Train, ...train....
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
This line from the Declaration of Independence NEVER ceases to raise the hairs on my arms...& throw-off the safeties on the cockles of my heart and soul yearnings for “liberty”. Yearning for liberty in 21st Century America, ...where the term was reinvented with verve?!
"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." ~~ Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819
I don’t know, as I stand around a good fire with a small gathering of creative folks, some guitars and some percussion instruments in hand, ...I find most of us agreeing on the notion that a twisted turn of the screw is growing, seemingly with impunity, ‘round our civic concepts of “life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness."
While watching Congress on CSPAN the other day with m’son, ...I was moved by his intelligent & unsolicited questions, ...ensuing dialogue brought the two of us a bit closer to the hearthstone of this one core endeavor that we share, ...but I was also made to feel somewhat ineffectual as a dad when floundering in reply to one or two poignant questions regarding the actions and directions of so many political figures today and past,
“...Son, ...I just don’t know, ...[introspective rub of the chin]...........what’s your opinion?”
