The presidential optimism expressed in the State of the Union address was not fakery. Ignore as did the left side of the aisle that optimism, there is in the American heart a growing hope. It is most importantly expressed in the emergence of a new generation of young Americans.
"In recent years," Bush said, "America has become a more hopeful nation." Violent crime and welfare and youth drug use and abortion and youth out-of-wedlock births have all decreased.
"These gains are evidence of a quiet transformation, a revolution of conscience in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment."
It is a thing of which I am convinced. I see it of a different vantage than the president. He is part of the Baby Boom, which he said in his speech must soon retire. Fast do the Boomers age. I am young – young enough to be without much credibility on most things, and just old enough to know that something big is happening in the waiting wings of the nation.
The "quiet transformation" is big in much the same way that the loud transformation of the Baby Boomers was big in the late 1960s. That is, a generational vanguard is moving into its place, where it will remain for many decades. This time, instead of pessimism, there is optimism. Instead of division (reflected now in the applaud patterns of the Boomer-dominated Congress), there is unity. Where individualism was thought to have triumphed, community makes a return. Relativism is as impermanent as its baseless-ness, "reality" is the new watchword.
The rising generation has grown up with video games and cell phones, and we spend our time on Facebook and Instant Messenger. Our needs are met, and our dreams are almost limitless. We know the blessings of prosperity and change.
Like every generation before us, this generation of Americans has before it some challenges that will test whether this nation is to survive. Among other things, terrorists have necessitated a part of our generation to the front lines of a costly war. We must learn to navigate a rapidly fluid economy. And we must answer some fundamental questions about the national character.
The challenges of our time require of us a conservative disposition. It falls to young conservatives to be the vanguard of the quiet transformation.
Recent surveys suggest that our generation is more conservative – socially, politically, economically and morally – than the previous few generations. We are the most pro-life generation alive, and most of the participants in last week's national March for Life were born after 1973. On university campuses, a small but influential group of conservative young people is rebelling against the hippies who thought that their domination in academia was permanent. But because the radicals who dominate higher education and the media have no principles, their future looks uncertain. Our generation appears to be reacting to a failed experiment with sex, drugs and the soul that failed. If this is to be what President Bush has called "liberty's century," there is a great burden upon our generation.
The foundations of a free society do not change. Our generation knows the benefits of change, but we must also defend the things that remain the same.
Ronald Reagan once said, "Freedom is not something to be secured in any one moment of time. We must struggle to preserve it every day. And freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
So we must not think the task of our generation any less important than the task of the Founding Fathers 230 years ago.
There is the famous story of Benjamin Franklin when he left Independence Hall after signing the Constitution. A woman named Mrs. Powell stopped him and asked, "What have you given us, sir?" His reply: "A republic madam, if you can keep it."
It is up to our generation to keep the republic.
And how are we to do that? When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas visited Hillsdale College a couple of years ago, someone asked him a question like that. He said, "Always focus on the task at hand."
To complete this quiet transformation, we must focus on the tasks at hand. The part of the rising generation now emerging on college campuses, moving into the work world, and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, was born when Ronald Reagan was president. We are tasked by Providence "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
And no matter what changes the 21st century may bring, as long as you and I are doing our part in the task at hand, I am optimistic that this "quiet transformation" – this "revolution of conscience" – will change America for the better.