To conclude this series exploring quotes that make up the foundational ethos of the mission, I want to highlight two, bringing the last two journal entries in this series into one.
Speaking of her time leading the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman said this:
“I never ran my train off the tracks and I never lost a passenger.”
What’s inspiring to me about this statement is that Harriet’s leadership included politics, civil rights, forward progress, the human experience as it should be, severe personal trauma, contemplative faith, leading teams—and physical endurance.
I started Liberatus in 2015 partly because it’s ambiguous what exactly we were fighting for in Congress. While we said we were fighting for freedom, in the words of former Congressman Raul Labrador, Capitol Hill “is a place that just sucks your soul.” But why?
“He’s a principled conservative.”
After working within the conservative movement, it’s not clear to me what this statement means.
But I think it means something like this: There’s a conservative view of things that is the truth, therefore, he stands on that truth no matter the costs, achieves top marks on legislative scorecards, and those who don’t hold to principles might be nice to people but they’ll never be champions.
Today, often the farthest we go with this advice is to say that we should “turn down the heat” when things get too ugly. But to govern the country well, we need constructive parameters for what it means to restrain partisanship, in the same way that Olympic athletes have constructive parameters for how to perform at their best, follow the rules of their sport, and uphold sportsmanship.
Being on the bottom is not fun. It’s hard to connect your daily responsibilities to the ideals you are passionate about, especially when those responsibilities include scheduling tours and fulfilling flag requests. On the days when work is really hard, these are the principles I preach to myself that have helped me be faithful where God has called me.
In George Washington’s farewell address in 1796 he actually warned against the “spirit of party.” He believed that the formation of parties would cause people to focus on revenge and domination instead of the good of society.
Maybe the change has to start with staffers.
Now through the end of October, you can become a founding donor of LIBERATUS! Today we’re launching a campaign to raise $100,000 so we can push the movement to bring healing and truth and beauty into our political culture forward, growing our writing team over the next year to fifteen members.
