I Will Not Equivocate!

This morning I was reading about William Lloyd Garrison, the American 19th-century abolitionist, whose inflammatory speeches and writing cast slavery as a moral issue of profound importance to our nation. His most famous quotation:

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; – but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD."

Contrast that to the empty rhetoric I heard in last night's Republican debate, where everyone did their dramatic best to show conviction and earnestness, but with the occasional exception of Ron Paul, no one waved the banner of moral imperative and desperate urgency. In this age of political correctness, we have become comfortable only in the company of moderation, and cast as radicals those zealots whose shrill cries aim to ignite the fires of outrage, and kindle the flames of a nation bound to action. We mock unbridled passion as the misplaced tool of the lunatic fringe.

Garrison suffered the same in his day, yet was amply rewarded for his pain with the satisfaction that he made an important difference; that the masses finally acknowledged his cause as just; and that his indelible mark on our country's history stands in stark contrast to the ugly stain of slavery. Time has not mended society, and there remain outrages in our midst today. But precious few voices crying in the night, and even fewer of us willing to tolerate them.