I live, and write, from Whitewater, Wisconsin. This small city has many charms, but it is neither an island nor a kingdom. Indeed, it is better off being – and knowing that it is – a small town in a great republic, a small part of a virtuous continental society.
Far from making Whitewater smaller, America makes Whitewater incomparably greater than she could ever be on her own.
I was away from the city last Friday, when Whitewater was one place among many that held Lights for Liberty gatherings to protest the inhumane treatment of migrants.
And yet, although far from the city, on the other side of this continent, a similar protest welcomed all, including a family from Whitewater. What we were unable to attend in a small Midwestern town was available in a large coastal city.
There is nowhere I would prefer to live than Whitewater. However enjoyable a trip, however agreeable it is to make new friends (especially when united in a grand cause), seeing Whitewater again is always the happiest part of one’s travels.
Our present national crisis requires a national response, and places a myopic hyper-localism in its proper – lower – place.