Think Dark (Peggy Noonan)

Opinon Journal ^ | Aug. 25, 2005 | Peggy Noonan

[prairiebreeze]

The federal government is doing something right now that is exactly the opposite of what it should be doing. It is forgetting to think dark. It is forgetting to imagine the unimaginable.

Governments deal in data. People in government see a collection of data as something to be used, manipulated or ignored, but whatever they do with it, it's real. It's numbers on a page. You can point to them.

To think dark, on the other hand, takes imagination--and something more.

As adults living in the world, we know some things. As Murphy taught us, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. As the journalist Harrison Salisbury said, in summing up what he'd learned in a lifetime observing history, "Expect the unexpected." As JFK taught us, "There's always some poor son of a bitch who doesn't get the word"--someone in the field who doesn't know what's going on and does exactly the wrong thing. As Ronald Reagan once said in conversation, man has never invented a weapon he didn't ultimately use. And as life has taught us since 9/11, we live in a dangerous age and the dangers aren't over, if they will ever be.

When you think dark, you're often and inescapably thinking with your gut, a vulgar way of referring to a certainty that lives somewhere between your spirit, soul and intellect. Your gut knows things your brain can't assert as fact because they're not facts, not yet. It can take guts to listen to your gut.

Right now the federal government is considering closing or consolidating hundreds of military bases throughout the U.S. A government commission is meeting this week to vote on specific base-closing proposals in the Pentagon's plan.

[Maigrey]

placemark

[redgolum]

Self ping

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Well, I don't know about you, but my folks have been here since the late 1500's very early 1600's, have intermarried with the indigenous peoples, migrated from the Carolinas to the Mid-West and beyond; and I don't know about how much more native I can be. We've served on both sides of every situation that has arisen and always for what is best for this land. Don't quibble with me over semantics.

I don't like the way things are proceeding of late, and I don't like anybody indigenous or otherwise tearing apart what my family has bled over, died over and fought for. As my forefathers would have put it, "In God We Trust" and all are welcome who will build this nation up, not tear it down. We were the first immigrants to move in and the first indigenous people to man the Welcome Wagon. How 'bout you?

[WestSylvanian]

I was being sarcastic with my "native" American crack. I've been hearing I'm not a "native" American since I was in elementary school. My ancestors helped settle western Pennsylvania and fought in the Revolution. One was captured by "native Americans" and taken to a British prison in Canada in 1777. We have no rights anymore. We're expected to accept affirmative action, pay welfare to support illegal aliens, and sit by when our WASP ancestors are villified and blamed for all of America's ills. I'm sick of it.