Friday, November 7, 2008

So Much For More Personal Time


"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them." --Thomas Jefferson




But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
--Barack Obama

It would've been nice to come home from this deployment, carry on with school, go back to work, and spend time with my family. Now, I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time the next four years re-engaging with politics. All I'd like is to be able to make a good living, build up my finances for a decent retirement, and enjoy life without constant oversight by busybodies telling me to cough up cash and shut my mouth.

Not a chance of that now.

If there's a chance of rehabbing the rotten corpse of what used to be the GOP, it'll take a lot of normal people, that is, people who hold jobs that actually produce wealth, require you to be there some 50 weeks a year, and add quality to other people's lives, to get involved and start moving up others like us. No more of this crap of being conciliatory to the point of betraying our values; I'd rather be ostracized for non-groupthink than spend the rest of my life pretending having other's values shoved down my throat is an enjoyable learning experience.

If I wanted to live Cuba, I would have moved there. Too bad the party in power soon didn't feel the same way.

http://patriotpost.us/

2 comments:

BobG said...

Why move to Cuba when they can duplicate it here, on a larger scale?

MauserMedic said...

Bob,

I have to admit, I had forgotten the appeal of the "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" mentality pervading the Left.