We should all take a lesson from Jim Joyce. Jim is an umpire in major league baseball, and one of the really good ones. But a few weeks ago, Jim missed a call--and not just a small one. It was the last out of what would have been a perfect game, which is one of the rarest feats in all of sport. And, in a close play, Jim made the wrong call--he called "safe" when he should have called an "out," and the perfect game was erased at the last possible moment.
Within an hour, Jim Joyce came in front of a microphone and said "I blew it. I booted the damn call, and I'm sorry."
Government blows calls on a daily basis. Government gets it wrong more often than it gets it right. The State, if it were an umpire, would not be allowed to call a little league game, much less any level of professional ball. But for some reason we trust the State to dictate the terms of "serve and protect," to make huge decisions about how the economy is going to work, and to make life-and-death decisions about foreign affairs.
And do you ever hear the State, through its electeds, say "I blew it?" No.
And why do you suppose that is? I believe Nancy Pelosi will never go in front of a microphone and say "the stimulus didn't work, and bailing out all those companies didn't really help much, and we're sorry--we blew it" because that would be the beginnings of admitting that the State does not have all the answers.
But Statists aren't ever alone in their obfuscation; they are ALLOWED to continue their failures because the people who should be holding them accountable give them cover by not speaking honestly and bluntly about reality.
Part of turning back the helicopter state has GOT to be a return to honest dealings with the American people, no matter how unpleasant that may be. Unfortunately, the only real medium for dealing honestly with the American people is the media. And until and unless somebody has the courage to call the media on their failings/bias, there will never be a chance to make an honest deal with the people.
Conservatives have, heretofor, been comfortable going in front of other conservatives and complaining about the media; sadly, too many have been afraid to go to the media and confront them. Of course, there's the old adage of "never starting a war with someone who buys their ink by the barrel," but that ends up being both cowardly and ineffective. What conservatives need to realize is that they are never on Rachel Maddow's show to convince Rachel Maddow--they are there because somewhere in her miniscule audience are a few people who haven't drunk the cool-aid yet and are convince-able. Make your case, make it with humor, and never let them box you in with a false premise--it's just possible you might be able to break through the noise.
After that, we need to be willing to say "we screwed this up." Somebody somewhere should admit that the budget problems from 2001-2009 were the result of a Congress pushing to buy more votes while the President was busy running two wars; we should admit that we failed in our oversight responsibilities for the war.
We should also be candid that our war was fought in a ridiculous way--the Rules of Engagement all but guaranteed our failure.
We should not be afraid to say that the United Nations is a joke institution whose anti-Semitic bias prevents it from being an effective broker in the world, and whose corruption makes it completely untrustworthy of any serious mission.
And we absolutely have to push back against the people who want to end our discussions of serious issues like immigration and urban blight and education failures by shouting "racist" at us.
We have all been boxed in by Political Correctness for far too long. "Diploma-speak" has seriously hampered our efforts to accomplish anything in the world, particularly with regards to Africa and other fringe nations around the world. If we can't speak with the courage of our convictions, then we should get off the stage and let people who do have that courage take the microphone.
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