March to a Different Drummer

There comes a time in the cycle of government when bureaucracy, rampant proliferation of rules and laws, complexity of taxation, and distancing from the needs and values of the common population occurs, and that these governments need to and must be overthrown. The time has come for this to happen in he United States. The wisdom of the founding fathers could never have anticipated the current life in The United States, and our sense of their wisdom suggests that if they could have, they would have placed further assurances in the Constitution to prevent the decline in the quality of life, the decline in individual freedoms, and the decline in the sense of connection between peoples and between peoples and their government. It becomes abundantly clear that the nature of scale and complexity, in itself, prevents anything other than slow and hesitant change. This is in a system of peoples where major change and innovation in government is desired and required, in order that the growing gu

A few weeks ago on this blog I offered this unsolicited advice to Jim Webb: • Have fast and overwhelming response to negative and anticipatable attacks and personal attacks from the Allen team (they don’t fight fair; they fight to win and aren’t above doing whatever it takes to win) – do not engage in negative attacks, but merely suggest or contrast differences in policy - and suggest that Virginia deserves better - and that the solutions require better. Perhaps with the encouraging (to Webb) polls, the Allen camp has had to pause on their 2008 presidential planning to fire a volley in Webb’s direction. "James H. Webb, Jr. continues to demonstrate he is totally beholden to the liberal Washington Senators who dragged him across the line in the Democratic primary," said Dick Wadhams, Allen's campaign manager. "By announcing his opposition to the Flag Protection Amendment, James H. Webb, Jr. puts himself firmly on the side of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer.

The resistance to social change has in the recent past been supported by Biblical interpretation – I could mention several examples but particularly the recent issue of anti-miscegenation laws. This makes progressive thinkers, as I see myself, suspicious of conservative arguments that seem to follow along rather analogous paths to resist a social change that they later (perhaps reluctantly) embrace. In Virginia, where I live, gay marriage is actually rather crassly being used as a political tool to fire up a conservative base who might otherwise not vote or who would vote to change their current elected representatives. Just last night on the Colbert Report, Bart D. Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, mentions that the Bible story of the adulteress woman who is saved by Jesus from stoning, may actually be a decades or centuries latter “addition” to the Bible. Clearly, there are translation disagreements among the most knowledgeable Bible experts and surely history (e.g. The Council of

OK guys, I’ll start it off. But I wonder if it’s worth the effort. Someone will still be willing to spend their day posting with the sensitivity of a 50’s car-full of Deep South white-bread yokels throwing beer cans at niggers as they drive by. Or worse, the Bible carrying religious nuts who I remember from the preacher in Midnight Cowboy. So just to let those types know - we won’t go away, we will face you, we will wear you down and thin you out. And you know why? Because we have far more to gain than you can ever imagine you would lose. And we can’t afford to lose amendment fights – because once adopted by required super majorities; it will take a super majority to repeal it - a mere fourteen states can do that – and it surely won’t then be repealed within a generation. This is our time in history and this is our lives – and don’t think you wouldn’t do the same if you were in our shoes. The big difference is that we can’t see ourselves, in your shoes, ever being so suspicious

Open letter to Jim Webb - As if you needed more advice, and certainly not my advice, I’m going to add my two cents worth anyway – DON’T LET ALLEN GET AHEAD OF YOU ON ANY ISSUE. And my other bullet pointed advice: • Don’t waver on your civil rights views; be candid and sincere and not waffling or apologetic. Virginians are smart enough to recognize the real item. • Br clear about your immigration policy. Virginians can appreciate your conclusions when succinctly and rationally defended. • Challenge Allen to debate often and constantly and as publicly as possible. • Don’t lose momentum, keep fighting, expand your audiences - as those who have a chance to experience your common sense, pragmatic, intelligent, modulated presentation and response, will begin to weigh their ballot choice. • Have and publish and promote your approach, your position, and your suggested solutions for the main issues facing the electorate. • Have fast and overwhelming response to negative and anticipatable atta