Rest In Peace, Mr. Jefferson

                                                                 

For good or bad, America seemed to lose its collective soul when, in the 1930's, we began to become a nation of urban society rather than primarily an agrarian one.  When Thomas Jefferson purchased the West from France in 1803 he envisaged a country large enough to provide space for 200 generations of Americans.  He did not foresee the rapid expansion of the West, or mass migration.

Jefferson thought the best way to preserve our liberties was to avoid the plague of cities, with its high crime the plague of disease.  Jefferson's ideal citizen was a farmer who worked his crops by day and read Plutarch in the evening; citizens who were hard working, independent and educated enough not to fall for the false promises of an intrusive government.  He believed that the wisest social and political decisions could best be made at the lowest official level, city, county, state with federal oversight, incapable of knowing community values the farthest from the decision making progress.  He believed the federal government had but one overriding responsibility; to keep us safe and to leave us alone to live a life of our choosing.

Jefferson was wrong about our future.  And he was probably overly optimistic about an educated citizenry.  But, like the principles he espoused in our grand Declaration of Independence, he was our conscience, our idealistic father, who understood that we could not always be perfect but that we were at our finest when we were trying to be.

For two hundred years the Democratic Party have claimed Jefferson.  When I see how Democrats embrace a huge nanny government, trying to insinuate themselves in every facet of our lives, I just have to laugh at the grand hypocrisy.  Thankfully, of late, the Democrats have stopped mentioning Jefferson....political correctness cannot forgive the holding of slaves, even if that was the nature of his times.  And Jefferson's ideals are far too moral, far too old fashioned for the gay liberating, big spending "gender-bending", vote buying Democratic Party of today.  Jefferson's political party was "Democratic Republican"....news flash:  Jefferson was always Republican..one who believed in reserving God given liberties to the individual and not the state.

Rest in Peace, Thomas Jefferson, and rest in peace America...both now reside in the grave yard of broken dreams.

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