Editorial

Stronger than tyranny

On the morning of the school board meeting that would be held later that night, my daughters and I were having breakfast before school. One leaned over to show me where she had scribbled out the face of Osama bin Laden in the newspaper.

We hadn't talked much about the man, except to say he had hurt many people, and my twins don't watch TV much, but she knew his photo. The girls made shooting noises at the breakfast table.

I am losing the ability to insulate them from the world.

"Why did he do that?" one of them asked, and I tried to explain hatred to one girl who carries bugs outside in her gentle hands and to another who thinks we should build bridges over roads for gray squirrels so they don't get flattened by cars.

"He doesn't like Americans to be in the land where he was born. Some of his friends are fighting some of our friends." They don't say much. Perhaps that satisfies them, perhaps they have just lost interest.

There is no point talking about Israeli intransigence or Saudi corruption or Arabian oil or nuclear weapons in Pakistan. But that is part of the context here, too, as are war widows in Afghanistan who beg for food because the religious fanatics running that country won't let them work.

Religious fanatics raised during 20 years of war. It's all they know.

Later that day at the elementary school, just outside the library where the school board meeting will be held later that night, the kids were practicing soccer.

At this age, girls can play as well as boys, the differences are individual. They practice for nearly an hour, it is wet and cold and the moms who brought lawn chairs have retreated to the warmth of their cars.

It is gratifying to see seven-year-olds learn skills over a short month, though frustrating when they forget nearly everything on Saturday morning during the real game. They are children, the coach reminds himself, they are not much past being babies.

In Afghanistan or Palestine at this age they could be carrying rifles and instead of soccer they would be learning the tactics of bombs and war.

Late that night, after the children are in bed and hopefully sleeping, five tired school board members in the library of the elementary school argue over whether to give money back to the taxpayers or spend it on the new high school.

There is passion in this debate. Not over money, the money is trivial, but over a principle. Five hardworking volunteers, each feeling their obligation to the community, their obligation to the future.

It is nearly 11 p.m. and they worked a long day today and have another one tomorrow and would like to be home in their beds. Instead they debate whether voters said the board could spend $20.5 million on a new school, or if voters said they could borrow $20.5 million and spend that plus interest on a new school.

This is the strength of America. This did not fall with the twin towers in New York or the planes in Washington and Pennsylvania.

Those who would destroy America do not understand America. They do not understand that our strength is sitting at that table late at night in the library of our elementary school, debating whether a promise had been made, and what the promise was.

And in countless libraries and city halls and fire department lunch rooms all across America.

Those who attacked us will fail because they do not understand that liberty is more than a phrase spoken from memory, that liberty is worth fighting for. They will fail because liberty is stronger than tyranny.

Those who would destroy us will not prevail, even over their own people, once there is enough to eat and a secure place to sleep, because children would rather play soccer than go to war.