That being said, when you run a business in a small town politics are part of the air you breathe. In the past I have always stated my stance as “common sense is more important to me than politics and the two rarely seem to be found together.” I still stand by that statement. It seems that lately, especially with the upcoming elections, people want to know what label you wear. I have never been big on designer fashion, so I admittedly don’t care much about labels.
This county, as far as my “non-history-major” mind can comprehend, was founded on the belief that each individual citizen has certain God-given, irrevocable freedoms…rights. These rights are set forth and spelled out specifically by our Constitution, and are to be protected, enforced and perfected by our lawmakers and our government. I think that the founding fathers of our great nation believed in the power of words and wisdom to transcend the human weaknesses of greed and egocentricity. They counted on the ideals of the Constitution and its supporters to act as a tide, lifting all ships. They saw the birth of our nation as a chance to bring about a certain positive evolution in the human condition, allowing the United States to become a lighthouse, showing people the way to safely achieve the type of freedom that they believed God intended for us all to live with. They also were motivated by a strong urge to no longer be constantly told what they must and must not do by a micro-managing dictatorship.
Ok fast forward 235 years or so to the times we live in now. Though the language of freedom still is spoken in certain political circles, the fears of our founding fathers are a real and present danger. The human weaknesses of greed and egocentricity are probably more prevalent in Washington DC than they were in the counties that our founding fathers relocated from so many years ago. Though the Constitution is still a foundational document for our government, it is now just one of many. It is danced around as needed to meet the ends in mind by whatever political party is in power and is often referred to, even by our elected leaders, as outdated. Add to that the tendency of our political powers to micro-manage us as a people through regulation and rule, and you can see where I am coming from. Benjamin Franklin would have gathered his drinking buddies from yonder pub and kicked our collective arses.
In my personal opinion freedom is a classic, timeless ideal. Best practiced, not preached. Like a black dress, always in style, regardless of the label.
So I guess I am not going to declare my label, but I will instead declare my overall dissatisfaction in the entire political process, in the machine we have created to churn out mediocre leaders from misinformed voters. I am just a bit disenfranchised I guess. I get nostalgic when I look at the leaders that created this nation and I just don't see those kind of men (or women) running and being elected to office, by either party.
When you are in the business of helping build people up, invest in the local communities and do genuinely good work, for the betterment of the human condition and you continually have to swim upstream thanks to the governmental powers that regulate your “industry,” you tend to lose the rose color in your glasses. Call me old fashioned, but I think we could use a visit from some of the great men who took the very real risk of setting forth ideals greater than their own personal interests to slap us around and remind us what they fought for. Maybe we need to sit and have a drink with Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson and ask them how to right the ship. We have drifted so far off course that I fear we are in uncharted waters. The political process now feels foreign to us, because it is. This is not the nation our great-great grandfathers lived in, and that is not progress my friends.
