Once Upon a Time
Have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t make a man desperate. Desperate men do desperate things.” I was taught that you have to understand desperate purposes in the study of history. Desperate purposes can be terrible and can drive against the odds. They become their own necessity.
If you are not sure, look up the American Revolution of 1776, Masada in Jewish history, of recent popular note the Spartan vs. Xerxes’ Persian Empire in the Battle of Thermopylae, or the Fremen of Arrakis in the science fiction work Dune. (I paraphrased my statement above from Dune, thanks Mr. Herbert, RIP.)
This article is not about ‘my’ desperation, I have come through the storm that drove me to that place in my life and I made it through. I am not really speaking about individuals who give everything up and do destructive things. In my examples, although each was typified as an outlaw in their day, there is an intended illustration that man’s spirit is wired to overcome oppression. And as the oppression becomes great, the resistance to the oppression becomes an equal and opposite force, until the oppression is overcome.
And so it is, now.
The Way Things Were
I have always thought my civic duty was to educate myself on the ‘issues of the day’ and to vote my conscience. I have a family to raise, work to do, a home to keep and obligations to my church and community. The list for each of these obligations of time could fill several pages. The activities don’t need explanation. I know, everyone is busy with their life, some more introspective, some more public. I educated myself ever improving my craft where I trade my free time for employment. It seemed the right thing to do. And in these efforts the hours of my day were all accounted.
I did not waste a great deal of time with politics. It was not interesting. It was a place where truth and lies, sometimes called misrepresentations or forgotten details, were often intermixed as a means to achieve a desired ends. And after all, we elected politicians to do that work, like one might hire a trash collector. Nasty but necessary work, paid from the public coffers. Those who drive the trucks, with the great mechanical claw pluck up our lidded trash barrels and dump them in the compacting compartment, working an honest day for an honest wage. Not the same work of yesteryear when you had a driver and a crew to pick up trash cans, empty them out in to the truck come rain or shine, but hard, necessary and appreciated work all the same. That is how I used to view the ‘public servant’, our politicians.
I used to think the best politicians could do was not to interfere too much with my life. But that changed as the years went by. Their activities at best cost me more and more in taxes of every type, at worst interfered and changed the way I lived my life.
And then I watched one of the elected officials of the House of Representatives and their entourage, burn through my taxes in April 2007. As I watched the leader of this visit ‘stroll’ through Syria and Saudi Arabia donning her flowered head scarf and a black abaya robe, in an effort to “take a more assertive role in influencing policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war,” I was never so disturbed or offended.
Why was this trip in particular having this impact on me and my here-to-fore sleeping sensibilities? Here was a person in line to take the place of the President of the United States should the sitting president and vice-president be incapacitated. Third in line, standing as a woman under Sharia law, in a place where women are stoned to death for certain crimes. And this was building bridges in the Middle East and bringing peace and understanding? Since that time, I have notices how very helpful all that whole show was for peace and stability in the Middle East. Great return for the dollars spent. Nice holiday snap shots and great video memories, if nothing else.
Something in my spirit and being snapped awake that day. The dreamer’s eyes opened and questions of what was appropriate and necessary began to resonate in my mind.
I literally screamed at the television in my home. I was awake and I was asking questions no one was answering. I was asking questions that, as far as I could tell, no one else was asking. When I would find someone to talk about these issues, I noticed no one had an answer.
Some of us would write congressmen and senators to get a kind letter back that did not really addresses the question. Some tried, but the process really required iterative questions and successive answers that the news media really never accomplished. Some of us would write into our newspapers only to be told by responding citizens that we didn’t understand all the issues.
We didn’t understand the issues? So we would ask to have the issues explained to us. We would read and research and question, and the answers were still lacking. We were told that we didn’t understand because the issues were so complex. We were told, “You can’t just look at illegal immigration, you have to consider the larger picture. You really can’t just look at the economy in simple terms, you have to consider the global interplay of all these intricacies. You must not reduce the argument to such black and white terms in the Middle East, you have to consider the reason for the hatred within a compassionate perspective.”
And in each instance I and others would ask to hear a clear explanation. We would ask for someone to explain the intricacies and the related reasons. And we would get nothing that made common sense in any answer offered.
So we read more and reasoned amongst ourselves. And we found out that in the end, those we elected to represent us thought we were stupid and foolish. They wanted our unquestioning support and they wanted our money. They did not like us telling them that we understood and trusted Ronald Reagan because he spoke to us in terms that made sense, in ideas that were clear and that trusted that we can think and reason. And the more we discussed the issues the less our representatives seemed to care and the more they wailed for our dollars of support or all was lost.
