Posted on 09/06/2002 8:17:16 AM PDT by BADJOE
History teaches some very good lessons. They are hard to learn but our forefathers did a great job.
From the beginning of time man has overthrown one form of centralized government only to re-establish another one in its place. Our forefathers understood this far better than anyone ever had. They said governments are the eternal enemy of free men. They said that in order for man to remain free it would take a bloody revolution every other generation, unless you bound down (bastard) government with the chains of the constitution.
On another site this week a poster asked if anyone else hated government as much as he did. I replied to him
"Hell !! I thought you were not a good American if you didn't love our country and hate our government.
At least that is how I have always felt about it"
I think our forefathers had the same attitude that I have now. And I think it is inherent in the average Americans attitude to distrust and have disdain for any government, including ours. One of the hardest conclusions I had to arrive at as a young man, after having been a product of the public school system, was that our government was not on our side. As James Forrestahl, former secretary of the Navy, who suffered a mysterious death, once said about our State Department's foreign policy, " Stupidity is never a mark of consistancy. If they were merely stupid, they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor".
Newt Gringrich put it in a humourous manner when talking about the attitude of Europeans. He related the following story. If you go to Europe and drive on the Autobahn, you feel pretty good cruising down the highway at 100 mph when some some German passes you doing 140 mph. Now he said if the Bundestag passed the 55mph speed limit law, every German would dutifully obey that law, untill the next election. They would vote the 55 mph crowd out of office and the no speed limit crowd in. In America Newt said "A speed limit sign is a benchmark of opportunity.
It is obvious that Yankees and Euros have entirely different attitudes about government's edicts. There are darn few Americans who do not break the speed limit laws everyday.
Now we come to the Free Republic. Once a free wheeling, joyful site for news and discussion of politics, economics, philosophy, ethics and morals. I could not understand the transformation that has taken place in the last six months. Camaraderie, the sense of family, and cooperation seems to have disappeared. Are the Freepers exhibiting the same disdain for the new FR as Americans have for our government?
You must be talking about Penny Lane Pub...yeah, that place is good, although I haven't been there in quite awhile and can't confirm that it's still there. Downtown's gotta lotta construction going on and is really being upgraded, and sometimes little holes-in-the-wall like that place get swallowed up.
FReegards...MUD
Nawww, I'll be a gracious loser...MUD
I'm sorry. I was contemplating linear essences.
LOL...but you can never say I don't find you continually entertaining, my FRiend...MUD
Boy do you have me pegged wrong.
And I admire you for it.
Do you really see the patterns all shiny with little lights? That is so cool.
Don't they come in tan or beige?
How did you know that?
It's kind of fun, really.
The only disadvantage is that I keep accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan.
Awwww. Give me a hug.
(grope)
Too many nutcases, polyster pant-wearing, gotnothingbettertodothanbitch posers, armchair political geniuses, closet militia "colonels", would-be revolutionaries, fat, pasty white-assed young punks with severe to fatal cases of sophomoric delusions of grandeur, crotchety old farts who make time between rants at zoning board meetings about the Magna Carta and the Natural Rights of Man to come on FR and tell us all we're really leftists if we don't support Buchanan, and stilleto pump wielding, vacant-eyed worshipers of all-things-Bush.
All in all, it's a hoot! Thanks for the laffs!
At any rate, here is the character montage that goes with your soundtrack:
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