Welcome
The purpose of this page is to encourage discussions that are generally discouraged or avoided by society at large. You will notice if you spend any amount of time reading or watching news and politics that real conversation is virtually dead in America. We have 24/7/365 news coverage and virtually all of it is meaningless. We fill empty space with words but rarely do we truly challenge ourselves to think about the consequences of our actions.
Further, I think we are disjointed from our history. We speak the names of great hisotrical figures but we know only peripherally what they stood for. We hide in the sheltered comfort of safe discussion and approved language.
I am also working to construct a reading list of relevant material. My generation and the generations who follow are no longer required to study the classics as the great generations of Americans that came before us were. I confess readily that I am no expert in this endeavor and it is soley by my own observations and research that I am constructing this list. What I will say is this: We have lost our sense of history and with it our sense of pride as Americans. We no longer remember what makes this Great Republic truly great.
I believe it is our reponsibility as a nation to rediscover that sense. We need to throw off the shackles of guilt that have confined us since the era of Vietnam and Watergate. Theodore Roosevelt once said:
“If you will study our past history as a nation you will see we have made many blunders and have been guilty of many shortcomings, and yet we have always in the end come out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and defeats, have recognized them, but have persevered in spite of them. So it must be in the future.”
Most importantly, we need to throw out this generation of corrupt and intellectually bankrupt rulers. If you consider the era in which our Founding Fathers lived, you will see that there is little difference between then and now. The England of King George and the America of Queen Pelosi are virtually identical when comparing the ruling classes. Their insatiable lust for power and prestige, their total indifference to the plight of the common citizen, their lazy and cowardly subservience to a community of avaricious miscreants, their absolute disdain for freedom in favor of the minutiae of government regulation… I could go on.
We discuss the political demographics of America in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor… none of these are relevant in light of today’s political reality. Seldom do we discuss the true line that divides Americans - the division between the ruling class and those of us who seek to be free of their ever expanding intrusion into our daily lives. By allowing these people to continue to aggregate power at the expense of our individual freedoms and property, we forfeit the sacrifices of the men and women who came before us and the men and women who continue to sacrifice their lives to defend our freedoms today.
Lastly, a word about myself. I am not a professor of history. Nor do I make any claims to know more or less than anyone else about the topics discussed here. I’ve taken it upon myself to research the words of those great individuals who have come before me and - to the best of my ability - try to form my own opinion about what those iterations mean. I try to live by the words of Benjamin Franklin who said in consenting to the Constitution:
“I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.”
It is my belief that all Americans can and should study history and actively think about and discuss it. You do not need a PHD to read the letters of Thomas Jefferson or the text of the Constitutional debates. Nor do you need a PHD to understand them. The modern media environment would lead us to believe that politics and history are the turf of “experts” and professionals. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the great freedoms of this Republic rests in the ready availability of literature and writing. You do not need to have a degree in history to read and understand the words of the Constitution or the Federalist. You need only literacy.