Daily Verse | Proverbs 19:3
A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.
Friday’s Reading: Proverbs 22-24
Saturday’s Reading: Proverbs 25-29
Friday and we’re halfway through July already. Less than four months to go before we the people can exercise our right to vote and put a Denver boot on the insane Brandon junta.
Michael Ramirez is by far my favorite political cartoonist. His technical mastery of pen, ink and color blends seamlessly with his understanding of political irony and satire.
The cartoon above is a study in contrast between what was and what is. What was were the Founding Fathers declaring independence from the most powerful nation in the world at the time, Great Britain, mutually pledging to each other their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
None of them knew what the result would be, but all knew they were risking everything by signing the Declaration of Independence. To John Hancock’s worry, “We must be unanimous … we must all hang together,” Benjamin Franklin reportedly responded, “Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
He was serious.
Ramirez adds to the solemnity of the moment of what was with what is — an entitled, pierced, tattooed left-wing socialist college kid who has no appreciation for the legacy he has been bequeathed by men who possessed more character, intellect and wisdom than the “dude” can imagine. Independence is taken for granted and instead of treating the freedom he has with the humble reverence it deserves, he’s concerned with only his own selfish demands.
That juxtaposition between the solemn and the self-centered is instructive, underscoring how far we are removed from our founding. Those days are (literally) gone and we live in a very different time. There is no going back.
I’ve sometimes been one of those who wished we could return to simpler times idealized by Father Knows Best or Leave It To Beaver or The Dick Van Dyke Show. But the truth is that there is no going back. And that’s true of our current situation over the last couple of years.
The election of Donald J. Trump exposed the absolute swamp that is Washington, D.C. We had always known that corruption was part of the culture in D.C., but the knives came out for Trump and we were treated to the unnerving reality that our ruling class operates outside of the law and doesn’t even pretend to hide it now.
We can’t unknow that.
Same with the 2020 presidential election and the fraud that was perpetrated across key states. We know that Democrats are raging hypocrites and abuse our institutions to get the outcomes they want. We know that the Republicans, with a few exceptions, are spineless creatures who are members of the Washington UniParty.
My point is that things are different now, and they can’t go back to the way they were. We know better.
That may seem like a big “duh” to you, but it’s been a slow realization for me that I’m finally, reluctantly, embracing.
It’s sad for me because I’ve loved my country and have always been proud to be an American. These days it’s more the original idea of America that I identify with as a patriot, not the current reality.
President Calvin Coolidge gave an historic speech on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926. While the whole thing is worth reading, this one paragraph in particular is relevant to the circumstances we find ourselves in today.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Doing a little juxtapositioning of my own, there’s a stanza in Don Henley’s song, The Boys of Summer, that has always struck me as melancholic:
Out on the road today
I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said
“Don’t look back, you can never look back”
I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go but…
Have a good weekend.