Thoughts to the Heartland...

Having just completed The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson by William Howard Adams, I am exhilarated by the industry of Mr. Jefferson. I have broken all sorts of self-imposed rules about not writing in some books. I have written notes in the margins with abandon and feel the richer for it. I have begun reading another biographical book centering on Mr. Jefferson’s years from 1793 through 1801, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty by Dumas Malone. As is my way, I have first looked at all of the pictures, have read the author’s notes, and reviewed a chronology of events. I have been struck by the idea that perhaps today’s Liberals are more like the Federalists of Jefferson’s time in that they desire the supremacy of the federal government over the rights of individuals and over the rights of states. Of course, in the South, we generally have held to the concept of States’ Rights and the rights of the individual coupled with the responsibilities of the same, said individual. It seems that the most egregious cruelty of the extreme Liberal view is couched under the rubric of “group” rights and subjugation of the individual’s self for the good of the whole, meaning everyone suffers loss. It also seems that the rights of the States have gone by the wayside as have the rights of the individual in direct proportion to the amount of “federal” money that has been used to get the camel’s nose under the tent. In other words, we have sold ourselves and our most precious possession for a few pieces of paper. I would like to take up certain topics as the so-called “Browning of America”, the educational system (of which I have been a part), and the general lack an educational society so identified as crucial to the maintenance of our form of republicanism. It is interesting to note how our tax dollars and other confiscated funds have been used to purchase our conformity. Other topics would be the lack of diversity of intellectual discourse on college campuses or in our public schools, mortality/immortality, a self-help book on dealing with loss(physical as well as emotional), and the list goes on. Having been brought up in a politically oriented family where, from my earliest memory, the discussions at the dinner table were always about events of the day and being a descendent of a husband and wife who left Weymouth Colony in 1630 with their five children in tow for the ideal of freedom of speech (not a concept held dear in the Massachusetts Bay Colony), I come by my outspoken patriotism by heredity as well as nurturing. [More on my ancestors later. Their history is rich and documented to some extent in various logs, county records, and newspapers of the day.] In Jefferson’s day, the tradition was to keep journals. In our day, the web log (blog) has taken the place of journals, political pamphlets, and other forms of handwritten or printed communication. I am saddened by the loss because there is a tactile relationship between writing with pen and paper and thought. There is time for reflection even if brief. There is a connection between the writer and the receiver of the words. There is a connection between reading, the processing of thoughts, and the actual turning of printed pages or fighting a brisk breeze when turning pages of a newspaper – impatience for getting to the next page and gratitude for the breeze. God bless you, God bless America, and God grant the good breeze…