Wisdom of The Ages
"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."
"Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."
Thomas Jefferson
These are two quotes from the 3rd president of the United States. Thomas Jefferson is one of our revered founding fathers and after 200 years has been found to be a great man and definitely human. His human failings have been well documented in the news in recent years so I will not dwell on them. They do however provide insight into what was thought proper at the time and how times have changed.
The first quote I though hit the nail on the head. People who complain that nothing good ever happens to them are usually waiting for their ship to come in instead of building their own. We have become a society that expects and demands instead of one that goes out and gets. Our societal safety nets have encouraged us to take fewer risks because we know that we will be taken care of. Our nation was built on taking risks. The founding fathers knew that the only way to establish our republic was to get rid of the king and govern ourselves. They put that plan into play and our fathers birthed a nation. Risk and reward provide the backdrop of luck. You make your own.
The second quote rings in on our current struggle in Iraq. We first had to free the nation of their dictator before we could begin the enlightenment process. It has been an uphill battle due to cultural issues, outside influences and a general clash between two religious sects. I would suppose, if you went back and looked at out American revolution, you would find similar clashes, although not to that extent. We had those citizens loyal to Britian, the French interference and native Americans to gum up the works for us but we managed to create a great framework to build on and have struggled to maintain that for more than 200 years.
Conservatives have been blamed for trying to maintain the status quo. Current events do not indicate a lack of risk taking on the part of the current administration and if we stick to our guns in Iraq we may be surprised by the results. But then again, we may end up with something we didn't expect. Our founding fathers would certainly not have expected the 200 year outcome from what they started. I think they would be a little disappointed by what they had created. But they were using their brand of luck instead of the 20th century degeneration of the meaning.
Icool
Cobb
"Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."
Thomas Jefferson
These are two quotes from the 3rd president of the United States. Thomas Jefferson is one of our revered founding fathers and after 200 years has been found to be a great man and definitely human. His human failings have been well documented in the news in recent years so I will not dwell on them. They do however provide insight into what was thought proper at the time and how times have changed.
The first quote I though hit the nail on the head. People who complain that nothing good ever happens to them are usually waiting for their ship to come in instead of building their own. We have become a society that expects and demands instead of one that goes out and gets. Our societal safety nets have encouraged us to take fewer risks because we know that we will be taken care of. Our nation was built on taking risks. The founding fathers knew that the only way to establish our republic was to get rid of the king and govern ourselves. They put that plan into play and our fathers birthed a nation. Risk and reward provide the backdrop of luck. You make your own.
The second quote rings in on our current struggle in Iraq. We first had to free the nation of their dictator before we could begin the enlightenment process. It has been an uphill battle due to cultural issues, outside influences and a general clash between two religious sects. I would suppose, if you went back and looked at out American revolution, you would find similar clashes, although not to that extent. We had those citizens loyal to Britian, the French interference and native Americans to gum up the works for us but we managed to create a great framework to build on and have struggled to maintain that for more than 200 years.
Conservatives have been blamed for trying to maintain the status quo. Current events do not indicate a lack of risk taking on the part of the current administration and if we stick to our guns in Iraq we may be surprised by the results. But then again, we may end up with something we didn't expect. Our founding fathers would certainly not have expected the 200 year outcome from what they started. I think they would be a little disappointed by what they had created. But they were using their brand of luck instead of the 20th century degeneration of the meaning.
Icool
Cobb
posted by Cobb at
7:33 AM
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