All was lost when they quit listening. All was lost when they forgot they worked for us. They forgot they were servants of the people, not an entitled class who had a claim to the job they wanted to do and the money they were receiving. They were not entitles to the seats in the House and the Senate, they were not family heirs to purple robes.
The sleeper had awakened.
The Way of Things to Come
So I watched and listened. I wrote out my opinions and I discussed all that I had learned. I wrote it all out to make my reasoning sharper and my facts more clear. I cut out the fat of party lines, and I found the foundation of my thoughts rooted in my faith, my ethos, my life, my family and my understanding of my country and its laws.
I watched and argued through a presidential race that I really cared about, even though I did not care about the particular candidate. I was voting against something, arguing against a direction and a set of promises that I heard being made that were really promises to un-make our nation if you believed that the Constitution really was the bedrock of our Republic.
I watched as a war hero, a man who had endured enemy torture and served his country honorably, but who argued for amnesty for those who violated our boarder’s and immigration laws, stood against another man who wanted to share the wealth. I had railed against and written to the war hero ‘now candidate’ for his stance on many issues, but I did not want someone who backed a fundamental change of the United States to be the supreme executive.
When Senator McCain lost, I was very anxious for the fate of our country. Time has borne out that fear. But my view of Senator McCain was that he was ready for retirement. His views were not consistent with my views. As my senator, he was not really connected with my position on the issues. Again and again I had written and was told I really didn’t understand the issues I wrote about.
Again and again I found myself on the opposite side of key issues. Not the fundamentals. I expect a conservative to have conservative foundations. Not all agree, but I believe that our rights are given to us by God, that we might worship Him in freedom. God gives life. He gives us His Creation and gave us this country as a gift to all mankind, so that man might know what it is to have a country with a government and not a government with a country. (Thank you President Reagan.)
I learned that the way to change the Republic is to change those who represent you in the Congress. I also learned that it is insanity to do the same thing again and again and expect different results. A man who had been a relatively conservative representative presented himself to serve as a senator in place of Senator McCain. J.D. Hayworth seemed a good possibility. Tentatively, I started reading what I could of him, especially as the facts began to be presented by Senator McCain’s reelection campaign.
I do not trust politicians. If I said that before, let me reiterate it here. If I have not said it, let me state it really clearly here. I determined that if things are going to change, I had to put some of my effort into seeing the change happen. I have never worked for a candidate. I have never been politically active, but all that had gone before had awakened in me a sense of responsibility. I don’t know if J.D. Hayworth is the very best man to ever attempt to ascend the steps of the Congress and sit in the Senate. But until I find out he is not what he appears to be, I have taken up arms, as it were, to support him.
I have volunteered to work in his campaign. In this case, I really don’t have any idea what I am doing. I am keeping my ears open and my sensibilities sharp. I am not drinking any Kool-aid here. But I am trying to change what is happening in my country by changing what is happening in my state, and by burning even more of the time I don’t have in this contribution to the country.
It’s not really pledging my honor, but I will honorably serve or I will separate myself from something if I find it to be dishonorable. I am not really pledging my fortune, but I am giving up my ‘free time’ (does anyone who works for a living actually have ‘free time’) and a donation or two to put my money where my mouth is. I am giving up some of my life, and I am fulfilling a pledge to myself, my neighbors and my family to work to keep this country as the heritage and the inheritance to my children that it was for me.
“Noman Lives!” Was the Cry
So like a lumbering giant, groping my way in the dark, blinded because I have lost the sight I thought I had in one eye, I am a servant to the one who looks to be a servant of the people. I feel as clumsy and silly as a Cyclopes, and about as effective.
I am in the “inside” and I have a new perspective. I am not a political hack. I have no experience in what I am doing. I am anxious and I am beginning a process to change the way our state, our nation, may go. I am just a little drop of water, but from such drops come floods, I am told.
As Odysseus found out, it is not a good thing to wake a sleeping giant. And we the people have been too trusting, sleeping in our complacence that those we have hired to do the work of government, would do so as public servants. We the people are stirred. We who have never protested anything before, find ourselves at ‘Tea Parties’ and Town Hall meetings asking tough questions. And we are not satisfied with the ‘pat’ answer.
Like a spy I will tell everything I see to the extent it is different than what is advertised. Like a freshman, I will work to be useful, but I will not mortgage ‘my life, my fortune or my sacred honor’, but I will do all things honorably to the best of my ability. And from this strange place of being involved in the political process, I will let you know how it goes. Stay tuned.
