Anniversary

The word "anniversary" comes from the Latin "anniversarius" for the words "year" and "to turn".  Today we return to some humble beginnings.

Why is history important?  At least two reasons: because hindsight is 20/20, and because history repeats itself (therefore offering a clearer picture of the present and the future).  Perhaps also because it is fitting to honor the brave men and women who have risked their own lives and spent their own histories so that we could live in freedom from oppression and micromanagement.  Today is the 1 year anniversary of Quaestor Fidelis as Chris was kind enough to predict for me several weeks ago.  No doubt these are interesting times, as all times and ages seem to be in their own ways.  In such interesting times, perhaps it is appropriate to revisit history. 

Our federal government today seems to have in its collective mindset the doctrine of such as Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff, who warned almost a year ago, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."  It would even seem that Bush, the younger, was taken in by the word "crisis" and opened a door for tremendous government spending and bailouts which Obama and his strange gang of personal czars has further seized upon.  A shift of control, an increase in bureaucracy, and inflation (ie increase in poverty) appear to be the results of such decisions though their intentions may have been noble.  As someone smarter than me once pointed out on the radio, mature adults make decisions based on results not just on good intentions.  Recent events make me wonder how many adults we have left.

There is a tendency to believe that everyone in office is a "professional" and that he knows what he is doing.  While that may often be true, it is also much too often untrue.  Many representatives appear to be history illiterate, and that is probably not good.  Remember, government is made of people.  They are only people.  Ideally they are people like you and I that relate to people like you and I, you know...Americans.  When they no longer feel fortunate to be public servants and begin to believe themselves to be the elite upper crust because they "know" more about what is going on it politics is when it is time to remove them from office by Constitutional means and put someone more fitting in their place.  When they "know" how to solve all the world's ills thru the art of micromanaging, they are tottering on the edge of tyranny.

So in turning to history, I recommend reading Thomas Paine's entire work Common Sense.   It's short, it's very interesting, and it's full of insights written more than 200 years ago that apply today.  What's more, here's a link to a free online version of Common Sense and other works of Thomas Paine.  "These are the times that try men's souls."  Remember that old saying?  That's Paine.  In contrast to what our government teaches today - that a crisis is a spring fed well of opportunity - read Paine's words:

"Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things. When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the several houses of assembly for that purpose; and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath preserved this Continent from ruin. But as it is more than probable that we shall never be without a congress, every well wisher to good order must own that the mode for choosing members of that body deserves consideration. And I put it as a question to those who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."