It's a Thoreau Down Day Thing

Dear America,

"When I was 5 years old, 

my mother always told me 

that happiness was the key to life.  

When I went to school, 

they asked me what I wanted

 to be when I grew up.  

I wrote down "happy."  

They told me I didn't

 understand the assignment,

 and I told them, 

they didn't understand life."  

John Lennon

#262, from "Nothing is worth more than this day." book

indeed

now, it's not like we can run around being happy all the time, but the general sensation of happiness, satisfaction, contentment...in life... is definitely a fine aspiration, and one to hold close to our hearts and minds.

Granted, this thing called happiness seemed so essential in the early days of our founding, that it was mentioned within our Declaration of Independence..."we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

In proper context -- as it's declared, HAPPINESS, in and of itself, is NOT one of our "unalienable Rights;"  it's the PURSUIT of this thing called happiness, that is distinguished -- and even more than that, a prerequisite of action is in place, to chase this somewhat elusive quality of happiness and its full, individual, embodiment.

And really, what an enigma, right?   One person's idea of happiness can be quite different from another's...

[imagine a long pause between]

oh, pardon me...

I was just in the midst of getting lost on the BrainyQuote website, trying to hunt down the famous Henry David Thoreau quote about happiness...you know the one, "happiness is like a butterfly...yadi yadi yada...if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

Turns out, Thoreau may not be its author after all -- not that google portends to make that truth known.  Gotta love the fact checking.

It's a perfect example of how something takes hold, and becomes something real, even when its not even close.   Just plug in "happiness is like a butterfly" and see what happens.

The Quote Investigator website made a thorough search for proof, it would seem, aiming to get to the bottom of it.  Kudos to QI.  

The closest reference to something close to this butterfly/happiness relationship seems to have come in around 1848....and it was in a column defining a few precious things, things like love and wealth and happiness. 

AND wouldn't you know it -- the definition of wealth jumped out at me as if it came with fireworks and a sky of splendor; and I'm quoting now:  WEALTH.—The sum which gives content, whether one dollar or a million.

i just love that.

any thoughts, Thoreau, like really, any of your thoughts on this?

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

There is no value in life 

except what you choose to place upon it 

and no happiness in any place 

except what you bring to it yourself.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

mind blown again and again and again.

These are the kinds of things that should be ingrained upon every American, to its fullest extent, in mind and body.  These are the kinds of things, ideas, that can change lives, for real.

Instead, Americans are being fed all kinds of untruths and false promises and wayward appeals in the latest wave of contenders meeting up with the 2020 presidential election.

Whether it is upon the woes of climate change, medicare-for-all, or illegal immigration -- the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it, whether we are talking one to 300 million.

all I want to do today is sit and listen to HDT hit me with his best stuff.

but alas, that isn't going to happen. 

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

 ...thank you, HDT, and it would seem that I have a busy one going at the moment.

so now, given that I spent way too much time tootling around brainy quotes. I need to make my way into the rest of my day of responsibilities...you know, because.... "not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something." (also Thoreau)

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a World Without End, Amen, Thing

Dear America,

"I am grateful for what I am & have.  My thanksgiving is perpetual.  It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite -- only a sense of existence.  Well anything for variety.  I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it.  How sweet to think of!  My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while.  My breath is sweet to me.  O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches.  No run on my bank can drain it -- for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment."  Henry David Thoreau

oh Lord

it is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite...

This guy, Thoreau.... boy, did he seem to have it all figured out.

Ugh.
It's a new day; and while this girl would love to dwell in a perpetual thanksgiving in the good company of Thoreau in this moment, the last twenty-four finds me struggling with death once more.  Given it's permanence, it's ability to surprise, it's immediate shift to living in a new reality -- whatever needed to be said, whatever needed to be resolved, is no longer even in the realm of possibility, in death.

No more, no more.

Life and death are only separated by fine lines, we cross over it when it's our time, whether it makes sense, or not, and no matter who we leave behind.

O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches....

O how I laugh....and toss and turn, not getting a wink of sleep.

It's not like I was even all that close to her, anymore; we were torn apart by a ridiculous rift, and oh how I wish to only remember the good...

