the7thbridge’s Weblog

I concede defeat. Me. Who has always had enough juice for one more run. One more day. I have no more. I don’t want any more. No more struggle. No more pushing. No more straining to make things happen. I just want to be.

We’re not going to be able to keep this place. No one can find work. Making this place pay will take too long to make a difference. I should feel sad but I’m just tired. I just want to live out my days in peace. Kenny Rogers. Fold em and walk away.

There’s a sense of freedom in letting go of your hopes, dreams, visions. Paint over the water color image of what you long envisioned your latter years to be. Accept only the input of your eyes. Just keep breathing.

Tom Hanks in Cast Away. One of the all time great performances in one of the all time great movies. The best quote is a monologue from Chuck after he returns to civilization:

“We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and… knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had… lost her. Because I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So… I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I – , I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over *nothing*. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that’s what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I’m back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass… And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly. But I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”

Dylan Thomas. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” No. Too many years of raging against (insert any number of things here.) No more raging.

Hitch a ride on a dandelion seed. Grab the tail of a swift breeze. Wait for the tide. Who knows where the tide could go?

I read an article today about a city councilman in Snellville who was instructed by the mayor to clean his yard of junk. The councilman complied with one exception: the old toilet which he said he couldn’t part with. There was no mention of possible sentimental or historical value, only that it was in good shape. He converted it into a planter. The point is, he considered it valuable and went to the wall for it.

As usual, a random string of thoughts began rambling through my brain. It brought to mind The Godfather; considered by many men to be the ultimate source of wisdom, as emphasized by Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail — Go to the mattresses!

Which brings us to Scarlett O’Hara. If The Godfather is the Y Ching of life wisdom for men, Gone With the Wind must be so for women. A composite of Scarlett and Melanie Hamilton incorporates the full spectrum of women’s character, capacity for love, strength, motivation, determination, and plain ole guts. Most women fall somewhere between those two extreme characterizations.

Men may go to the mattresses, but women – we go to the drapes.

The weather’s gotten nicer so I’ve been outside a lot; working, planning, thinking, dreaming. Most of my thinking happens in my garden. It can’t be simply a manual labor issue, because the phenomena doesn’t occur when engaged in manual labor in the house. Yuck. In my garden, my mind practically screams, “free at last!, free at last!,” because it just runs amok.

I’ll share with you some pictures of a few things you’ll see in my outside world, and one afternoon’s mental amokery:

I see hills and hills of black dirt, bursting with red and white potatoes. I see rows and rows of corn stalks, tall and green, pale yellow silk drying in the sun, vines of peas and snap beans hanging on for the ride. I see a couple of cows ruminating in the afternoon shade, escaping the wind in what Jake calls the “cow house,” hear them calling out; smell the patties that will feed the compost. I see baby chicks nestling under their mamas; hear them bicker as they scrunch up pressing each other for space; nesting boxes brimming with eggs (1001 new and delicious ways to cook them.)

I see me and Granny slowly swaying, watching young’ns playing in the yard. I see me and Daddy watching the sprinkler rain down on the squash. I smell the wisteria and honeysuckle drifting up from the woods. Even now, as I type.

But, Captain, they say you were the most famous Ranger. They say you’ve carried Captain McCrae three thousand miles just to bury him. They say you started the first ranch in Montana…They say you’re a man of vision.”

“Yes, a hell of a vision.”

I see an ole man and an ole woman, while young’ns play in the field, remembering. Remembering when they first saw it.

A couple of relevant segments from previous inaugural addresses:

President Richard Nixon, 1973:

Government must learn to take less from people so that people can do more for themselves. Let us remember that America was built not by government, but by people — not by welfare, but by work — not by shirking responsibility, but by seeking responsibility. In our own lives, let each of us ask — not just what will government do for me, but what can I do for myself?

President Ronald Reagan, 1981:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

True, government and financial enterprise established the colonies that would become the United States of America, but the people whose determination and hard work made those colonies prosper took that raw ore, shoved it into a furnace, and forged a nation of people unlike any of its time — one that would strengthen exponentially into the strongest, wealthiest in existence; leaving it’s contemporaries to “eat my dust” and charging future beneficiaries with a lifetime of diligence.

Revolutionary battlefields – rich with the blood of men (and a few women) who fought and died to establish a novel idea of liberty and self-government under which they would never live – with tears shed by weary, ill-equipped, and malnourished citizen-soldiers as their brothers fell – with the dregs of sweat from those who fought on and on and on, determined that immeasurable sacrifice should not be for naught.

