Some people are panning Clint Eastwood’s speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention. But if we ignore the somewhat awkward, ad-lib delivery, he said four important things:
1. “There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood.”
He was telling us that “left wingers,” whom he described as “left of Lenin,” don’t own him or his industry. This is true and significant. The opposition is penetrating Hollywood, just as it’s penetrating other groups, such as women, minorities, and immigrants, which were once thought to be bastions for liberal ideas.
2. “I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we — we own this country.”
Power lies with the people, so we shouldn’t feel as if we’re helpless at the hands of our elected leaders. This, of course, is a core tenet of American government, one that we need to be reminded of, especially in time for the upcoming election.
3. “Politicians are employees of ours.”
This cuts down to size those officials who seek ever-increasing power over us. Our leaders serve at our behest and under our orders. These thoughts echo the words of Thomas Jefferson when he said in 1774, in a vibrant manifesto addressed to King George III: “Kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.” This revolutionary idea awakened the spirit of the suffering Americans to a brand new concept of government.
4. “And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.”
Soon after Jefferson’s daring assertion that the most powerful person in the world, the King of England, was merely the servant of the individual citizen and emphatically not his or her master, our Founding Fathers led the country in dismissing their hopeless employee, who suffered from delusions of grandeur.
Let’s hope that today our country will do the same with our present employee in the White House, who has not bothered to understand and has no intention of following his job description — the Constitution.
Gen LaGreca is author of “Noble Vision,” an award-winning novel about the struggle for liberty in health care today.