It's True -- there is no governmental solution -- Thing

Dear America,

"...to decide the important question, 

whether societies of men 

are really capable or not 

of establishing good government 

from reflection and choice..."  

Alexander Hamilton, 

The Federalist Papers, No.1

To the first paragraph, in its entirety:

To the People of the State of New York: 

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind. This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.

I have started this morning's musings based upon the September issue of Imprimis, the readers monthly from Hillsdale College.  This month, featuring an adaptation of a speech made by Myron Magnet, the author of the book, Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution.

Being just a few pages, it's surprisingly a difficult read; expect to become engulfed in a rather tight weave of the finer points of a few hand-picked Supreme Court cases -- dabbling in precedence, findings. and usurpation of the law, if any, and tying the knot with a brief biography of Clarence Thomas (advancing the belief, his grandfather saved him from a life of victim-hood and despair). 

At the end, Myron confirms what Clarence Thomas grew to know firsthand, and what very well could serve as the saving grace in the days ahead:  "there is no governmental solution."

Exactly.

..to decide the important question, 

whether societies of men 

are really capable or not 

of establishing good government 

from reflection and choice..."

...in conjunction with the understanding that there truly is no governmental solution to most things.

As Magnet magnifies in his final words:  "Regardless of race, everybody faces adversity and must choose whether to buckle down and surmount it, shaping his own fate, or to blame the outcome on powerful forces that make him ineluctably a victim -- forces that only a mighty government can master.  The Framers' Constitution presupposes citizens of the first kind.  Without them, and a culture that nurtures them, no free nation can long endure."

The establishment of good government requires that it's most precious content IS not only it's citizens, but good citizens -- good, honest, hard working, conscientious, kind, citizens, with the integrity and wherewithal to behave appropriately in all places in society, especially within the powers of government.

To that end, we have lost touch with this kind of service to God and to country.  We have totally lost touch with establishing good government from reflection and choice.  We have totally lost our sense of responsibility to be self-reliant, dependent upon the virtues and outcomes of what may come simply by being a nation elevated in good, decent self-government, fastening the security of a nation from one generation to the next.

This nation was intended to be built upon GOOD people.  

No law can take the place of just being good decent people; and every solution to our problems lies within our own, purely independent, power to change behavior.  Like George said just yesterday:

“Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.”

― George Washington

I'm alarmed by what is happening in D.C. these days.

The more light shed upon the swamp, the uglier it gets.  Our Framer's would be so ashamed of us.

Just imagine how the history books will tell it in the years to come....speaking of which, while bouncing around La Jolla on Sunday, hitting an art show and the local farmers market, my baby and me walked into a used book store -- always a good move.  Talk about falling down a rabbit hole and losing an afternoon amid musty bindings, and all the while sensing it would be a marvelous way to go, being buried in books with one wrong move (picture a game of Pick-up Sticks, only with volumes of good reads stacked to the ceiling and three rows deep).

Lucky me, though, I came away with what is titled, the Concise Dictionary of American History. printed in 1962, by the Editors of Charles Scribner's Sons, New York (first printing in 1940).  It amounts to about 1050 pages from A to Z and begins with what was called "A.B.C. Conference, which met at Niagara Falls May-July 1914, after Argentina, Brazil and Chile tendered mediation to prevent a conflict between the United States and the Huerta regime in Mexico" and ends with ZOUAVES -- "The Zouaves were a class of light infantry regiments of the French Army serving between 1830 and 1962 and linked to French North Africa, as well as some units of other countries modelled upon them. The zouaves, along with the indigenous Tirailleurs Algeriens, were among most decorated units of the French Army".

Put in another light -- this girl is proudly in possession of this Concise Dictionary, weighing in at all of 4.8 lbs,  for only a dollar!  And I haven't even got to the best part; its previous owner signed the inside cover --  "Leslie & Sam Hinton"  -- written in fancy script.   

And, of course -- I had to Google it.

Lo and behold, discovered a sweet biography through Sam's obituary at the LA Times.  He died ten years ago -- at the age of 92! -- after making La Jolla his home (apparently Leslie passed away five years earlier).   In matters of context and life intersecting life, Sam died about the same time this thing called It's a G Thing came to be; Obama was president and we were knee deep in the creation of a brand new entitlement program, better known as Obamacare.  And I just couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer, that summer of 2009, I just couldn't.

I can appreciate how Sam's life seemed a wee bit all over the place -- what a kindred spirit of mine, right.  I loved this part about him, too:  "In 1942, he became a director of the Desert Museum in Palm Springs. In 1943 he took a post doing war-related research at the University of California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. The research involved helping the U.S. Navy find better ways to carry the fight to the enemy or, as Hinton later put it, 'how to sink and not get sunk'.”  The personal overlap of family ties to Palm Desert and the Navy solidifies that feeling of interconnected lives we all weave, all our lives.  Indeed, how to sink and not get sunk...familiar with that kind of old-school humor.

The thing is -- establishing a good government from reflection and choice requires us to respect this kind of societal interconnection; every move we make bears an outcome, be it by one or by all.

Proving my ongoing theory meeting up with the amusing, age-old Monty Python skit--  it's my theory, and mine alone, and my theory is that we connect in the beginning, disconnect in the middle, and reconnect in the end.  (say it with a slightly high-pitched British woman's voice)

The Forward in my new Concise Dictionary of American History notes the following:

"Twenty years and more have passed since the Dictionary's first publication, years full of event and shock, glory and anxiety, the widening of our horizons and the deepening of national responsibilities.  Amid the complexities of our present course, a clear, accurate, unprejudiced knowledge of what we have been and what we stand for is demanded of every intelligent American.  Realms of knowledge which were once comfortably regarded as of value only to the teacher and scholar are now of immediate importance to us all.  Those for whom the Dictionary of American History was originally planned -- thinking, concerned men and women who wanted to know the facts of our national being so that they might make their present judgments with wisdom and without prejudice -- are counted no longer by the thousands but by the tens of thousands..."

The more history changes, the more history stays the same.

yet, again, there is emphasis on the thinking, concerned men and women -- this thing called reflection and choice continues to come up, no matter what happens.  And event and shock, glory and anxiety continue to play together, politely like taking turns.  The widening of horizons and the deepening of national responsibilities ever clear, ever present, and ever more important.

Yes, There it is again, that called anxiety.  It's like I'm back to the good old days, running on a theme.

Deep, deep breaths.

Everything will be okay, eventually. 
For a good start -- just aim for being good, in general.

Make it a Good Day, G