I grew up watching Westerns. My grandparents fed me a steady diet of John Wayne and Gene Autry. But I loved the television series westerns like The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, Bonanza, and the rifleman. In one hour, a community is faced with a crisis and then larger than life characters with outsized moral courage put everything right.

Unsurprisingly, I still need my weekly dose of a world where the good guys always win. On any given day Saturday morning, you will likely find me doing laundry and binge watching westerns on ME TV. Of course, it is harder to keep up with the plot when there are 18 commercial breaks trying to sell me life insurance, medic alert bracelets, and reverse mortgages. But I digress. These shows continue to remind me of civic virtues and obligations. They speak to universal truths of liberty, justice, and dignity for all.

In each old west encounter, I learn valuable truths. The wagon train master insists that people that are different are not the enemy and forces the “Karens” to confront their bigotry . Victoria Barkley (Barbara Stanwyck is a force of nature) takes on any number of social ills because she believes people have value and makes sure family intervenes when there is injustice. Lucas McCain teaches his son Mark that violence is a last resort, but greed and lawlessness have no place in civil society. Each episode is a moral reckoning. In each episode right prevails.

TV Westerns remind us that good people must not be silent in the face of bigotry, lawlessness, and greed. Westerns remind us that it is everyone’s responsibility to promote the common good. Westerns remind us that the majority must step up to protect minority rights and that benefits of civil society should extend to all people.

If only it were possible to solve issues in a 45 minute episode. If only racism could be fixed by one person’s courage to speak up. If only a person could turn from a life of self centered swindling because one citizen offered grace.

Call me Pollyanna. I already know that I am bound to be disillusioned. I have had countless students tell me “life isn’t really like that”, when I promote the civic virtues that underpin our fragile democracy. But the title of my blog isn’t accidental. I really am a prisoner of hope. If you believe in liberty and justice for all….you have to be……

Our ideals are no less valuable because they are hard to attain. We have no less obligation to commit because they manifest imperfectly. Nelson Mandela called it “the long march to freedom”. But I prefer to quote deputy Festus Haggen. “The onliest thing you get from stradlin’ the fence is a sore backside.” We must choose to live our core values.

What I learned from television westerns is that you have to choose what kind of person you will be and that choice has a profound effect on the world you have to live in. We will be imperfect. We will stumble. But just like Rowdy Yates we must

Keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Though the streams are swollen

Keep movin’, movin’, movin’

Though they’re disapproving’

So this morning, I will watch a western for inspiration. This afternoon, I will stand up for the civic ideals I believe in. This evening I hope to look back and say “Boy Howdy (to quote Heath Barkley) I have had me a day!”