Which Is Stronger
Which is stronger,
liberal or conservative?
Who is better,
the bold hunter or the patient farmer?
Shall we pursue happiness, liberty, and life
at the expense of husbandry, caution, and law?
Shall we fight for honor, security, and peace
at the expense of honesty, freedom, and grace?
Which is stronger,
the day or the night?
Without both, there would be no cycle,
no living dance of light and dark.
To be liberal is to be an explorer.
We are the ones who hunt the wild ideas
along the frontiers of philosophy and civics,
who come up with new solutions to old problems.
Where would we be without
our beacons, our lighthouses, our anchors?
We would be lost in the wilderness
without someone to show the way home.
Which is stronger,
the heat or the cold?
Neither the star nor the void bear life,
only the Earth balanced between them.
To be conservative is to be a keeper.
We are the ones who stay and maintain
all that our ancestors have gathered in,
who teach the traditions that define us all.
Where would we be without
our traders, our muses, our legends?
We would be stuck in the mud
without someone to bring new traditions to try.
Which is stronger,
the warp or the weft?
Without both, there is no fabric,
only fragile threads.
It is our differences as well as our similarities
that make us cleave together instead of apart:
two north magnets will never meet in the middle,
and a flag of one color is only cloth.
It is the divergence of our worldviews
that gives greatness to our vision:
parallax reveals the position of the guiding star,
and stereopsis gives depth to perception.
That which is stronger
is that which is balanced,
which is blended,
which is complete.
March 25 2012, 20:07:17 UTC 9 years ago
Thank you!
March 26 2012, 05:20:24 UTC 9 years ago