DeeGeesLifeBlog ~ Life as Art ~ Or is it Heart?

********************

WHAT SHOULD WE FIX FIRST?

A short list. In no particular order. Bequeathed to us donkey’s-years ago by the brilliant Gerard Vanderleun (link down at bottom).

* We told our children that any child could grow up to be President. And then we made it come true. We had car shows, boat shows, beauty shows and dog shows. We ran robots on the surface of Mars by remote control.

* Our women came from all over the world in all shapes and sizes hues and scents. We actually believed that all men are created equal and tried to make it come true. Everybody liked our movies and loved our television shows.

* We tried to educate everybody, whether they wanted it or not. Sometimes we succeeded. We did Levi’s. We held the torch high and hundreds of millions came. No matter what the cost.

* We saved Europe twice and liberated it once.

* We believed so deeply and so abidingly in free speech that we protected and honored and, in some cases, even elected traitors. We let you be as freaky as you wanted to be. We paid you not to plant crops and not to work.

* We died in the hundreds of thousands to end slavery here. And when that was done continued for a century and a half around the world. We wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg address.

* We invented Jazz.

* We went to the moon to see how far we could hit a golf ball. We lifted a telescope into orbit that could see to the edge of the universe. When people snuck into the country against our laws, we made parking lots and food stands off to the side of the road so they wouldn’t get hurt, and we let them use our hospitals for free, and we made their children citizens.

* We didn’t care what God you worshiped as long as we could worship ours. We let the People arm themselves at will. Just to make sure. We gave everybody the vote. We had a revolution so successful it was still going strong two and a half centuries later.

* We built Disneyworld. Just for fun.

* We had so many heroes, even at the end, that we felt free to hate them and burn them in effigy. We electrified the guitar. We invented a music so compelling that it rocked the world. We had some middling novelists. We had some interesting painters.

Because You’re Mine, I Walk The Line…

* We had some pretty good poets. We had better songwriters.

* We ran our farms so well we fed the globe. We made the automobile and the airplane. We let you get rich. Really, really rich. And we didn’t care who you were or what you were or where you came from or who your parents were.

* We just cared about what you made or what you did.

* We had poor people who, even at their most wretched, were richer than any other poor people on the face of the planet. We were the most noble nation the world had ever known. We had so much freedom that many of us voted to just throw it all away.

* Even towards the end, as we dissolved into the petty bickering and idle entertainments that come with having far too much leisure and money, many among us were still striving to make it higher, finer, brighter, better and more beautiful.

* Even towards the end of the end, the best of us declined to give up and pressed on.

********************

YOURS TRULY’S 2 CENTS-WORTH / ANSWER TO THE QUESTION

Here we are, a couple of years further on, and everything’s the same. Except worse. America closer to the edge.

Where is this ship of fools going?

The helm is filled with revolving Democrat idiots clamoring for control, but control of what? One is chosen to steer and everybody else fist fights with everybody else. What a clusterduck. Where’s the bear spray?

As for yours truly, I’m not done and I’m not leaving. My friends and family aren’t done and they aren’t leaving either. Those who want to let America die in moral neglect will not prevail. Because while they have disarmed themselves for a serious, eternally worthwhile life, we are re-arming and re-committing ourselves.

Those whose religion is denial can do no better than to hide their faces in their own depravities while our enemies try to co-opt America. But while their cowardice shames only themselves, the brave among us will redeem us all.

America was forged in a human furnace by risk-loving tough guys and gritty women with resolve. People who’d rather die spitting in the face of evil than to live under its beguiling suppression. Believe me, America will be saved by their spiritual sons and daughters.

The world is full of people who respect and honor themselves and their neighbors. Every one of them is one of us, a free American at heart if not in geography. The American dream is the heart and soul of humanity; ever to be carried and re-born in the fire of human passions.

Despite all the naysayers – the Constitutional Republic of the United States was founded on solid Christian principles which need to be upheld.

Religiously.

The true measure of a people is not that they persevere in spite of troubles and travails, but because of them. That they are inspired to rise above themselves because of the difficulties they face. A people are great when they strive knowing their cause is not favored, and indeed has little hope of success.

I’m reminded of a bulletin board sign outside a small country church that read something like:

Professor: You have but a 5% chance of success. What sort of people dare with such paltry odds?

Adventurer: Heroes professor, heroes.

Which reminds me. The world definitely needs more English speaking ditch diggers too. The type that go deep. Real deep.

********************

H/T long time inspirationalist Gerard Vanderleun and American Digest

See also Carl Sandburg: Excerpt from the people ‘Where to? What next?

********************

Soli Deo Gloria!