The View From My Back Porch

The argument has raged for many years as to whether America is a nation of Conservatism or Liberalism. This argument is alive and well today. After concluding an election that tilted the vote towards, what is referred to as, a more Conservative ideology under the assumed leadership of the Republican Party. These self-proclaimed Conservatives are touting the “Mandate” that the American Voters gave them and speak of the ethics and morals of our Forefathers. However, they seem to downplay the fact that this was one of the smallest of majorities of the popular vote that has elected a President in many years. With a miserly 3% majority in the Popular Vote it was more like a field goal kicked in the last 10 seconds of the game than a Mandate.

There is a hue and cry for us to return to the Conservative Values of our Forefathers and Founders of the United States by the Conservative Right. The more I thought about it and investigated my Forefathers the more I liked their lifestyle. I have decided that if these are the role models offered for me to follow, I will take up these Values and pass them on to my descendants for the continued betterment and advancement of the American way that has allowed us to be the most progressive, richest, most respected, most despised, most loved, most feared nation on earth.

Our Venerable and Beloved Pilgrims, whom we all were taught came to America to escape religious persecution, in actuality numbered only 32 Puritans among the other passengers on board the Mayflower. These religious zealots were trying to escape religious persecution under the Laws of the Church of England and the English Government that felt they were too out of touch and a detriment to acceptable Society. These were people considered too Liberal in their thinking to fit into the accepted norms of their society as it was in 1620 and these were the “Puritans”. I mean how much fun was England if the Puritans were too liberal? The rest of the 102 “Pilgrims” or passengers on the Mayflower were criminals, ne’r do wells, adventurers, sailors and other assorted human flotsam and jetsam from the slums and the dockyards of English Seaports and cities throughout Western Europe. This gives credence to a statement made by the Actor Bill Murray in the movie “Stripes”. “We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans! With a capital 'A,' huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world.” and “that’s a Fact Jack!”

Even then there was discontent among those that came to the New World to give their Liberal Ideals some breathing room. This was the attraction and the blessing of the New World that was absent in Europe. The ability and the right to move if you didn’t like the way things were going where you lived or if your neighbor got on your nerves. The term that I have always liked was ”Elbow Room” and the New World had plenty of it.

William Penn decided to take this option when he decided in his own Liberal way that the Folks in Massachusetts Colony were a little too Conservative for his tastes and headed out for what is now Pennsylvania. The Puritans in Massachusetts thought his Religious Tolerance was offensive. Think about it. He was a Quaker and he was doing the Liberal thinking in those days. What a partying place Massachusetts must have been for Ol’ Bill Penn to think it was too Conservative for his liking. It kind of makes sleepy little town of St. Augustine Florida look like Vegas.

Then there were the Forefathers who were the architects of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Men like George Washington, who instead of living the good life up on the Potomac River on his plantation in Virginia spent a great deal of time wandering around Constitution Hall in Philadelphia everyday during the First Continental Congress in full uniform complete with sword, looking for an Army to lead and doing a good impression of “Put me in Coach. I’m dressed for the game”. Meanwhile the rest of the delegates debated the wisdom of picking a fight with the most powerful nation on earth. You have got to admire the man’s determination and his tailor and Congress’s scrappiness.

The Adams Boys, Sam and John were busy up Boston way doing a mess of Liberal thinking. John successfully defended in court the British troops who had taken part in the “Boston Massacre”, choosing not the politically correct road, but the high moral road on the issue. Brother Sam in the meantime was fermenting ale, throwing Tea Parties with him and his friends dressed like the Indian Chief from the Village People and just busting the British’s chops in Boston, Concord and Bunker Hill.

Ol’ Tom Jefferson, down there in Monticello growing hemp and peas, having an affair with Sally Hemmings in the warm Virginia sunshine, while dreaming up a new form of Government with that firebrand Patrick Henry over more than a few tankards just down the hill from Tom’s digs in Charlottesville at Michie Tavern. Tom was so Liberal he thought we ought to have a Revolution every 20 years just for the heck of it just to keep it real.

Tom Paine, son of an 18th century version of a Victoria’s Secret Magnate, revolutionary, author of “Common Sense”, renowned for his writing of “The Rights of Man”, and advocate for progressive taxation, family allowances, old age pensions, maternity grants, advocate for the abolition of slavery, and part of Ben Franklin’s posse as he “went a whorin’” by Ben’s own words, in England and France.

And speaking of that Wild Man Ben Franklin; Premier International 18th Century Bon Vivant, World Class Partier, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Naturist, Naturalist, Author and Printer of Underground Subversive Newspapers and Pamphlets. Papa Ben as he was lovingly referred to, who spent a great deal of his life doing parlor tricks in the Royal Courts with his new found toy, electricity and cavorting with the ladies of these Courts all over the European Continent. It was he who suggested that Tom Jefferson change the first line of the Declaration of Independence to “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”, in a time of slavery and women being considered chattels. Acclaimed as one of the finest minds of his time anywhere in the world. The kindly Grandfather figure whose Mistresses husbands wrote him letters saying how sad they were to see him leave, begging him to stay in France for their wives and families would never be the same after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 ending the Revolutionary War as he prepared to return to the newly formed United States after an exhaustive decade. Got to admire the guy’s chutzpah.

Danny Webster, Federalist, the Great Orator, Anti-War Activist (the war of 1812), champion of American nationalism who held court at the Union Oyster House in Boston where he had a reputation because, “It was at the Oyster Bar that Daniel Webster, a constant customer, daily drank his tall tumbler of brandy and water with each half-dozen oysters, seldom having less than six plates.” Who is remembered for saying "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" Kind of like oysters and Brandy. I also believe he came up with the often-heard line, “okay, one more and then I got to go home”. How do we answer him today when his ghost booms out the question, “How stands the Union?”

This cast of ruffians, intellectuals, tradesmen, clergy, inventors, drunkards, philanderers, our venerated Forefathers lead the struggling American Colonies and invented a form of government while sitting in taverns mixing equal parts of Ale, Rum, Brandy, John Locke, Voltaire, Plato, Cicero, Julius Caesar, the Magna Carta and dreaming up a system of government that had never before been imagined on the face of the earth. Methinks it just wasn’t tobacco they were smoking in those clay pipes. What did all these Great Men have in common? Why they were all to a man good Church attending Christians of course!

The problem is that the Republican Party of today does not reflect the ideals of our Founding Fathers. Today we are burdened by such people as Trent Lott and our resigning Attorney General John Ashcroft, defender of American Rights and Freedoms who was so embarrassed at the sight of the classic statue of Justice in the lobby of the Department of Justice because she was topless that he had her covered up. Now I don't really want to label him, but, "Out Of Control Prude" comes to mind. I guess he thought she was having a Janet Jackson Wardrobe Malfunction right in front of God and everybody. But then again what can you expect from a politician who lost his bid for the Senate to a Dead Guy. The man needs serious professional help.

The Republicans do not represent the party of my Founding Fathers. Mine is the Party of the Giants of American History. The Paines, the Jefferson’s, the Washington’s and the Adams’s and all the rest of our revered Founding Fathers. Give me that party and I will definitely show up for it. Heck I will even bring the beer.
Amen