What Would Walt Do?

Last night I watched the movie “Grand Torino”. I saw it back in February and it was one of those movies that had such a strong effect on me that I had to get it as soon as the video came out. At the time I wrote a short post about it and after watching the movie again I decided to re-post the article here.

Those of you who’ve see the movie “Grand Torino” will recognize the name Walt Kowalski as the character played by Clint Eastwood. For those of you who have not seen the movie (the language in the movie is tough but the story and the message is incredible) I do not want to give it away but Walt is a retired Ford assembly line worker and a Korean War veteran who still lives in the Detroit area house where he raised his two kids. Needless to say his neighborhood has gone through a few changes and has become a crime ridden hopeless place. Walt is a hold out from a past generation, a generation that was by and large self sufficient. He has no need or use for help from anyone. In one scene after Walt breaks up a gang fight with a shot gun, he is asked “why didn’t you just call the police?” Walt’s reply was something like “in Korea when the enemy attacked our position we could not just call the police”. There are few other great messages in the story other than the self reliance one but a message of self reliance really stands out these days.

This was brought home to me when right after seeing the movie Diana and I saw a man standing at the entrance to a grocery store holding a sign saying “I have lost everything but faith”. As we drove by, I asked Diana what would Walt have done if he lost everything? Diana said that she thought that Walt would have worked to get it all back and certainly not wait for someone else to help him. My thought was that by just sitting there, holding a sign and waiting for someone else to do something to help shows that the man had lost faith, faith in himself. It troubles me that with all the bailouts and stimulus packages our government is encouraging all of us to exchange our faith in ourselves for an unwarranted faith in the government. The powers that be want to change Americans from self reliance to government dependence.

Don’t take what I am saying to mean that we should not be concerned with our neighbors or be greedy and selfish; Americans have never been that way. Helping our friends and neighbors has always been our, we the peoples, job not that of the government. When I was a kid I remember when “I‘m here from the government and I’m here to help” was the punch line to a joke not a way of life. Remember the Pilgrims did not come to America to have a government take care of them.