 

   I think that this is precisely where the intellectual defenders of our American heritage have a clear responsibility.  We need a new generation of intellectuals who clearly identify and compellingly present our guiding principles in such wise so as to counter this naval gazing. Notwithstanding the inevitable failures which are part of every human enterprise, what noble achievements did our rational sacrifices provide for since the out break of the War on Terror?   But here is the rub: seeing what is good in a situation requires a lot more intellectual work than seeing what is evil.   The fact is, main stream media does not have to invest in intellectual work to be entertaining as long as it is pulling everyone down.   Those in the media who really want to be patriots need to renounce the easy route and find our new intellectuals and invest in them.  Only with the vantage of understanding our heritage, we will understand what sacrifices are really needed to find a better way forward.