Have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t make a man desperate. Desperate men do desperate things.” I was taught that you have to understand desperate purposes in the study of history. Desperate purposes can be terrible and can drive against the odds. They become their own necessity.
If you are not sure, look up the American Revolution of 1776, Masada in Jewish history, of recent popular note the Spartan vs. Xerxes’ Persian Empire in the Battle of Thermopylae, or the Fremen of Arrakis in the science fiction work Dune. (I paraphrased my statement above from Dune, thanks Mr. Herbert, RIP.)
This article is not about ‘my’ desperation, I have come through the storm that drove me to that place in my life and I made it through. I am not really speaking about individuals who give everything up and do destructive things. In my examples, although each was typified as an outlaw in their day, there is an intended illustration that man’s spirit is wired to overcome oppression. And as the oppression becomes great, the resistance to the oppression becomes an equal and opposite force, until the oppression is overcome.
And so it is, now.
The Way Things WereI have always thought my civic duty was to educate myself on the ‘issues of the day’ and to vote my conscience. I have a family to raise, work to do, a home to keep and obligations to my church and community. The list for each of these obligations of time could fill several pages. The activities don’t need explanation. I know, everyone is busy with their life, some more introspective, some more public. I educated myself ever improving my craft where I trade my free time for employment. It seemed the right thing to do. And in these efforts the hours of my day were all accounted.
I did not waste a great deal of time with politics. It was not interesting. It was a place where truth and lies, sometimes called misrepresentations or forgotten details, were often intermixed as a means to achieve a desired ends. And after all, we elected politicians to do that work, like one might hire a trash collector. Nasty but necessary work, paid from the public coffers. Those who drive the trucks, with the great mechanical claw pluck up our lidded trash barrels and dump them in the compacting compartment, working an honest day for an honest wage. Not the same work of yesteryear when you had a driver and a crew to pick up trash cans, empty them out in to the truck come rain or shine, but hard, necessary and appreciated work all the same. That is how I used to view the ‘public servant’, our politicians.
I used to think the best politicians could do was not to interfere too much with my life. But that changed as the years went by. Their activities at best cost me more and more in taxes of every type, at worst interfered and changed the way I lived my life.
And then I watched one of the elected officials of the House of Representatives and their entourage, burn through my taxes in April 2007. As I watched the leader of this visit ‘stroll’ through Syria and Saudi Arabia donning her flowered head scarf and a black abaya robe, in an effort to “take a more assertive role in influencing policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war,” I was never so disturbed or offended.
Why was this trip in particular having this impact on me and my here-to-fore sleeping sensibilities? Here was a person in line to take the place of the President of the United States should the sitting president and vice-president be incapacitated. Third in line, standing as a woman under Sharia law, in a place where women are stoned to death for certain crimes. And this was building bridges in the Middle East and bringing peace and understanding? Since that time, I have notices how very helpful all that whole show was for peace and stability in the Middle East. Great return for the dollars spent. Nice holiday snap shots and great video memories, if nothing else.Something in my spirit and being snapped awake that day. The dreamer’s eyes opened and questions of what was appropriate and necessary began to resonate in my mind.
I literally screamed at the television in my home. I was awake and I was asking questions no one was answering. I was asking questions that, as far as I could tell, no one else was asking. When I would find someone to talk about these issues, I noticed no one had an answer.
Some of us would write congressmen and senators to get a kind letter back that did not really addresses the question. Some tried, but the process really required iterative questions and successive answers that the news media really never accomplished. Some of us would write into our newspapers only to be told by responding citizens that we didn’t understand all the issues.
We didn’t understand the issues? So we would ask to have the issues explained to us. We would read and research and question, and the answers were still lacking. We were told that we didn’t understand because the issues were so complex. We were told, “You can’t just look at illegal immigration, you have to consider the larger picture. You really can’t just look at the economy in simple terms, you have to consider the global interplay of all these intricacies. You must not reduce the argument to such black and white terms in the Middle East, you have to consider the reason for the hatred within a compassionate perspective.”
And in each instance I and others would ask to hear a clear explanation. We would ask for someone to explain the intricacies and the related reasons. And we would get nothing that made common sense in any answer offered.
So we read more and reasoned amongst ourselves. And we found out that in the end, those we elected to represent us thought we were stupid and foolish. They wanted our unquestioning support and they wanted our money. They did not like us telling them that we understood and trusted Ronald Reagan because he spoke to us in terms that made sense, in ideas that were clear and that trusted that we can think and reason. And the more we discussed the issues the less our representatives seemed to care and the more they wailed for our dollars of support or all was lost.