When we pledge allegiance to the United States of America, it’s not a government that we salute. We salute our citizen-soldier forebears and those who have fought and died since to defend a most valuable inheritance. We salute the conviction that individuals are capable of uniting, providing for, and governing themselves. We salute the principals of the Constitution and the foundation it provides — “We the People….”

As Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention of 1787 he was asked, ” Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Liberty is not for the apathetic, the self-absorbed, the lazy, the timid. I can make that statement because I allow myself to succumb to all at times. Subservience is easy. Don’t think, just do. Don’t consider options, just do. Don’t hope for better, just do. Liberty requires maintenance, thought, effort — and the freedom to dream. What’s the point of having a voice if it’s never heard?

Liberty begins, and ends, with “We the People….”

I reckon it’s an individual thing but, for myself, words read make a stronger impression than words heard. When listening you’re processing tone of voice, emphasis, and miscellaneous environmental sounds, sort of like the old party lines for land-line telephones. Does anyone even remember those? Reading feels more like a private line to the brain. Music is the exception. Listening to songs, whether a cappella or acompan acampane accampanus – with an instrument player – the tune makes a stronger impact than the lyrics. My enjoyment of a song is mostly based on the music. I’ll catch a few lines then have to hit Metro Lyrics for the rest. A lot of times the words ain’t as good as the music – especially when translating Daddy Yankee, haha.

Where was I going with this? Oh yea. A little quote for the day I ran across in Mother Earth News:

“On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat reposed.” — Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

I just like the way it makes me feel when I read it.

An excerpt from last week’s National Review:

“This is very good port they have given me,” remarked William Ewart Gladstone, visiting the home of the young Bertrand Russell, “but why have they given it me in a claret glass?” These high civilizational standards are still maintained at Bombay’s Taj Mahal hotel. During the recent terrorist attack on the hotel, a group of 40 guests and staff barricaded themselves in one of the restaurants for several hours. Their hiding place encompassed a well-stocked bar, but they made a collective decision not to touch it because of the need to stay alert. Hearing at last that troops had taken the hotel lobby, one of the British guests opened a bottle of champagne and began pouring it. A horrified waiter stopped him. “No sir, those are the wrong type of glasses. I shall find you champagne flutes.” He did so, registering a tiny but memorable victory in the never-ending war between order and chaos.

My first reaction was, “How ridiculous, you just survived a terrorist attack, why does it matter?”

Then I realized, yea it does matter. There are things that are done and things that are simply not done, regardless of the circumstances. Standards of acceptability that define us, ground us, distinguish us from the heathen, the creatures of air, land and sea, and people who put sugar on their grits.

Avast ye surging tides of boorish insanity and destruction! Our stride shall not falter, neither shall our soul be breached! Once the dust has retired upon the scorched rubble, the sun yielding gracefully to the night sky, thence will emerge a shy glimmer in the starlight, then another, and another, and another; blinding luminescence from a thousand points of salad forks defiantly piercing the darkness! You can take our lives but you will never take our Waterford!

Contemplating the waiter’s action, admiration began to develop. I found myself sitting a little straighter, chin slightly lifting. A seemingly innocuous gesture gradually became all too poignant. The proverbial heart of conflict. Any culture that chooses to serve from the right, remove from the left is perfectly welcome to do so but has no business trying to force its barbarous traditions upon those who know better.

One lone waiter holding fast in defense of civilization. No matter how hard you hit us, no champagne will be allowed to flatten before its time. Not on my watch.

Jim Moran, Congressman from Virginia:

Did I hear that right? “….this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it….?”

Who, pray tell, is entitled to it?

Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto: Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property.

Interesting. Who then will be the stewards of this “common property?” Uh, why, the federal government of course. I see, so rather than individuals having “social power” the central government will be the sole possessor? Uh, yea, I guess so, but it’s for your own good! That is, after we siphon off enough to maintain for ourselves as government agents what we consider an adequate standard of living.

How far do they intend to stretch that argument?

The simplistic notion that people with children are entitled to raise them based on their personal moral principles?
Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto: “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.”

The simplistic notion that people who own property are entitled to keep it? Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto: “…the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property….In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.”

The simplistic notion that people are individuals possessing certain unalieanable rights and are entitled to be respected as such?
Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto: “You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.”

The simplistic notion that people with children are entitled to choose their source of education?
Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto: “But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social. The Communists have not intended the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.”

I see, like gay/lesbian tolerance pledge cards for kindergarten students; banning anything related to God, Christianity, or national allegiance; mandatory mental health screenings to sift out homophobes, kids who hold the same moral standards as their parents,and other potentially violent students; American history as exploitive imperialism; distributing birth control without parental consent, stuff like that.
Well, yea, that’s part of it, but it’s for the common good!

