Steve D. Williams
Thursday, June 10, 2004

In 1972, I joined the Army out of high school and was sent to Germany, where I was promoted several times and stayed long enough to notice that while my race was somewhat of a novelty in that country, I was judged as an individual and not stung by the same kind of racism I had experienced from my own countrymen. I also liked Germany’s system of socialized medicine in which each citizen was taken care of from "cradle to grave."

It was not until I returned to the U.S., stationed at Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Ga., that I was able to cast my first enthusiastic vote for Jimmy Carter. I felt part of the whole election process, excited that a liberal was in the running, especially because the black communities in New Jersey and Florida where I grew up had instilled in me the conviction that conservatives were either Nazis or Klansmen who hated my guts for merely existing.

While I had witnessed the early years of the Civil Rights movement, more vivid to me was the sight of the signs on bathroom doors and water fountains saying “Colored” or “Negroes” that hung alongside “Whites Only.” Jim Crow seemed to stare me in the face at every turn.

When I left for a three-year stint in Norway (where a girl from Oregon caught my eye and we married) I still admired socialism and, after returning to America at age 27, found that the Democratic Party most closely resembled the system of governance I preferred.

After working in the Veterans Administration, I joined a multi-level marketing company because the then-popular ideas about free markets and rising as high as your talents allowed appealed to me. The management, which was dominated by Republicans who relentlessly drove their conservative message home, invited me to attend a meeting in 1980 at which the Republican presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan, spoke.

What an eye opener! After listening to his spellbinding speech – and more important, hearing the content of his message – I suddenly loved America and its people. I loved the message of personal responsibility Reagan preached and realized how sadly lacking it was in the black community, where people of my pigmentary persuasion always felt that “the system” owed them something.

I walked away convinced that the system owed me nothing; to the contrary, I owed my country the best that I could give it.

Since that time, I have been voting for conservative candidates who preach personal, fiscal and social responsibility. If this message were prevalent in the black community, 70 percent of our children would not be born out of wedlock and we would be known more for formulating law-enforcement policies than occupying prison cells.

On September 11, 2001, America played a home game and lost. Our current president placed his entire presidency on the line by deciding that if we were going to play this game, we would make it an "away game" and take it to the hometowns of the opposition. Because of this decision, we are winning.

Like Reagan in both philosophy and spirit, George W. Bush is another hero of mine. Both of them great men: believers in God and country and consistently but misguidedly underestimated by both the media and Democrats – the party that now has less pro-American sentiment than exists in the city of Baghdad!

Mr. Reagan (like Mr. Bush) did more for all Americans than any Democrat has ever done, by freeing the world of the “Evil Empire”; tearing down the Berlin Wall and thus freeing millions of people from lifetimes of tyranny; and neutralizing the threat of nuclear destruction. On Saturday, Mr. Reagan received his eternal reward as his feet have landed on streets of gold.

Today, by our good fortune, we have a strong leader in President Bush, a man who will never compromise his ideals on the issues of freedom from terror and freedom for all. Since entering office, he has freed over 50 million people in two countries, an astounding accomplishment that no Democrat – who will say and do anything to gain power and win election – will ever do.

May God bless our current president with another term, as he – like his predecessor, Mr. Reagan – is dedicated solely to the service of his country and to God.

Steven Williams can be reached at sdwilliams2@verizon.net

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