It's like, one can only imagine being the doctor, struggling to revive a patient, only to realize the patient is his wife.

But this isn't about the Poway shooting; it's about my circle, my family, my brother, his wife.

Gone. 
She is gone gone gone.

And it is final; it feels sharp, piercing through every sensibility; I can only imagine how he, my dear brother, must feel.

And the reality there is that there's a pretty good chance I never will.  There hasn't been a word between us in years.  like, years and years.

yes.  I know.  It is tragic.

I think of their children, losing their mama.
I think of her parents, surviving their daughter.

But surely surely, God must have a plan for us all; but God knows what it is just now, there is that.

Truth is, God has a plan for all the world.

And this girl is pretty sure Beto is a little off, predicting we've only got about ten years left; correction, that the planet has only about  ten years left to make the drastic changes necessary to curb climate change.  It's like, what kind of nonsense is that?... talk about Climate Change Extremists 

And you, you Beto get your head examined if you believe that.

And just maybe, Beto should be reading more Thoreau, right? -- it is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite...

O this life -- it is not permanent people; we can't take anything with us when we leave; and the planet will live on with our without us until GOD says so.  It's Gods creation, God's world. And God's prophecy lives through generation after generation, in spite of whatever nonsense we are fed for political gain through the progressive agenda.

Beto is apparently in town today....taking questions as we speak.  heavy sigh.

The family of the Poway Synagogue shooter released a statement:

"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the terrible attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue. But our sadness pales in comparison to the grief and anguish our son has caused for so many innocent people. He has killed and injured the faithful who were gathered in a sacred place on a sacred day. To our great shame, he is now part of the history of evil that has been perpetrated on Jewish people for centuries. Our son’s actions were informed by people we do not know, and ideas we do not hold. Like our other five children, he was raised in a family, a faith, and a community that all rejected hate and taught that love must be the motive for everything we do. How our son was attracted to such darkness is a terrifying mystery to us, though we are confident that law enforcement will uncover many details of the path that he took to this evil and despicable act. To that end, our family is cooperating with investigators. We ask only that the media and the public respect our privacy and allow the criminal justice system to work. Our heavy hearts will forever go out to the victims and survivors. Our thanks go to the first responders who prevented even greater loss of life and the well-wishers who have supported us. And we pray for peace"

My sadness pales in comparison to the grief and anguish my brother must be feeling just now, losing his soul mate and mother of his precious babies, all six.

and maybe I'm bouncing from one thing to the next just trying to see what will stick, what will keep my sense and sensibilities together, in the midst of all this fraying, the knots inside my stomach, the dizzying swirl of thoughts inside my head, trying to make sense of that which doesn't make any sense at all.

Why God?  Why Julie, why Janet, why Lori....

But who am I to question, right.

I am wee big in God's world; a world that is beautiful, boundless, and self-perpetuating in every way. It is a world everlasting, enduring, and without end.  And can I get an amen?

The truth is, that in a world according to God -- in Christ -- we are deathless.

as blog #995 meets its abrupt end.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a Miss Leading of the Public, privately, Thing

Dear America,

oh the simplicity of Thoreau...

"I observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and the moon, and I am willing that they should look in.  The moon shall not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature provided, than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping.  A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door.  It is best to avoid all beginnings of evil."

this is just the sort of thing Marie Kondo would go gaga over, right?

oh the upkeep, the energy, the time thoreau-ly wasted being controlled by the myriad of inanimate objects and things in which we surround ourselves, ironically to make our lives easier, breezier, pleasier, as we all get lazier and lazier, superficially fixated more and more upon the exterior -- what the world sees --  and less and less on the interior, the unseen...our relationship to the things of a higher purpose under heaven, if not God, Himself.

once we get something new, a mat, or this, or that -- we must be also responsible in the keeping fit of such a thing.

all of this pretty much leads me right through the front door of the house that America built.

....and what a sight. 

what a mess we have made -- whether we are referring to ourselves, as individuals, or the maze of bureaucracies, large and small -- it's time to clean up; the truth is, the obsessive and compulsive optics through the lens of politics is going to suffocate us, rape us of our innocence, and thrust our system of justice and rule of law into chaos if we don't speak up now. 

