Thankful, but frustrated

A note from Tilley to Kind Readers: Please pardon the repeating of an essay that first appeared in this space Dec. 3, 2008. It was my intent to capture the growing frustration among Americans who are damn tired of the geniuses in Washington who tell us that more government is the only cure to what ails us. It proved impossible for me to say it better than how it was said in this Dec. 3 essay — written before certain U.S. Senators suggested it was un-American to suggest Congress is proposing an un-American expansion of government.

•••

This thing about us Americans and our belief in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is innate. Damn strong, I’d like to think. No matter what conservative and liberal do-gooders try to push down our throats in the form of ever-increasing for-our-own-good government oversight, most Americans down deep hold dear the self-evident truths laid open for the world to see with elegant simplicity so many years ago.

I’d like to think this is so.

Maybe the pendulum will swing when one day enough folks grow weary of Mother Government micromanaging away the life and liberty and posting speed bumps and speed limits on the pursuit of happiness. These folks, raised under the liberating effects of having access to any and all information at any and all times, just might find their way back to the collective and individual balance of responsibility and accountability — simplicity being to good government what brevity is to wit.

I’d like to think this is so.

There is some hope in my heart that the political pendulum will return to a center — but not too far from center as to swing past libertarianism into anarchy.

This hope is secured with nothing more than a single sheet of college-ruled paper. On it is a short essay written with elegant simplicity and several misspelled words. This 8-year-old emerging being who lives with me and my wife recently brought home from school this single sheet of paper. Proud, she was, of her story about the things for which she is thankful.

“I am thankful for freedom because we get to choose voting and talk about the government.”

She’s talking about liberty. We know what she means by “choose voting,” and this crusty old-fart of a journalist dang near dropped a tear on the “talk about the government” part. Hell yes! Let’s talk about government.

She continued.

“Another thing that I am thankful for (is) the earth. I’m thankful for the earth because we can build houses and grow crops.”

Commerce. Building houses, growing crops and doing other things on the earth. This 8-year-old might not — like most members of Congress — understand the millions of points of daily commercial exchange in a capitalist system, but she gets it. Commerce. Pursuing happiness. And no, you can’t always buy happiness, but the marketplace is always a better arbiter of happiness than an overreaching federal government with different definitions of happiness for different tax brackets.

“Last, I’m thankful for my life. If I was not born, I wouldn’t have all the adventures I have already had.”

Life. Adventures. Pushing dad’s buttons. Woo-hoo! Sure, the founding fathers put life first on the list, but give her a break, she’s just a child.

Any father would like to think his 8-year-old child purposefully rather than coincidentally wrote an essay about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I’d like to think so. Rather, let’s consider that this, as noted earlier, is innate; that given hundreds of choices of how to be governed, even an 8-year-old would side with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et al.

We, Kind Reader, must also remember that those self-evident truths were at the time incendiary, provocative words directed at the shins of a Monarch who held too much power and forced untold number of stifling rules and regulations down the throats of a populace that felt it no longer had a voice with the central government.

Could it be that we are just a generation or two from a society that decides another central government needs a kick in the shins? Or a higher location?

I’d like to think so.