THE PERSON IN THE ARENA

Welcome to 2019. The year brings more challenges to the Republic at any time since the spring of 1861 as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated and the country split into two. 
Since that time we have faced serious challenges, but always from enemies foreign. When attacked and when  defending its allies, the best of America emerged. Young men taking up arms and traveling to foreign lands to fight tyranny. Once victorious, our citizen-soldiers returned, no conquest of people sought- in the words inscribed at the U.S. cemetery in Normandy, France, "All that we asked for in return was enough soil to bury our gallant dead."

But today there is an enemy within. A chief executive who tries to use the Justice Department as his own cudgel, seeking prosecution of his political enemies and criticizing the men and women of the judiciary, the department of justice and the FBI who hold line of the Constitution firm. Not fleeing or flinching in the face of tyranny and ridicule and ruin- even when threatened by their putative commander in chief. 
 This is not an enemy who will yield to force, as in the words of General Omar Bradley  when talking about the D-Day troops he commanded:  "The Battle belonged that day to that thin wet line of khaki that dragged itself ashore on the Channel Coast of France."  There is no land to heroically invade. We must examine our conscience. 

This enemy is more insidious. It is the worst of our character, not, in the words of Abraham Lincoln "our better angels of our nature". It is a cancer that is eating the soul of our country. There is nothing to shoot at. This enemy is conquered only by self-reflection. Meditation on who we are as a people and what we do when confronted with our dark side. 

Where  do we stand on our  bridge of freedom? With the ignorant racists and their water-cannons and bully clubs and attack dogs turned loose? Or with the men and women of all color and races, armed linked, facing mortal danger with nothing more than purity of a soul committed to the proposition that "this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this earth." 

Each of us must make our own decision on where and with whom we stand: with the ignorant mob, fearful of anyone who does not look and act and think like them? Or alone, but in defense of that which is the noblest endeavor in the history of civilization: a nation dedicated to the proposition that all people  are created equal? 

We write today in praise of our small section of Americans who defend our freedoms. The Assistant United States Attorneys of the Southern District of Florida who go to court every day and seek justice despite what their nominal leader exhorts them to do. They stand before our Federal Judges, independent by law, who do their duty as the good lord gave them the wisdom to see fit to do. The assistant State attorneys who do the same before our State Judges in our aptly named Justice Building.  Our State Court Judges are not protected with life tenure. Yet we ask them on a daily basis  to make unpopular decisions upholding the rights of the minority that could jeopardize their jobs when facing an angry electorate-mob. 
And yet their decisions remain untainted by worry of losing an election. For they know that, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, that if they fail, then they  "fail while daring greatly, so that [their] place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."  

And finally our thanks to those underpaid and rarely appreciated members of the Federal and State Public Defenders offices whose lawyers march into court every day defending those who no one else will defend, with nothing more than their skill and knowledge and courage and copy of the constitution standing between their client and ruin. 

2019 is the time to make a stand. We have examples of courage, listed above, simple men and women who do their job every day unfazed by threats of the ignorant bully who is, to our shame, our president for now. 
Many of us, in the luxury of our safe homes have loosely spoken of the bravery we would have surely shown in Nazi Germany to protect a Jewish neighbor, or in the deep south. Surely we would have walked in solidarity with a black child on the way to school while being cursed at or spit on. 

Now is the time. It is our generation's challenge. Our call to arms. Our test. Where do you stand? You are not being asked to wade ashore under fire. Your challenge is moral. It is your conscience and soul that is at stake, so when your grandchildren ask where you stood during these dark days, you will be able to smile wistfully and say proudly "with those who fought for the soul of our nation." 

Are you the person in the arena? 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 
Teddy Roosevelt, Excerpt From The Man In The Arena Speech.