September 16, 2009 2:45 PM

 

Pondering Conflict and the Constitution...

A wealth of causes has taken my time of late--financial, political, oenological--and I couldn't find time for writing, or rather, the pressing realities closed in on me for a few days. Facebook is one more proof that we exist on ideas, stories, narratives, drama, conflict--whether it's just knowing that your cousin in Georgia is fighting with a bird-feeder on a rainy afternoon or processing the claim that you're somehow a racist for objecting to the president's health care proposal, or just needing to unwind with an MGM stem-winder.

Drama is almost as necessary as food. Man does not live by bread alone.

In a roundabout way, I'm saying that, if we're really alive, we're seeking the truth and that quest is going to generate conflict. I've seen a lot of it in the last few days, and I think--at root--we're all a little nervous about how we make our bread. Some folks think if you can sock the rich corporate types hard enough, you can shake a little buttered toast out of the sky-scrapers. Others--my kind of people--would just like to be left alone so that we can make our livings in peace. You either see government as your own personal growth industry or as a kind of siphoning super-hose that latches on and won't stop sucking until you're bled dry. There are legitimate functions for government, but supervising health care, and the automotive industry, and the financial markets and your family life don't qualify.

I guess that's why the Tea Parties are growing larger, more diverse, and passionate. A crowd of Westwood tea partiers asked me to perform Patrick Henry for them, and this was the crowd I looked out upon, trying to do the son of thunder justice from behind a fixed microphone, (not an easy task; even Anglicans back then got a little Pentecostal in their oratory.)

Photo: Cheryl Lapham

 

I started this journal entry yesterday, and now I find myself pondering it all on Constitution day. The framers had the genius to devise a system that withstands even the shallow intellect of today's leaders: radical, thoughtless change--of the sort the Obama administration is proposing on health care--has a hard time getting passed when we have freedom of assembly and a ponderous, diverse body of representatives to filter bad ideas. Even with sizeable majorities in the house and senate, boisterous town halls are giving pause to legislators who have been warned their jobs will be on the line if they replace a private health market with a sluggish, costly public bureaucracy. And that's good news, a gift from the wisdom of the past...

Happy Birthday, Constitution!

More of the Farm Journal -- September 10, 2009