Standing up

“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees” –

Emiliano Zapata

Feeling sad is no longer satisfying. I remember all the people who stood up to the Soviets to gain  me my freedom, and I am filled with resolve to stand up and be counted. But how? I only protested once in my life, outside the USSR Consulate in San Francisco in 1980; and it being San Francisco, that might not even count. I have no political aspirations; I just want my children to experience the same freedom that once was the United States of America. So, I am using the only assets I have: my voice, my intellect and my heart. I am resolute, knowing the discussions I provoke will lead to truth; for “facts are stubborn things” according to John Adams. And as such I will write on all aspects of life in this country: law, education, Congress, the presidency, the economy, and most of all personal freedom. I will do it from a personal perspective, because that is easier for people to comprehend than abstract concepts, however noble.

So, what is my purpose? I seek not fame or fortune from this endeavor; I seek something bigger: a change in my country’s direction, to shift public opinion from emotional responses to well-groomed speakers — to logical decisions about our children’s futures. I want to change the tone and the thinking of this country back to its founding principles of resolute individualism, a sense of independence, and self-assurance. For we Americans have no limits to our achievement but our own imaginations, no obstacles we cannot overcome through our will and determination, and no moral superior in our standing for freedom and individual rights. It is the exceptionalism of America that endears it to millions of people still enslaved around the world: for in this country we do not have superior classes and rigid societal scales. Anyone can rise or fall on the basis of his or her ability and work ethic. Even those born into monetary privilege will not keep their fortunes long without the ability to manage the enterprises they have inherited, and those born with nothing can become the world’s richest entrepreneurs. It is the essence of America that we strive to be our best and cheer on the winners, while helping those who need a helping hand. We do not ask anything in return for our help, not even respect. We humbly go back to our own daily lives after insuring freedom for millions of people around the globe: with our money, our time and even our blood.

We are not without our folly. But we recognize it, agonize over it and fix it. It is our obsession with agonizing over our own faults that gives rise to unhealthy attitudes and policies. No other country in the world admits its mistakes like America. We learn from them and we move on. We continue to try and make “a perfect Union”. It is the process of self-improvement that sometimes needs adjusting. But this process only works if we follow the guiding principles of those amazing people who we call founders, who created a foundation and a rule set for our experiment. They placed safeguards against tyranny at the top of their agenda, for they knew once government, however benevolent, takes citizens’ rights away, it will never give them back voluntarily. They emphasized individual freedom above societal needs, just laws as a leveling of the playing field, and government as a necessary evil.

That is the legacy I want to leave in the care of my children and the generations to come.

Dying dream

“The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.” – Plutarch

I feel sad. My most sacred dream is dying, the dream of freedom. And is not dying with sound of gunfire or shouts of people fighting in the streets, it is dying with the sound of resounding applause from the multitudes of people who are happy to see their freedoms vanishing. The people are abdicating their freedoms with great rejoicing, in fact they get downright mean when somebody like me points out what they are about to do.

I grew up in a country that put society’s welfare above that of the individual, and from very young age I rebelled against that premise. For that reason my parents and I abandoned everything we knew, security of a job for life, a pretty decent living standard and our whole family to experience that elusive dream of freedom. When we got here, people helped us, not the US government, and through hard work we made it. My father, an engineer with 17 years of experience, was painting houses during the day and learning English at night, and after school I would join him in painting houses. My mother, who was also an engineer, got a job at $1 above minimum wage.

I finished Rice University, and while I did get merit scholarships and worked during my studies, my parents paid the remainder of the tuition — which meant that they could not afford a dining room set for two years. I also took out loans. I paid them off as soon as I got a job. We did not ask anyone for help, even though there were ordinary people that helped us along the way. As far as the Government is concerned, we learned early to avoid it like a plague. And we helped others who came after us. And so it continued the unbroken chain of help from ordinary people to those who needed it and appreciated it.

Now it seems like that chain has broken. More people are demanding that Government does something about everything. The nation that conquered the wilderness, produced the largest and wealthiest economy in the world, won three world wars (I am including the cold one), re-invented itself and found its moral compass by repealing slavery and segregation is becoming whining, self-indulgent, lazy, demanding mob.

“If you love wealth more than liberties, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask neither your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen.” — Samuel Adams

And now I hear an all-too-familiar rhetoric: sacrifice for the greater good, loyalty to your government, and “we will protect you and take care of all your needs”. I hear the same adoring crowds celebrating a cult of personality of their leader, ignoring anything he does and angrily turning on anyone who dares to criticize. I see the press regurgitating the government’s line without regard to its obligation to the public. And it is devastatingly painful, because these are the same pictures and sounds from my youth, from the country of my birth: the country from which I and my parents had to escape.

My name is Mark Ish, and I was born in the Soviet Union.