It took a lot to make my Grandpa angry. He never raised his voice. He didn’t sweat the small stuff. He was a good neighbor and generally received the same treatment in return. He was a strong man, but he went through life easily, fluidly, not needing to publicly demonstrate his strength.
He was self-reliant. With an eighth-grade education (which was pretty good for his era) he worked as a rancher for most of his life. For a while he worked at a smelting plant in Missouri. He brought his family to California in the early years of the twentieth century, where he worked as an orange grove manager in Compton, an area that has long ago replaced its orchards with concrete and asphalt.
He left people alone to make their own decisions about how their lives went. He didn’t gossip or speak ill of others. He saw life with a twinkle in his eye, always looking for the opportunity to inject humor. He had a dry wit.
Grandpa built every house his family would live in. When I knew him as a child, he was still growing their food in the back yard, fishing daily and freezing the catch for the winter. He and Grandma canned all that they grew.
I saw the freedom and wisdom of his way of life. To me, he embodied the independent, free-spirited, pioneering American that appears continually in this country’s history and myths. While the United States may be wrestling with itself again, there is that strong vein of what made this country known as the “land of opportunity” around the world.
I think there are many of us in the United States who are like my Grandpa, who embody principles found in both political parties. People who value personal freedom and the right to choose. People who want to be self-reliant and ask for help as a last resort, not a first habit. People who want our government to be careful with how it spends our hard-earned dollars and not mortgage our kids’ futures in order to buy stuff now. People who want government to operate under the balance of powers intended in the Constitution, so that autocracy cannot succeed. People who don’t care what you look like, who you love, what church you go to or what political party you are a member of. They rather measure a person by the strength of their character and the evidence of their actions. People who step in to give someone a hand up rather than a handout. People who care about other people as a basic principle of life. People who understand you can accomplish great things when you work together, and little if you work against each other. People who appreciate debates about ideas and actions, and the value of being friends with people who hold opposing views. People who show they respect others even as they disagree. People who revere personal accountability.
If there was ever a good time for another emergence of a third party in this country, it seems that time is now. The left half of the right, and the right half of the left—the so-called moderates—could join together in militant moderation, and overnight be a plurality of voters among the three resultant main parties. The independents would more likely affiliate with this new party than the Republican or Democrat parties. Our country’s direction would stabilize to the good because this flywheel of moderation would reduce the wobbling caused by the loud extremities.
The “far right” and the “far left” views of each party about “how things ought to be” are causing our nation to have to choose between opposites, each of which will drag our country in a direction that is contrary to the ethos of the mythical melting pot America of opportunity—the American in the middle. My Grandpa.
Who will step up to catalyze the militancy of the moderates? It’s an oxymoronic thought—moderate people behaving militantly, mightily, to combat the extremism we currently live in. But we might be reaching that point.
One day, walking with my Grandpa to the lake to do some fishing for bluegill and crappie, we passed a house and yard about a half mile from the last home my Grandpa built. A man was at the fence, suddenly talking in a sharp, irritated tone to Grandpa. We stopped. Grandpa listened. And he continued to listen. At the point where the man started repeating himself and getting even more angry, Grandpa walked closer to him, seemed to get bigger as he approached the man, and said in a clear, even voice that cut through the air, “You’ve made your point. Don’t do it again.”
The man immediately got quiet. A few moments went buy. Grandpa then said something in response to what was making the man upset. I have no idea what the issue was. They now became two people working through a problem together. The man waved as we left.
Grandpa knew when it was time to say, “That’s enough”. He knew how to take action when action was required. He knew how to stand up for himself and his family, without putting anyone else down. That’s what I learned about him that day, and about life.
Grandpa whispers now in my ear. He says that moderation is the only cure for damaging excess, when excess becomes the norm. He says it’s time for moderates to move.
If I were a lot younger, I would work full time to promote such a rising of moderates. Whether or not it succeeded, it would feel worth attempting. But you younger people out there, you mythical Americans who represent the best our culture and history represents, you youthful citizens who need to make yourselves heard. You people who are like my Grandpa. Quit whatever political party you are in and form this new one to promote fiscal conservativism and freedom of choice, tolerance of differences and commitment to a common purpose, personal accountability and collective investment in our country, helping our neighbors without robbing them of their independence, valuing character, saving for the future rather than spending it away now, preserving the beauty and riches of our world while creating economic opportunity at the same time in a meritocracy where all can aspire to improve their lot in life…oh, the list goes on.
You people. You know who you are. You are the moderate middle of our nation. It’s time you step to the fence and make yourself heard.