The kids were in and out of bed with me last night because thunder and lightning of that caliber makes for very anxious children. Even our eleven-year-old, who is near my size, eeked into the king sized bed, seeking solace from the storm. I was getting kicked, elbowed, head-butted, and having covers swiped by my uninvited company. I finally got to sleep at 3 a.m., just two hours before my youngest woke me up because he wanted a chocolate milk sippy cup. At that point I just cut my losses and put some coffee on.

That very same three-year-old (deemed "T-Rex" after our most rough and tumble president), found a book this morning that he wanted me to read aloud to him. An abbreviated young reader version of the 2004 movie "The Incredibles", a Pixar flick.

I had a hard time reading with my eyes barely open. But my brain snapped out of its sleep-deprived stupor when the righty insight of the movie began to register. Because unlike many Pixar movies that push (shove) the environmental agenda, The Incredibles strongly supports the conservative lesson that freedom isn't free. More specifically, that even the freedom to whine and protest comes with a costly price tag, paid by those who protect us.

The movie was about a small group of superheroes called "Supers" that protected "normals" from evil. But after many years of benefitting from the "Supers" protection, the citizens of the city began to become apathetic to them and ultimately resented their protection.

Here's an excerpt from the reader:

...Then the Supers got in to trouble.

People stopped wanting to be saved.

They started thinking that the Supers caused the problems.

They told the Supers to quit being heroes.

Meanwhile, the evil "Syndrome" character secretly plots an attack on the city. He plans to heroically save the city from that same attack in a very well orchestrated and very public show of false strength. Syndrome is not a Super but a self-consumed power-hungry glory-seeker. He underestimates the strength and intelligence of the Omnidroids, robots which he built to attack the city and kill off the Supers for good. The city is in ruins, hopeless unless the Supers resurface and avenge the normals who taunted them.

But the ending of The Incredibles is of course a happy one. Syndrome finds his folly, good prevails, and the people once again embrace the Supers who destroy the Omnidroids in the 11th hour. A fitting end for a fictitious cartoon.

This engrossing little movie has so many poignant situational themes that parallel liberal views of good and evil in our nation today. Namely, that those who protect us are not to be trusted and that evil doesn't exist so long as one ignores it. But these fallacies are quickly dismissed when enemies attack without warning.