5-2-25

Ronald Reagan once said, “the American dream is not that every man must be

level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to

become whatever God intends he should become”. I have also seen the American

Dream defined as “the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or

what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society

in which upward mobility is possible for everyone.”…..but attaining that dream,

that American dream, does not come from a life filled with complaints…..it comes

from a life filled with appreciation and a willingness to see complaints as nothing

but mere obstacles left to be overcome

There’s a lot to be proud of right now…..there’s a lot of positive attention being

given to the Southeast, particularly in Alabama and Tennessee these

days……President Trump was in the south yesterday speaking at the University of

Alabama’s graduation commencement and bragged on the state and the

University and called us a state of champions…..Kash Patel, Director of the FBI,

was here two weeks ago and called Redstone Arsenal one of the gems in the FBI’s

crown jewels, and saying he “want’s to let America know” about this place, and

saying it has “capabilities that don’t exist anywhere else”…..a recent IG report on

the location of Space Command confirmed that original studies had proven that

Alabama outpaced all other competitors to be the chosen location for this major

military command on the basis of quality of life, cost of living, robust capabilities,

and support structures and ease of access……the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance

just announced it is going through a major expansion and relocating some of its

offshore production to Alabama…..bragging rights all around…..gotta love it…..

But all of that got me to wondering: do people appreciate where they live….in

general, do people wake up in the morning and stare at their four walls, and drag

themselves out into the same old streets to the same old job? Or do they get

where they live? Do they appreciate it? Do they even try to make it better?

So here’s a question I’ve asked the audience before……why do you live

here?......that’s not a rhetorical question by the way….I’m serious……why do you

live here?......it doesn’t matter what part of my listening area you are in….if you’re

listening right now on radio somewhere in the Southeast United States, or

streaming online from anywhere in the world, there’s got to be a reason why you

have chosen to live where you live…..is it your job? Is it cost of living? Is it because

of family or familiarity…..because all of those are important....but at some point,

where you hang your hat is a choice…..so we should ask ourselves that question -

why do I live here? – ask ourselves that question periodically because it makes us

mindful of the reasons why we live where we live….and the truth is your home is

where you make it, so make it great!.....complaining is easy, complaining is a fools

errand, no goodness ever came from mere complaints, only from the action it

took to move past the complaints and make something better……so that being

said: Why do you live here?

Me personally, I live in Alabama….and I love it here….this is where generations of

my family have lived, we’ve all worked to make our mark, in politics, in business,

in the military, in our churches and communities….I raised my kids here….and I

have been many many other places to live and work and I always want to come

back….but I’m also not content to just let it be….I want to let it be better….I want

my home to be great….. I love the way the seasons change in north

Alabama……the beaches stay white on our coast…..and how everywhere you go

there’s a church steeple in the distance…..in most towns folks still see their

neighbors at the grocery store…..are proud of what they do for a living…..and buy

magazine subscriptions from their neighbor’s kids for a school fundraiser…..I can

order sweet tea at any restaurant in this state and get it cold……we have the

finest research facilities….medical innovations…..manufacturing and small

businesses anywhere…..our entire state is green and I don’t mean in the liberal

sense…..I dare you to show me city in this state that doesn’t have trees and

plants……and the veteran community here is stronger than most with a higher per

capita level of our citizens having served in the military than the majority of

states….and we thank them for their service all year around……Is it possible for

Alabama to be better? Yes! 100% yes!......but we’ve got a stronger base to work

with than most……I get frustrated at the politics and the politicians….I was

one!.....but I also am glad that we are in the position of trying to become “more

conservative” as opposed to just desperately trying to find any conservatives……

I remember in Afghanistan…….we would do these long range patrols…..we began

doing what we called “village assessments”…..basically we would try to get a

snapshot of life in remote villages in part to find out if they had any interaction

with the Taliban or Al Qaeda holdouts in our area, to gather up what is often

known as passive intel that gives us a clearer picture of the area of operations

….but also to see if there was something we could do better their lives…..there

were times in the remote mountains of northern Afghanistan where we would be

told that we were the first westerners ever seen there……and I remember once

talking to a village elder somewhere in the middle of nowhere…..and when I got

past the “get to know you, I’m not going to shoot you” phase he began to tell me

how horrible everything was…..”the Taliban blew up the school building…..the

mosque has a leaking roof…… it has not rained in many months so the crops won’t

grow…..the bombs were dropped on our fields and killed many goats……the well

has run dry……and on and on and on”…….to the point that I finally held up my

hand to stop him and asked him through my interpreter…..”why do you live

here?”…..he could not believe that I would ask such a question……this was their

home….it is where their father and grandfather lived……okay. Fair enough…….let’s

make it better then….If you love a place and call it home……great! I find no fault

with choosing to stay where you love even if its not the best of the best……but are

you going to wallow in your complaints? are you going to obsessively ruminate on

what you don’t have? Or are you going to impact your culture, build your

community, and make your choice of home a better place…..

There was a recent story out of Dearborn, Michigan….. a large crowd gathered as

a part of an Islamic religious holiday…..now I’ve been to Dearborn…. It’s a

different environment than what I’m used to here in Alabama, but its actually

really solid…..there’s great folks there…..some of the politics stink, but the folks

are salt of the earth and the scenery is amazing…..but this crowd gathered and

under the leadership of a local so-called Islamic teacher began to shout “death to

America!”…..while here in America, absorbing all that comes from being a citizen,

or at least a resident, of the nation that does more, has more, and means more

than any on the face of the planet…..they yelled “death to America!”…..okay, so

why do they live here?!....we can GoFundMe a set of plane tickets in no time and

have them all on their way to places where they can shout “death to America”

while not having to breath our air……They’re so busy complaining, so busy hating,

that they’ve lost sight of what they have….the American dream is still alive….its

getting battered and tattered in some places but it is still very much alive…..

……Why do you live here? Why do I live here?.......truthfully, my own “right here”

is in north Alabama because there’s no place else that I’d rather be……

we can complain….but we can’t let ourselves wallow in those complaints…..like

the quote from Shawshank Redemption, “get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’”……All

said and done…..I know why I live here…..yes, its partly for proximity to family and

the sense of familiarity that I have in Alabama…..but its also because I’ve seen so

much else of the world….and our nation…..and I know what we’ve got….and I

know what we can be……So why do you live here? And what are you going to do

about it? Real question………

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!