It is rare that the Tacoma News Tribune’s Patrick O’Callahan has anything to say that I find particularly insightful or even of passing interest.  I daresay, my scribblings are of even less interest to him, had he ever chanced upon them by accident of a web search.

But he has a piece today that caught my attention, and I would like to expand upon:

McCain’s ‘country first’ ethic is tough sell in 21st century

I consider McCain a noble man. I believe he’s dead serious when he talks about putting country first. He especially impressed me in the 1990s when he led efforts to normalize American ties to communist Vietnam. He recognized that normalization was in this country’s best interests and acted accordingly, despite the sadism he’d endured in Hanoi.

I also think McCain was being honest when he said he’d prefer to lose an election than see his country lose a war. A Democratic supporter of Barack Obama would certainly argue that McCain doesn’t understand America’s real interests, but I don’t doubt that he’s thoroughly committed to what he thinks those interests are.

Listening to him Thursday, it struck me that country-first is pretty much McCain’s religion. He described his own embrace of that demanding creed in terms eerily similar to the way many Christians talk about their conversions.

Imagine my dismay, when I read these paragraphs, and agreed with Mr. O. completely.

And O’Callahan points out something that I had missed:

He started as a young sinner: “I didn’t think there was a cause more important than me.”

Then came the epiphany: “I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner of someone else’s.”

Then was born new creature: “I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country’s.”

This is a theme that I recognize in my own life, and that of many of my friends.  No, none of use had to deal with the POW experiences of McCain, but in service to our country, on distant shores, at the tip of the spear, we found something more than ourselves to believe in.  Some higher purpose that “keeping up with the Jonse’s” and material aquisition, and personal comfort.

This is how we like our heroes: Nathan Hale regretting he has but one life to lose for his country; George Washington walking away from one of the richest estates in Virginia to endure long years of wartime hardships.

Indeed, it is this very selflessness and self sacrifice that makes a man more than he otherwise might have been, and draws the admiration and respect of his fellows. If not the definition of a hero, it is part of the fabric of such.

A lot of small-government libertarians are deeply alarmed by McCain’s willingness to regulate and his hostility to private interests he views as self-serving…

Most average Americans won’t share the ideological horror of pure libertarians. But some won’t warm up to McCain’s stoic message: Country first, always and in everything. Stand tall. Life is tough. Keep on fighting.

He sounds as if he wouldn’t think the loss of an assembly line is the end of the world. Obama, by contrast, is all solicitous sympathy.

Indeed, as a recovering Libertarian, I find a lot to dislike in McCain’s political stances.  But there can be no doubt that he takes his stands in conformance with his personal creed, Country First. And I take solace in his mindset that America is the promised land of opportunity; and that adversity is our path to learning, and gives us new opportunites.

Part of my instictive distate for Obama, and the rest of the Liberal Elite is that they have confused the Country with the Government.  While these two things are not exclusive, neither are they part and parcel of each other.  

The Country is the People, and the Land, and - and this seperates us from all other nations on this earth - the Constitution.  All of the government today could be wiped away, and the bureaucrats swept off to some desert island, and still there would be the People, and the Land, and the Consitution, and we would rebuild.  

McCain’s like that tough old turkey of a World War II-vet uncle who keeps pushing you to join the military when you don’t like the idea. He’d put his hand in the fire. But with the Greatest Generation dying and the draft long since abandoned, that’s getting to be a tougher ethic to sell.

And this is the saddest parapgrah I have read in a long time.  It is so accurate and intuitive that it should bring you to tears.

I have written before, and will again, of the increasing void between the citizens of the nation, and the military - the “rough men who stand ready to do harm” in their defense.  And the increasing trend in the schools and media to denigrate the military and their accomplishments, and ridicule the very idea of military service.  This is a necessary part of the agenda of those that would put the Government first, instead of the Country.

To see the results of a military totally divorced from the people, one need only watch the video of the crushing of the Tienanmen Square demonstrations in China.

I truly believe that this election will shape the next 30 years of American history.  That a sweep House and Senate seats, and the White House delivered into the hands of a party that is Socialist in all but name, with the support of approximately 50% of the voting population, will threaten our very economic engine, and take to an era of the omnipresent Nanny State.  I have no doubt in my mind that the two most leftist Supreme Court judges would take the opportunity to retire, so that they could be sure of equally leftists replacements. 

Or we could hold the line in the House and Senate, and have in the White House a man who believes in Country First.  Who will hold the line on what is best for the nation, and the people - not what is best for government bureaucrats and union organizers, and community organizers, and the myriads of other leeches who suckle from the public teat, and seek to make business a tool of the state.

We have seen where Obama and Biden and their fellow travellers would take us.  It was called the Soviet Union, and it was a spectaular failure. Their new model is Western Europe, which has already decided to emulate the loser in the cold war, is failing fast, and will, in 30 years, be a far different place, more like Eastern Europe under the Soviets.  Except for those countries like Spain and Italy who will have willingly committed suicide through lack of procreation, and who’s lands will become Islamic due to immigration (immigrants brought in for their tax revenue, to support the pensioners who were unwilling to breed their replacements). This is the new model for the Democrat party, except they will use South Americans to pay the taxes.

I may not agree with John McCain on every issue, but given a choice between a man who believes in his Country first, versus a man who believes that Government is the answer to all ills, I will side with McCain.

And maybe we should talk once again about that Military Draft thing…