Just who has a hand over the mouth of America now?  

It's just a good question.

And I'm sorry, but not sorry -- about this Professor Ford girl....

NO.

This is no more than a story about a girl who has had plenty of opportunity, and time, and intelligence,  to act upon this so-called horrific experience --  alleging she was assaulted by two, or was it four, boys in high school, as the details are sketchy, at best....blah, blah, blah...

She demands an FBI investigation before testifying?  

But she isn't going to get that, so now what?

Um maybe -- and just guessing here -- that because the reality of any evidence of committing a federal crime is simply not there, the FBI had to decline.  crazy, right.

How about, Professor, you actually file a complaint at your local police station?   Um. like over thirty years ago....  

But honestly, what gives YOU the right to mislead the public in private now?

It's like, why now?  

Even if you were forced to face this nonsense when you and your husband were in the midst of counseling, circa 2012, why would you not have raised your voice then?  The case -- if filed then and there --  would have very well been handled through the court system nearly anonymously.   None of us would have cared a rat's ass about it.   So why continue to keep your mouth shut...until now?  If this, in fact, was ruining your life.... this assault...then I, for one, and  especially as a fellow girl, don't understand you.  I mean, my goodness, you teach graduate students, in clinical psychology, at Stanford, for pete's sake!  

Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...thank you wiki

OMG talk about cob webs...think this prof needs to get up under the rafters...just sayin'.  And, yeah, who am I to judge -- just bear in mind, Professor Ford made a conscious choice to jump into this with both of her big girl's feet, so just that fact alone, gives license for all of us to respond....  

We are Americans watching, and participating, in a political free for all. And with the internet, the left makes it so easy breezy to take part ;)

But just to be clear -- this supreme charade is simply a ridiculous display of a sideshow.

And now, even Diane Feinstein can't even say she believes her??  Seriously.

So let me get this straight -- you heard from Ford, in July, but waited until the 11th hour to bring it to the light of day, and now, you "can't say if everything is truthful?"

What a piece of work, you are, Diane. What a piece of work.  Oh the collection of political antics and doormats and crystal cut bullshit you have acquired in all your years in Washington.  #Count me in as amazed,too.  This, ma'm, is called misleading the public for political gain.

I feel dirty.

Do you feel dirty?

here's something funny, and it pretty much has nothing to do with anything here, other than keeping things straightforward and above board---  I'm listening to 91x, a local radio station which plays mostly alternative rock and reggae, really good stuff; and it's been around since I was in high school....so...long, long time...teehee

but the funny part is this -- it's based in Mexico...Tijuana to be exact, just south of the San Diego border.  Well. lo and behold, the public announcements never cease to amaze me.  They run campaigns all the time, reminding the public of their DUTY to do what is right, to speak up, to vote, to take part in changing the politics (the ongoing corruption) in Mexico.  

Everything begins with the announcer (usually someone sounding young and hip) hooking people with a question; but it's often setting people straight, like, "have you renewed your voter registration card?"  And continuing, immediately addressing the consequences, like, "you can't vote if you can't show a current voter registration card..."   

I know right?

It's like, how can the entire country of Mexico be permitted to keep it's polling records clean and tidy, even going so far as demanding people show a voter verification card.....while leftists, from cities and counties far and wide, in America, cry foul when conservatives simply ask our voters to show an I.D.?    What's with Mexico's show of nationalism?  Or, more to the jugular, is it even racist?  How can they get away with it, let alone announce it to the world on the radio?  Right?

For the record -- I don't believe ANY woman should raise allegations of a crime long after the crime has been committed; too much gets lost, be it the evidence or the memory.  But when talking decades later.....?  Um No.  In an instant, the memory and the evidence collides straight into the corner of the coffee table while angling to get to the dust bunnies under the couch and along the baseboards.  And when you mix that with a hidden agenda....oh my how things can get ugly, messy even... and quite honestly, deceptively, shrewdly Miss Leading.

It's #metoolate

and this is all I got today.

the end.

feeling the need to clean.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a Grey Morning in America Thing

Dear America,

"To him whose 

elastic and vigorous thought

 keeps pace with the sun, 

the day is a perpetual morning.  

