Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Back to land of the free

THE END OF an historic moment in the remarkable life of the United States.

At least I hope that by the time you read this the U.S. Senate will have voted -- up or down -- on the articles of impeachment the House of Representatives sent to an unwilling upper chamber, creating only the second presidential impeachment trial in our nation's history.

Since this is being written long before a vote is taken on the two articles passed by a very partisan House, it is anybody's guess what the outcome will be. But if you can believe what the pundits and the senators themselves are telling us, it appears almost certain that the two-thirds majority needed for conviction is a pipe dream (as it has always been) and that it is quite possible that a simple majority of 51 votes may not even be cast in the guilty column.

Nevertheless we are bombarded daily and nightly about the historic nature of this trial that few Americans wanted and even fewer have cared about. There are, however, some of us who remain glued to the TV set every night listening to people who like listening to themselves tell us what they think each of us wants to hear. Pretty sick, if you ask me. One piece of good news is that if and when this is all over, the television talk shows will have to talk about something substantive and the "experts" will have to find some other way to make a living.

There is no question that the impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton will be a subject for historians many years from now when they write about his administration with the accuracy afforded by 20-20 hindsight. In that regard, calling this trial historic is on target. I believe, however, that there is far more to the history now being made than the fact that Clinton has been impeached and likely will be acquitted.

I think and yes, I hope, that this entire ordeal, which started long before Monica Lewinsky became a household name, will mark a turning point in American politics from which the Republican Party, to which I have belonged ever since I was old enough to vote, moved away from the politics of puritanism and back to the policies of limited government and individual freedom.

In the early 1980s I was intrigued by the rise to power within the GOP of the fundamentalist religious groups whose agenda proclaimed an effort to move my party away from individual freedom toward a government which could decree how we must live, with whom we must live and what we must do to live properly. While I was concerned about the insidiousness with which the religious right was creeping into the Republican tent, I didn't think the movement would gain much steam because it was anathema to what I believed were Republican principles.

Obviously, I was proved too Pollyanna-ish in my outlook because in just a few short years the grass-roots efforts of some of the more zealous among us had captured the political apparatus that controls internal politics -- at the local and national level. All of a sudden, even though there was nothing sudden about it, candidates looking to win Republican primaries had to look, sound and act like those who now commanded the base of the party expected them. And look and sound has been akin to a puritanism we haven't seen since before we were a country and before the pilgrims hit Plymouth Rock in search of a land where religious persecution could end and religious freedom could begin.

Now, before everyone who thinks I am talking about them goes nuts, I am not suggesting that the United States should be or is a country that condones lying in any form. Nor am I lobbying for a special dispensation for elected officials who have sex with people who are not their spouses. And for sure I am not even hinting at a country which would countenance obstruction of justice by those we elect to serve. Got it.

What I am suggesting, though, is that we should all want to be a country that is morally and ethically pure but with the understanding that such a place cannot exist on Earth. The best we can do is try knowing that every one of us will fail from time to time. What we shouldn't want to become, however, is a country where some of our number seek to punish others who they believe are not living up to standards they set for themselves. That leads to the very puritanism our forebears ran away from hundreds of years ago.

To show you how ridiculous we can get in this overzealous effort to cleanse society of the failings of human beings, we must now be on the lookout for a purple creature I have not yet seen who carries a purse and an antenna that is a sure sign of homosexuality. When will this madness stop? If people choose to believe that, so be it, but they should not try to foist those personal beliefs on the body politic. The logical extension of such an effort is to force everyone to act, think and believe alike and that is not the great strength of this country. It could lead, however, to our undoing.

I believe the senators who have probably already voted today to keep President Clinton in the office he has executed so well understand that concept. And I also think many who voted the other way understand it even better. Certainly, there are those who as a matter of conscience voted to convict. No problem. But for those who voted to undo what the American voters have done just because it was good politics, the danger signs can be no clearer.

History will record today as a time in our history when our president was acquitted of serious charges, the origin of which is solely the president's, but the prosecution of which was nurtured and force-fed by a minority of Americans who want the world to be as they believe and no other way. In that regard, it is my fervent hope that history will also record the Senate's failure to succumb to that pressure as the first step toward an America that used to be.

That was an America we knew as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Free from religious intolerance and home to brave Americans who understood that there is more than one way to worship God and who were willing to stand up for that principle.

That's the kind of America we should be again. The Senate vote, if it goes as expected, will be a move in that direction. And if we are lucky, history, the kind that is written years from now, will record it as such.

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