Banned by a Jeffersonian-Liberal-Reagan-Republican!

My first, as far as I know. I'm so proud: Born Again Redneck
.



[updated]

Here's an ad I did ages ago for Colonial Williamsburg. It had sister ads showing Mount Suribachi at Iwo, George C. Scott as Patton in front of a union Jack and a few others. You get the picture.

The premise was pick an historical date, 1969 say, and subtract it from 1775, and see what the sum might have revealed. 1775 was possibly the most tense year of the pre-Revolutionary period -- fish-or-cut-bait time. CW patterns its experience around certain days of that year as the town's businesses, institutions and enactors go through the motions.

Now, the oddest thing, besides hearing "George Washington" burp once while talking to a teenager from Ohio, was how little Americans really knew about this much ballyhooed group of guys called Founders. And why, exactly, they were so damn pissed off. I'll spare you the history, except to say the idea of a Loyalist or a Patriot compares remarkably well with today's Red and Blue, post 9-11. The excuse-making, the convenient lapses of memory, the self-dealing draped in "calls to reason" all track well with those days when our Born-again-Redneck's "Jeffersonian Liberals" met in the Apollo Room of The Raleigh Tavern. Why the meetings? To plot and argue and bitch about another George and his cronies and his Intolerable Acts.

The shocker for many so-called Patriots when they visit CW is that they realize they've misinterpreted the people they claim to revere, and they don't understand which side's words and positions they are defending and using as they make their accusations and rant against so-called "socialists" they call liberals. The loyalists, were hoping against hope, backstopping against the roll of inevitable progress and it's conflict. They, and their Governor Dunmore, and Lord North, offered all kinds of deals and last-minute juggles--jettisoning all kinds of principle for the mere chance to remain in power and in control of a sort of shackled, but semi-predictable future. In the end, it wasn't about anything besides selfishness and self-image. Principle was the suit of clothes you put on to go meeting. And to get your ticket punched.

And that, is where we have been for many years now. It's about team, and about feeling good and comfy, no matter how many mental gyrations you have to put yourself through to fan away the stink of your team-mates. In that cleft stick is were so many Jeffersonian-Liberal-Reagan-Republicans find themselves wedged. The Easter Bunny, The ghost of Reagan, Barry Goldwater and reason itself has abandoned them because they abandoned their ideals in favor of being in favor.

A step back reveals, to the honest, that so many who call themselves Patriots are loyal to an idea that no Founder, least of all, Mr. Jefferson, could abide: Fooling themselves. They prefer a daddy state and it's "small privations" of freedom to the the freewhelling thing that made his country great explorers of seas and stars: Actual courage in the face of uncertainty, and a disdain for narrow certitude overpowering broad curiosity and its search for knowledge. Instead, they look to bristle with more arms, taller fences, narrower definitions of who's in and who's out. Now, in a functional democracy with an operating fourth estate, that wouldn't be so bad. A yin to yang, dynamic tesnion. But, as I said of my time in DC in a previous post, we've come to experience a one-party system with the kabuki of "difference" played out for effect every once in a while. And that press? He would not like where it's allegiance has come to lay, with balance sheets dictating "acceptable truths" and repealing the laws of Ethical Gravity for convenience, spectacle and access. For a buck.

The Foley situation, perhaps, is going to put paid this "open secret," lay it out flat. Let's hope so. And let's hope the slap upside the face for many Americans will be therapeutic. As Mr. Jeffrerson said, a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Jefferson said a lot of things, many of which, like scripture, get used to argue 3 sides of a point. He described his country and his ideas countless ways, but a few can cover the nut:

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.

At last now you can be what the old cannot recall and the young long for in dreams, yet still include them all.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

And American fables and mythology are powerful things like any other mythology. Maybe more so with proofs like Mount Suribachi or Apollo 11. And maybe not. But sometimes, you can breathe your own fumes just a little too much. And you end up trading on accomplishment you did not sacrifice for, adding it to your resume, expecting similar achievements with none of the contribution or courage the original asked for. Bumper-sticker bold, paper-tiger proud, and a little too certain of the uncertifiable. You know you're not sure. You're not even sure you're asking the right questions. So the answer is to bray louder in hopes of scaring off the more calmly curious.

Today's loyalists parrot the name, but forget the lessons and sturdy wisdom. They are unserious in the end, this time conflating attack with mortal threats to "Civilization" itself as Born-again-redneck chooses to do; seeking a gilt cage and a pat on the head for bravely speaking the trite and superficially easy. Wythe and Jefferson and Madison and others knew full well that we are ALL imperfect creatures, but they didn't choose a "cage" as their framework for the future. And they did not shout "Shut up" to their ideological opposites. They believed in men. They believed in truth, even the embarrasing truth in matters of importance.

Jefferson loved facts, voraciously. He wasn't much on shouting, or brimstone, and had little use for the vengeful teaching of the Apostles as he edited his own personal Bible, but I think Jefferson would have made room for Paul of Galatians 4:16, Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Indeed. "Patriots" fight because they need an enemy to feel alive. Patriots fight to give others the freedom to live.
.