COURAGE

COURAGE: THE QUALITY OF BEING BRAVE, VALOR.  Webster

The ability to be scared to death and yet still act is one of the other definitions of courage.  Courage is often ridiculed today in a world of parties, unions, pop culture.  Those that dare to do the right thing or go against the popular trend of the day are often thought of as odd.
     Yet we have young people that join up to serve the nation no matter where or when or the reason.  To serve in a military where the Comander in Chief shows little respect other than the minimum necesary.
     We have men and women that join religious organizations as clergy, teachers, lay service, and service work when the courts and ACLU claim that they cannot be proactive in their churchs or synagogues in the public view.  Concepts of religion cannot be studied in schools yet paganizm, mythology, and humanism can be.
     The founders of the Republic clearly stated in the Constitution that mixing church and state would not be acceptable because of choosing a state religion.  There is the clause freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
     In being involved in boards, organizations, and agencies over the years it always amazed me how hard it is for them to do the right thing.  Right is ignored for popular reasons, expiedient reasons, or just because that is always the way it has been done.
     In todays economy there is so much talk of creating jobs and improving the economy that the fundamentals that make it work are shackled by regulation, politics, and bureaucracy.
      The big banks that were infused with bailout money now set on the money and find new ways to add fees.  Small banks do not seriously try to loan money without a government agency.  And then the smaller banks who used to recirculate the money thru the community sell bundles of loans to the big banks.
     Imagine the terror of starting a new business today.  Yet 60% of new jobs come from the small business person.  The risk of losing anything that you might have acumulated for a new veture is paralyising.  Yet the government can go after companies who back the wrong party and cause jobs to be lost and pushed overseas.
     Small town America is hurting because of the buy in too the lie of drawing talent and labor away to large urban centers just to leave them high and dry when the job goes overseas. 
     To continue with a tax code, that not even those who enforce it can understand.  Is it any wonder that corporations move their offices to a freindly country?  Everyone knows that the tax code needs to be scrapped for fairness and simpicity.  Attention is focused on the top end of the economy even though they pay most of the taxes.  Yet the bottom 40% pay nothing and get money from the government.  They are as opposed to anything fair as the tax attorneys who would have to get a real job if the tax code is done away with.
      The people who propose fairness are attacked because they are with the wrong party.  Yet both parties created the mess to begin with.
      I sat in on an economic meeting recently and yet thru all the mess of today, there are still those who have an idea and will create their own job in spite of what is stacked against them.
     Courage comes in many sizes and shapes.  Some are life threatening, some threaten livings.  I always go to my favorite saying from a famous president, Teddy Roosevelt:

IT IS NOT THE CRITIC WHO COUNTS, NOT THE ONES WHO POINT OUT HOW THE STRONG MAN STUMBLED, OR WHERE THE DOER OF DEEDS COULD HAVE DONE THEM BETTER.  THE CREDIT BELONGS TO THE MAN WHO'S ACTUALLY IN THE AREANA, WHOSE FACE IS MARRED BY DUST AND SWEAT AND BLOOD; WHO STRIVES VALIENTLY; WHO ERRS AND COMES UP SHORT AGAIN AND AGAIN, WHO KNOWS GREAT ENTHUSIASMS, THE GREAT DEVOTION AND SPENDS HIMSELF IN A WORTHY CAUSE;  WHO AT BEST KNOWS AT THE END TRIUMPH OF HIGH ACHEIVEMNT, AND WHO AT WORST IF HE FAILS, AT LEAST FAILS WHILE DARING GREATLY.  SO THAT HIS PLACE SHALL NEVER BE WITH THOSE COLD AND TIMID SOULS WHO KNOW NEITHER VICTORY NOR DEFEAT.....