It matters not what the clocks say

 or the attitudes and labors of men. 

 Morning is when I am awake 

and there is a dawn in me," 

 Henry David Thoreau

and yet it is morning and look at me,

stymied by the perpetual angst growing wider and deeper and stronger between camps.

Making heads or tails of any of it becomes an exercise in futility; round and round we go, where it stops nobody knows.

How in the world can a Sarah Palin be aligned with Trump...when the entire crew at National Review writes THIS.   And please, by all means, read the post and click into the full review @National Review, by clicking the little blue box directing you to all of the individual opinions of the editors at large, including Glenn Beck, Steven Hayward, Andrew McCarthy, Edwin Meese....just to name a few (four, actually).

All the while, we have people like Lindsay Graham -- the sad little Rino that he is -- saying things like this, when responding to the choice between the two front runners (Trump or Ted):  "It's like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?"

oh really, you sore loser?

The problem that seems most glaring -- and it has come about nearly overnight, mind you -- is that now, the Republican National Committee has come out to chastise the National Review for it's position and has "dis-invited" them to be a sponsor at the next debate, airing now on CNN instead of NBC.  Also worthy to note, how "the establishment" seems to be rallying around Trump as if he's been the one all along.  See more at NBC, here -- or just let me take Ted's word to you direct:

 "If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole, or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, all of whom are good and honorable men, but what they did didn't work," Cruz says often in his campaign stump speeches, implying they were not full-fledged conservatives...Mr. Trump's pitch to the Washington establishment is he's a dealmaker," Cruz said. "He'll go and cut a deal with Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and those deals. He'll do exactly what John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have done — continue the failed big government policies of this administration, continue the cronyism, continue the corporate welfare, continuing Washington picking winners and losers."

While Bob Dole simply says this of Cruz:  "Nobody likes him."

And now hear this, from Peter King:

"Cruz isn't a good guy, and he'd be impossible as president. People don't trust him. And regardless of what your concern is with Trump, he's pragmatic enough to get something done. I also don't see malice in Trump like I see with Cruz."

[the last two thoughts coming from here]

Hmmm just where have I heard "pragmatic" before...right, right...that's how they characterized a young senator from Illinois just before we walked down the path of the last seven years and grew an establishment so big, we can't see over the fence.

Which reminds me of one thing I can share wholeheartedly with Trump.  And that is my understanding and respect of this little Robert Frost diddy:  "good fences make good neighbors"  [and -- if you were so inclined to click the link there -- further discovery would find that no one can actually claim original possession of this thought...]

Now, getting back to the news of the day -- my opening, on loan, made courtesy of Thoreau -- came from the epic, cultural phenomenon, WALDEN.  Allow me to revisit this for just another moment in time in this morning:

"The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose."

Indeed.  And this is Thoreau speaking of the world in the mid-eighteen hundreds!

Me thinks he would have a thing or two to say about today's "trappings" -- no?

Of course, perspective is fairly due -- and accordingly we get it, rather snappy on the very next page -- as Thoreau goes on to conclude that he "could easily do without a post office."  funny stuff.

Alas, The Establishment has much to be ashamed of -- given how the mornings grew into decades, and the decades grew into centuries, recklessly furnishing America of its temporal and blissful, unforgivable and unconscionable, debt, made by society, for society, and through every channel of society, foolishly and selfishly, for the life-everlasting, eternal supply of a dream from here to eternity.

Not to mention this --

We didn't seem to fancy the thin-skinned narcissist leader of the last seven -- what in the world, on this sunny Southern California morn, has made us think we can handle another?

"The intellect is a cleaver; 

it discerns and rifts 

its way into the secret of things." 

yes...more Thoreau...
just to be thorough in the nip tucking of a thought.

Deep down we know.

Deep down, there is a thing to be had and we just might be it.

And it's pretty critical that we think critically, without ceasing.

The confusion -- unlike the crystal clear aquamarine sky above me -- rains down upon a nation, arguing with itself like cats and dogs. begging for mercy --- and praying that one day soon, the heaven's will open up and shed some light.  Or just maybe, a bolt of lightning! ...to shake us to the core of every issue, stir us, and hopefully cast a sudden awakening to the truth; and perchance, rather matter-of-factly, merrily send us on our way up the path...the path being the one and only, the straight, the narrow, the good,  and thoreau-ly conservative path to take.

