Public Virtue

Who feels like our freedoms are being taken away and feels hopeless about it? Who is tired of the political climate of our country? Who is saying, “Something needs done!” about all this?

Its 3:52 am and I have been stewing for nearly an hour. My thoughts have turned to what Skousen referred to as Public Virtue (5000 Year Leap p.50). This past week a drunk driving neighbor drove through our neighborhood causing significant damage to 3 of the 5 properties she drove through. This event took place between 2 and 3 am. Had it happened 12 hours sooner she would most certainly have killed several of the 15+ children who live and play in the area she drove through.

So what do freedom and the drunk driver have to do with Public Virtue? Everything! Those who are silently trying to live a good life need to start to speak up and Lead a good life.

If you know someone who regularly drives drunk tell them to stop or you will turn them in and then follow through (the drunk neighbor's roommate did not do this).

If you really don’t like to hear dirty jokes or a lot of swearing in the work place Stand Up for yourself and say so, then support your words by the action of walking away. If you have to do this often - just do it!

If you squirm with discomfort at a graphic scene in a play you are watching (and the playwrights directions don’t specify that kind of a scene, nor was there a warning provided to the audience) then do as my friend did. Write a letter to the producers of the play, request a change stating why and that you would go again and tell others to go if the change happens or the opposite if no change occurs.

If you want to bring your children to a bookstore but find when you do they have unsavory displays on the way to the children’s section talk to a manager requesting the displays not be shown on the path to the children’s section. Have your likeminded friends do the same.

Stop listening to the rhetoric that, “Well, if you don’t like it don’t go there”, etc. If you buy into that then pretty soon there will be no place to go! So stop smiling and nodding your head in conformity to what you know is not good and Stand Up and say something! That is what Public Virtue is and our founding Fathers knew this. “Virtue has to be earned and it has to be learned…It has to be cultivated continually and exercised…” (p.55). When we start speaking out to those in our circle of influence then we can make a difference in our community and eventually our Country for “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters” ( p. 49).

I’m not saying it will be easy, I’m not comfortable stepping on peoples toes. But you know what, the people who have no public virtue don’t hesitate to stomp on my toes. So I hope you will join with me and Stand Up and Speak Out for virtue, good principles, and true freedom. The time for silent conformity needs to end and the renewal of Public Virtue needs to begin.