Going to the homes of Jefferson and Madison this past week gave me a greater sense of clarity about the Origins of our country and the true Greatness of our Founders, particularly Jefferson. I think the reverence for these men still exists today in America, but on an almost unconscious level. The real enthusiasm and adulation for the Origins of our once proud Republican traditions are held now by Foreigners & the Young: one too naïve, and the other too ignorant to realize that these ideals haven’t been practiced as much as they have been preached, thus causing the honest American to feel like we’ve “fallen from Grace” as it were.

At the Virginia State Capital in Richmond, there was a large group from Turkey who toured the building with us and eagerly asked questions in their native language about the inter-workings of the state government there. Now take a look around the American political landscape: Presidential campaigns more resemble something written and produced in Hollywood than even something shrewdly devised in Washington. Is this what people want? Maybe so. The System is so outdated and corrupted that in order to save the Republican principles we were founded upon we need a complete systematic overhaul to replace the antiquated machinery (240 years running) which now only produces Big Money & “politically correct” winners. Something has to change, but how bad does it have to get? I suppose the foundation has to physically start to shake before the people on the Second Floor begin to pull the rug out on those high in the Tower above.

In any case, despite how bad it has gotten and how divided our country is right now, both politically & economically, with a concerted effort on the part of people to step back and contemplate how this whole Thing got started, and then at least vote for candidates who don’t completely contradict the American Spirit, I think we will have a better chance to preserve the freedom and prosperity that this country surprisingly still enjoys. Of course this will not be easy as the world is a much different place than it was at the time of our founding: we have pissed off a lot of people since then, and we have elected some short-sighted and/or foolish Presidents.

There is nothing we can do about it now though except to learn from our mistakes and know there won’t be much left after the next Big One for a Fourth Chance. It’s gotten to the point though that we’re so bloated in almost every aspect of Society, that popping any specific area will cause the whole System to collapse and take out more of the Innocent than the Guilty. I want to be optimistic, but I can’t help to see the long Road ahead is just getting rockier, and our increasing ability to see farther and farther down the line doesn’t make its navigation much easier for the simple fact that most people are sideways, and a few are constantly fixed to the Rear.