Aaah, so your perception of what’s good for me is more valid than my own. Precisely!
And by “influence of the ruling class,” I suppose you mean those pesky bourgeois, middle-class, property-owning, freedom-loving individuals who think they’re entitled to establish and control their own governing bodies, retain control over the fruits of their labor to the highest degree which they are willing and able to attain, and teach their personal values to their own children while clinging to their guns and faith in God when they should be surrendering their property, freedoms, children, daily sustenance, guns, livelihood, and faith to government, the source of all life and liberty.
Now you’ve got it!

Sorry, Charlie, I’ve seen too many pictures of mile-long bread lines in Communist Utopias to fall for that one.

You know what I think? I think that ever since the Democratic Party lost the fight to own slaves on the plantations, they’ve been on a mission to enslave the entire population to government. Couple more generations and we’ll all be waitin’ on the foreman to holla “Quittin’ time!” so we can get our bowl of corn meal and slab of fat back and go back to our one-room row house.

Oh brother, I’ve gotta get out to my garden where something makes sense before my brain explodes….

As I wrote earlier, I am reading America Alone by Mark Steyn. I highly recommend it but only for those who have not sub-let their brain to the conventional wisdom of All Hail Government, Master of All. The sub-title of the book is The End of the World as We Know It. Steyn’s conclusions are dire:

[M]uch of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries.

No, not by nuclear holocaust, global warming planetary destruction, or hand-to-hand street warfare. I can sum it up in one word – infertility.

The ethnic populations of European countries are literally dying off and being replaced by, give ya one guess, followers of Islam. From Steyn:

[B]etween 1970 and 2000…the developed world declined from just under 30 percent of the global population to just over 20 percent, and the Muslim nations increased from about 15 percent to 20 percent….the salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan, and Russia is that they’re running out of babies.

For a stable population…no growth, no decline…you need a total fertility rate of 2.1 live births per woman.

[G]lobal fertility leader[s], Niger is 7.46; Mali 7.42; Somalia 6.76; Afghanistan 6.69; Yemen 6.58. Notice what those nations have in common? Starts with an I, ends in a slam. As in: slam dunk.

[A]t the bottom of the Hot One Hundred….Ireland 1.9; Australia 1.7; Canada 1.5; Germany and Austria 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy 1.2; Spain 1.1 – about half replacement rate. So Spain’s population is halving with every generation.

Seventeen European nations are now at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility: 1.3 births per woman. In theory, those countries will find their population halving every thirty-five years or so.

There’s a map at this website that gives a color-coded visual of the nations that are literally dying out:

http://www.pregnantpause.org/numbers/fertility.htm

The fertility rate for the United States is at 2.11, treading water just above the replacement rate. However, American conservatives have a secret weapon that many of us may not even realize. Steyn writes:

[I]n the 2004 election, the Bush-voting states had fertility rates 12 percent higher than Kerry-voting states. Barring a sudden change in electoral fortunes, Democrats are going to be even more depressed after the 2010 and 2020 reapportionments.

Mmmm maybe that explains the Democratic Party’s fawning fanaticism over illegal immigration.

But all is not lost, back to the Bush-voting states. What’s the most significant issue that separates those states from the Kerry states? Again, I’ll give ya one guess….abortion! How ironic it would be if the ignorant, fascist, religiously fundamental anti-abortion fanatics – you know, people who actually give birth to the babies they conceive – were the ones who saved America from the self-annihilation afflicting its European neighbors.

Another issue – the religion of global warming. American families with more than two children are considered ecologically irresponsible. The planet will be trampled by all those carbon footprints! I got news for you – let’s just say the tree-huggers are right and the planet will implode from over-use of aerosol spray and clothes dryers. At current fertility rates, there’ll be no one on the planet left to witness it except Muslims and half of them wanna blow themselves up anyway so why worry?

Anyway, back to conservative fertility. I had another one of my brilliant ideas! Christmas is coming soon. What better gift could one give their young, conservative couples, and to America, than an all-expense-paid romantic weekend getaway! Brilliant! Let’s make it a national cause. Every liberal nut job in the country turns their addled ideas into a non-profit cause, so why not this? Call it Operation Conservative Baby Boom. I’ve got two such candidates in my family now – the Mr. and Mrs. Brian Smith and the Mr. and Mrs. Jason Kumfer. Go, Go, Go guys. America’s survival rests on your shoulders, or at least within your reproductive systems. All great journeys begin with one small step so I’ll get the ball rolling. I’ll ante up with fifty bucks right now. Anyone wishing to donate to Operation Conservative Baby Boom contact me at byablue@yahoo.com and I’ll send you wiring instructions. Mmmm maybe I should look into a non-American bank account first.

