Beck rally a celebration, not a protest

Ben Franklin’s statue graces a corner nearby and is my favorite founder—perhaps because Ben worked with words and wit to change America. I took a photo of the cast iron visage of the freedom-loving author, and then turned to the ubiquitous curbside yellow vending station, filled with snacks and sodas and expensive water.

“You go to Beek protest?” the aged Vietnamese vendor asked.

“Not Beek. Beck. Not protest. Celebration,” I answered with a smile and two bucks.

“Cebration? What’s a cebration?”

“Sell-a-bray-shun,” I pronounced. He repeated back, “Sell-a-bray-shun. What mean?

“Protest, angry. Celebration, happy.”

“Oh! Like party! What kind party?”

“American celebration. Freedom, liberty, God.”

“I like freedom. I like America,” the white haired Vietnamese man finished.

I smiled, bid him farewell, and repeated to him, “American celebration not protest,” and left for Ford’s Theatre. The men and women who gave the Vietnam War their lives gave this man a dream and he was living it.

I pondered this chance encounter as I left my resentments and protesting behind for a day. On this day I didn’t do as much as Beck to teach others, but one man learned the difference between celebrating and protesting.

Now if the radical left and the race-baiting hangers-on to civil rights injustices of a bygone era could join the American celebration, what a dream that would be.

James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling novelist and non-fiction author, CEO of PowerThink Publishing, public speaker, Op Ed writer for The Daily Caller, and Founder of Reagan Revolution 2. Email: james@powerthink.com.