Make it a Good Day, G

....having said this, let me say that,  I WILL support the GOP nominee without fail, with pail or pitch fork, come hell or high water..."Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."  HDT

It's About How Much More We Are Willing to Concede Thing

Dear America,

From The Guardian --

Just when you think American politics cannot get weirder, the White House announced that Barack Obama will trek through the Alaskan wilderness with Bear Grylls for an upcoming episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls...

 But it fits a pattern. Obama uses unorthodox methods and stunts to project his agenda...

Indeed.

And talk about patterns?

Should we discuss the many mini ice ages?   Or a time when the planet Earth was nearly covered in ICE many millions of years ago, running into a pattern three to four times over?  Or perhaps demand that all 7 billion of us go back to school, to perhaps the sixth grade, to discover the essential elements of the earth and plant growth fully dependent upon CO2, deriving a pattern of the natural give and take of oxygen and CO2 that becomes almost like a daily occurrence -- and a pattern of necessity me thinks?  Has anyone watched the pattern of ice coverage over the are of the Great Lakes, given fluctuations in the natural, in winter, a season that comes and goes, kinda like summer?  Or how about we just take a gander at the pattern of the many embarassing predictions of an Al Gore and his bevy of Global Warming Fanatics?  How about the patterns of using fear and hysteria of all things now generally assumed as "man-made" Climate Change to move bergs of mankind, for political expediency and gain -- if not also to topple America off it's high horse, right Obama?

Here's a really good read from Forbes,

The Period Of No Global Warming Will Soon Be Longer Than the Period of Actual Global Warming

[Now, it was written a year and half ago, so bear that in mind.]

But let's return to the smartest president we have ever had and hear directly from the Authority-and -Theory of Everything-in-Chief:

"This is as good a signpost of what we're dealing with on climate change as just about anything," Obama told reporters waiting at the base of the glacier.

Here's another quote that begins to make heads and tails out of it all, falling into the same honor of never letting an agenda disaster or someone's idiotic hide go to waste; it's pulled from the "Embarrassing Predictions" article (from 2014, linked above), citing within the section titled, "Pentagon Climate Forecasts, " a follow up question in the Washington Times goes to Doug Randall for an explanation for such a great disparity in reality over the last decade, and he says:

“When you are looking at worst-case 10 years out, you are not trying to predict precisely what’s going to happen but instead trying to get people to understand what could happen to motivate strategic decision-making and wake people up,” Randall said. “But whether the actual specifics came true, of course not. That never was the main intent.”

Exactly.

And thanks for the honesty, Doug.

"...[T]o motivate strategic decision-making and wake people up,"  he says, "whether the actual specifics came true...that never was the main intent."

The sideshow going on up in America's upper one -- you know, in the context of the settled science of the lower 48 -- by the O-so-High-One, himself -- proves to be nothing more than another scandalous fraud at the foot of Denali.

It's all about the strategy to create the very conditions  on the ground to warrant the policy changes from On High that The Left deems vital, leading America into energy decisions, economic decisions, quality of life decisions, inhospitable to a growing, abundant, free-enterprising, upwardly mobile, capitalist-friendly, market.

So in hopes of ending this day, rather abruptly -- (what can I say, some days are just better than others) -- let's go to Henry David Thoreau, from deep within his essay on Civil Disobedience:

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America.  They are rare in the history of the world.  There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day.  We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire.  Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.  They have no genius or talent of comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufacturers and agriculture.  If we were left solely to the wordy with of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among nations.  For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has the wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?

The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to , -- for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well, --is still an impure one; to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed.  It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it,  The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.   Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire,  Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?  Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?   There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all of its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

Or  to put it in terms that may strike a  more resounding chord -- is America producing so much CO2  it is now stifling the growth of everything pure, enlightened and magnificent -- more specifically, an intellectual willing to rise up, to offer a wee bit of civil disobedience, when needed -- and chock full of good science to back it up?   Much like the way of the overgrowth within the world's mightiest of rain-forests -- perhaps too much of a good thing leads to a competition of sorts.   A competition of words, resources, ideas, a way of life from this generation and well into the next, and the next.

