what *is* our baseline for freedoms restored? 1959 and all that wholesomeness? 1980 and Reagan restoring our shining city?
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Not all retreats foreshadow capitulation.
Not sure a baseline lies in restoration of the past. I’ve returned to old beloved places 20 years later and the cliche is true: you can’t go home again. You’ve changed since then and so has the place. None of the same people are still there. The cultural landscape has shifted too much. In the end, all we have are our memories and those are sometimes inaccurate.
The trick will be multi-fold, I think. To live in a current, modern milieu as free individuals with rights, autonomy and sovereignty while staying focused and alert as our oppressors seek a restoration of their authority and control. To be extremely sensitive to infringements. To accord them respect as fellow humans, as long as they reciprocate. To never again yield to tyranny. To call out the lie, however uncomfortable that process.
There’s another saying: once poor, never rich. Not sure if this extension is tenable, but perhaps once enslaved, never again really free. Like the Israelites in the desert, longing for the security of Egypt. Freedom is demanding. It takes vigilance, which is work.
How can anyone really return to innocence, once that innocence is lost? And, then again, were we truly innocent or simply duped and how far back does it go? How do we even recover our true history? Not only are the strands tangled, they’ve felted together into a mass we may never be able to undo. The past is actually a shared consensus and right now, each half of the populace maintains a separate and different version of both history and reality that may never be reconciled.
Weighty and difficult things to ponder. Like all journeys, it will have to be one foot in front of the other, a day at a time. It will be easiest for the very young. The rest of us will always carry the imprint of this awakening, the knowledge that we once unknowingly lived a lie.
I get what you are saying. But I think from FDR on is in question. JMHO.
Well put.
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I really appreciate your clarity of thought and your uncommon ability to convey those thoughts in writing! Your work is a treat to read, and a pleasure to ponder...
Unfortunately, vanishingly-few current graduates of our public schools and universities can even comprehend the power of your prose -- much less equal its execution. :-(
It's my privilege to offer to you the pinnacle of FR praise: "Nicely done!"
Sincere FRegards,
TXnMA