All was lost when they quit listening. All was lost when they forgot they worked for us. They forgot they were servants of the people, not an entitled class who had a claim to the job they wanted to do and the money they were receiving. They were not entitles to the seats in the House and the Senate, they were not family heirs to purple robes.
The sleeper had awakened.
The Way of Things to Come
So I watched and listened. I wrote out my opinions and I discussed all that I had learned. I wrote it all out to make my reasoning sharper and my facts more clear. I cut out the fat of party lines, and I found the foundation of my thoughts rooted in my faith, my ethos, my life, my family and my understanding of my country and its laws.
I watched and argued through a presidential race that I really cared about, even though I did not care about the particular candidate. I was voting against something, arguing against a direction and a set of promises that I heard being made that were really promises to un-make our nation if you believed that the Constitution really was the bedrock of our Republic.
I watched as a war hero, a man who had endured enemy torture and served his country honorably, but who argued for amnesty for those who violated our boarder’s and immigration laws, stood against another man who wanted to share the wealth. I had railed against and written to the war hero ‘now candidate’ for his stance on many issues, but I did not want someone who backed a fundamental change of the United States to be the supreme executive.
When Senator McCain lost, I was very anxious for the fate of our country. Time has borne out that fear. But my view of Senator McCain was that he was ready for retirement. His views were not consistent with my views. As my senator, he was not really connected with my position on the issues. Again and again I had written and was told I really didn’t understand the issues I wrote about.
Again and again I found myself on the opposite side of key issues. Not the fundamentals. I expect a conservative to have conservative foundations. Not all agree, but I believe that our rights are given to us by God, that we might worship Him in freedom. God gives life. He gives us His Creation and gave us this country as a gift to all mankind, so that man might know what it is to have a country with a government and not a government with a country. (Thank you President Reagan.)
I learned that the way to change the Republic is to change those who represent you in the Congress. I also learned that it is insanity to do the same thing again and again and expect different results. A man who had been a relatively conservative representative presented himself to serve as a senator in place of Senator McCain. J.D. Hayworth seemed a good possibility. Tentatively, I started reading what I could of him, especially as the facts began to be presented by Senator McCain’s reelection campaign.I do not trust politicians. If I said that before, let me reiterate it here. If I have not said it, let me state it really clearly here. I determined that if things are going to change, I had to put some of my effort into seeing the change happen. I have never worked for a candidate. I have never been politically active, but all that had gone before had awakened in me a sense of responsibility. I don’t know if J.D. Hayworth is the very best man to ever attempt to ascend the steps of the Congress and sit in the Senate. But until I find out he is not what he appears to be, I have taken up arms, as it were, to support him.
I have volunteered to work in his campaign. In this case, I really don’t have any idea what I am doing. I am keeping my ears open and my sensibilities sharp. I am not drinking any Kool-aid here. But I am trying to change what is happening in my country by changing what is happening in my state, and by burning even more of the time I don’t have in this contribution to the country.
It’s not really pledging my honor, but I will honorably serve or I will separate myself from something if I find it to be dishonorable. I am not really pledging my fortune, but I am giving up my ‘free time’ (does anyone who works for a living actually have ‘free time’) and a donation or two to put my money where my mouth is. I am giving up some of my life, and I am fulfilling a pledge to myself, my neighbors and my family to work to keep this country as the heritage and the inheritance to my children that it was for me.
“Noman Lives!” Was the Cry
So like a lumbering giant, groping my way in the dark, blinded because I have lost the sight I thought I had in one eye, I am a servant to the one who looks to be a servant of the people. I feel as clumsy and silly as a Cyclopes, and about as effective.
I am in the “inside” and I have a new perspective. I am not a political hack. I have no experience in what I am doing. I am anxious and I am beginning a process to change the way our state, our nation, may go. I am just a little drop of water, but from such drops come floods, I am told.
As Odysseus found out, it is not a good thing to wake a sleeping giant. And we the people have been too trusting, sleeping in our complacence that those we have hired to do the work of government, would do so as public servants. We the people are stirred. We who have never protested anything before, find ourselves at ‘Tea Parties’ and Town Hall meetings asking tough questions. And we are not satisfied with the ‘pat’ answer.
Like a spy I will tell everything I see to the extent it is different than what is advertised. Like a freshman, I will work to be useful, but I will not mortgage ‘my life, my fortune or my sacred honor’, but I will do all things honorably to the best of my ability. And from this strange place of being involved in the political process, I will let you know how it goes. Stay tuned.
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