Where’s the Duty, Service and Sacrifice?

“Trust no man living with power to endanger the public library” ~ John Adams, 1772

I’ve been watching “John Adams,” the HBO mini-series based on David McCollough’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography of our nation’s second president. The story is remarkable. It puts a human face on our founding fathers (and mothers), portraying their incredible courage and integrity along with their frailties and struggles. The conflict between self interest and sacrifice, expediency and duty, pragmatism and idealism, right and wrong, are seen in each principle character and in their relationships with each other.

In the first episode, attorney Adams is dejected over his defeat in court when he is confronted with a choice of whether or not to defend the British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre. Adams makes the unpopular but principled choice and is victorious in winning an acquittal for the Brits before a Massachusetts jury. His law practice suffers the loss of many clients but Adams gains the attention of the leaders of both the Royal government and continentals. He is offered a high position in the King’s government of the colonies, and a seat in the Continental Congress. He chooses Congress.

The second episode provides a surprising insight into the personalities of Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and into the forgettable and self absorbed Continental Congressional delegates from New York, New Jersey and South Carolina. Washington’s humility and courage in the face of both self doubt and seemingly insurmountable odds is compelling. Jefferson’s extraordinary pen is possessed by a humble man with poor oratory skills. Without Franklin’s humor, pragmatism and negotiating skills the Congress could not have declared independence.

It has been said that heroes are simply ordinary people taking extraordinary actions. “John Adams”, the mini-series, shows us that our founders, who are so often referred to by political leaders, pundents and academics were indeed very ordinary. That these men founded a great nation is a miracle that must have been guided by a higher power.

With that inspiration, I change the channel and see that news is filled with tales of our leaders’ ordinariness and debauchery. Spitzer and the McGreeveys. The optimism accompanying David Paterson’s elevation to New York Governor in snuffed by scandal on the day of his inauguration. The national news is dominated by Barack Obama’s racist pastor and debates over weather Hillary Clinton was really fired on by snipers in Bosnia in 1996. In New Jersey, a wealthy young man of Hispanic origin enters the race for U.S. Senate and it takes and hour or two for one of his opponents to label him a “playboy”. Public service today may be more perilous to ones liberty and happiness than it was in the 1700’s. The heroes providing rescue relief to the floods victim in the Mid-West are getting very little attention.

It is little wonder that our best and our brightest scoff at the idea of public service and that voter turnout is so low.

I don’t think we are any more or less ordinary than our fore fathers were. We’re just indulging in self interest and letting our leaders do the same at our expense. Unfortunately, only an extraordinary circumstance is likely to change that.