The thing is --   AMERICA is receding; just how much more are we willing "to concede" these days?

It's a good question.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's About Doing the Wrong Thing

Dear  America,

good morning new world.

good morning Thoreau.

" 'that government is best which governs least;'

and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.  Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,  -- 'That government is best which governs not at all;'  and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.  Government is at best an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient...

This American government, -- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity."

Well now,  now that the president has imagined himself a full mandate to have the will to do and do what he will, let's stop looking forward for a moment and recollect a particular week in a day in the life that has come to pass.

Like the one when Newsweek declared, "We are all Socialists Now."  

After vilifying republicans for socializing our banking industry, the editors of Newsweek just laid it out for us little people:

"If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world."

The term "we" not being all the same, we  might add.

For the full scoop, see Tim Graham's blog on Newsbusters, here. And the original Meacham piece, here.

More Thoreau:

"The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it."

Indeed; we are in quite the state now; the role of government has been "abused and perverted before the people can act through it."

Now what?

Hence the mounting petitions to the government for secession. 

"All of this is unfolding in an economy that can no longer be understood, even in passing, as the Great Society vs. the Gipper. Whether we like it or not—or even whether many people have thought much about it or not—the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction. A decade ago U.S. government spending was 34.3 percent of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro zone—a roughly 14-point gap, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1 percent in the euro zone—a gap of less than 8 points. As entitlement spending rises over the next decade, we will become even more French." Jon Meacham, just one of 51% of Americans who doesn't mind turning a little French

Back to Thoreau:

"Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? -- in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?  Must the citizens ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?  Why has every man a conscience, then?  I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward."

amen.

It's a lesson as old as time; perhaps  this is a good time to remind ourselves 'two wrongs don't make a right.'

This is not the time to lose all good conscience -- even if it's been done before, Mr. Meacham.

And yet, America seems to be evolving, organically,  systematically, right on cue, just as timely as the arrival of the changing season on Walden Pond.

This is our government now.

Back to Thoreau:

"A very few, -- as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men -- serve the state with their conscience also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.  A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away [quoting Shakespeare]," but leave that office to his dust at least --

[and again, he's quoting more Shakespeare] 

I am too high-born to be propertied, 

To be a secondary at control, 

Or useful serving-man and instrument, 

To any sovereign state throughout the world."

...All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable....

...Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.  They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture.  If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations....[and can we get a shout out from the town square with a snarky 'no duh' here]

...There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." [double DUH]

Working on that Christmas list early this year [if you happened to have missed the first thing, it was for Americans to be 'all in' for America, mentioned just a couple of days ago] -- you know what else I want?  I want more men like this.

The thing is -- it would seem as if 'we' have all turned to clay; and worse, we are modeling ourselves from a state of total corruption in every way as if it's totally acceptable.

Sure, maybe in light of the republican governance of late, reinforcing the unmitigated and stark reality the future looks bleak if government continues down this path, it is highly troublesome; just the idea of it -- that they, too, are equally responsible and liable for the growing state of ruin in America as any other.  With any luck in the remains of the day, this realization should be a hard one to accept for every single one of us, all 100%, no party delineation needed.

But if anything else be true -- hardly does this give good cause, to reasonably become a contributing factor to authorize just more civil disobedience and fraud from our legislators until the end of time.   While this notion of a  people's mandate to a president -- to go 'all in'  -- giving government 'carte blanche' -- cannot be anything further from the truth.

Just where is the strength of conviction and good conscience of the common legislator acting on behalf of this nation's first and best intention, for the will of the common man -- to be a free people living with a government which does less, preferably nothing, at best?


Putting all grievances of the Benghazi scandal, along with the miscellaneous, and dangerous, liaisons aside -- this is the day we should find ourselves equally ashamed.

Things Known and Unknown.

Things Seen and Unseen.

It's running rampant;  even running into each another;  ideals colliding or extinguishing
and spiraling us into ruin.

No matter; doing the wrong thing is winning.
And according to some, it's what the people want.

Nothing more, nothing less.

But hey, have a nice day....  :)

Make it a Good Day, G