Barack Obama: “[G]enerally 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….”

Has he even read the thing? The most vital thing the Constitution says that the government must do on our behalf is leave us the $%#& ALONE!

A Few Things Federal Government is Constitutionally Required to Do On Our Behalf:

• Provide for the physical defense of the nation against enemies from within and without
• Promote (not provide) the general welfare of the citizens
• Secure our liberties
• Maintain a system of justice to provide safety and stability
• Maintain three branches of federal government; legislative, executive, and judicial, to balance governmental power and strengthen citizen representative government

• Maintain two houses of Congress composed of members elected by each state for the purpose of enacting legislation approved by the citizens they represent
• Maintain the executive office of President to serve as Commander in Chief of the military, appoint ambassadors, judges and other ministers, and advise Congress concerning measures he considers necessary and expedient
• Maintain a Supreme Court, and lesser federal courts as established by Congress, for cases involving United States’ laws, agents, states, and foreign entities
• Guarantee every state within the union a republican form of government and protect each of them from invasion
• Allow the citizens, free from coercion or oppression, to practice their chosen religion, peaceably assemble, express their opinions and ideas verbally and through the press, and petition their government concerning any grievances
• Allow the citizens to possess firearms
• Protect the property of the citizens from unwarranted search or seizure
• Guarantee that a citizen will not be held for a capital crime without a Grand Jury indictment, will not be tried for the same crime more than once, will not be forced to bear witness against himself, will not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and will be provided with a speedy trial by a jury of peers

And last but certainly not least:

• Allow the citizens of individual states to establish the government of their state as they see fit with the exception of specific prohibitions or delegated powers in the Constitution (of which there are few)

That is by no means a comprehensive list but you get the picture. My source for all things Constitutional is

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am13

if you want to add to it or correct anything I might have misconstrued.

It’s interesting that this subject ties in so well with the book I’ve just started reading – America Alone by Mark Steyn. I’ll probably bend your eyes a few times concerning some of his points as I continue reading but right now I’ll just relate it to the current subject.

We were attacked on September 11, 2001 partly because of America’s perceived weakness; lacking in the means and the will to defend itself. Steyn makes a convincing case that a perception of “structural weakness” can be attributed in part to the increasing dominance of socialized governmental policy. He’s referring to the countries of the “Western culture” in general, but you can clearly see that America is creeping toward the condition of European countries that are bankrupting themselves financially and culturally. Steyn writes:

But there is a correlation between the structural weaknesses of the social-democratic state and the rise of a globalized Islam. The state has gradually annexed all of the responsibilities of adulthood — health care, child care, care of the elderly — to the point where it’s effectively severed its citizens from humanity’s primal instincts, not least the survival instinct.

In the American context, the federal “deficit” isn’t the problem; it’s the government programs that cause the deficit. These programs would be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They corrode the citizen’s sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree.

I wanna write that again, I just like the way it reads. “They corrode the citizen’s sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree.” Why did Joe the Pioneer, his wife Jane, and their young’ns Joey and Janie get up before sunrise every day to plow the field, milk the cow, gather the eggs, feed the chickens, and tend the vegetable garden? Because if they didn’t they would starve to death. Pore thangs, if only there had been a fat-cat federal bureaucrat there to take some of the local cattle baron’s money and give it to them, they could have slept in.

An Obama presidency with the current uber-liberal Congress will exacerbate an already intolerable and unsustainable situation. But fear not my pretties. You’ll be able to sleep well knowing that your government-controlled health care will be managed with the same efficiency, competence, and quality of outcome as public education. At least as long as you satisfy the cost/benefit analysis or have no inheritance worthy of confiscation. Otherwise, your screwed. Sorry, no heart by-pass for you capitalist-dog old-timer. Next!

I just had a brilliant idea! If Obama becomes President, everybody quit working and we’ll all line up for our daily manna and weekly quail.

The sunsets from my front porch are amazing. That’s one of the first things I noticed when we began building this house. I’d like to write something equally amazing; artistically flamboyant yet subtly prosaic verbiage of monumental enlightenment clarifying all the mysteries of the universe, craftily constructed to induce the maximum level of euphoria, elation, vapors, cold sweats, hot flashes, and fainting among the readers (kind of like an Obama speech) but I’m at a loss for words. I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves as we watch the sun go to bed in southwest Georgia.