Need a Lift?

So I'm pondering ideas about current events the other day. Thinking about the role of government and the intent of the founders and then, as could only happen in my brain, I get a vision of the ultimate in absurdity - and the perfect analogy for what is going on in Washington.

My first thought was that it was too absurd to be true. Second thought was "there's too many rednecks in this world for it to not be true."

So I Googled it. Voila, there it was.

A Corvette tow truck. Car. Whatever.

Now, I don't know who took this photo. I have no idea who made or owns this machine. 

Two things I do know:

1) It's amazing.

2) There's no way on God's green Earth I'll ever let that thing tow anything I own.

But there it is, the perfect analogy for our current federal government. Sleek, stylish, designed for speed, the envy of the world....harnessed to perform powerful tasks it was never intended or designed to do  and despite the impressive appearance, totally incapable of meeting the new expectations.

The Founding Fathers designed our central government to be a minimal force in our lives. They maintained state sovereignty because America was never intended to be a monolith. Our government was designed small for a reason...King George III. They designed a Corvette. 

Now we expect a government that was basically designed to keep us from killing and stealing from each other and protect us from foreign attacks to provide us with every necessity and luxury you can imagine. "Government must haul it all!" We demand a tow truck!

So we strap a steel tow lift to the fiberglass body of a sports car. Now we are ready to tow a Peterbilt.

Some observations:

1) The engine and transmission in a sports car are not made for towing. 

2) A Corvette can't steer without its front wheels on the ground.

3) The frame and body of a Corvette are doing good to hold themselves together without the added load of the vehicle being towed.

Our government is not made to provide welfare, universal medical insurance, comprehensive environmental regulation, domestic spying, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on everything but war....I could go on and on and on and on...

To put it simply, you want to know why we're trillions in debt (and sinking) and massive programs like Obamacare are failing before they even get started?

Because a Corvette makes a lousy tow truck.

Progress

This is the place in many such articles where the writer scrawls out "Webster's defines 'progress' as..."

I won't insult your intelligence. If you are reading this, there is a relatively excellent chance that you get the basic gist of the meaning of this word.

So we'll progress.

I'm having a serious issue of late with one of the many derivatives of this word. "Progressive". No, not Flo and her prodigious efforts to save you money on car insurance. Let's talk politics for a few.

Back to the beginning of our nation. Men argued, shot at each other, endured hardships untold and laid their honor on the line. And then they started a war. Fed up with the king and his never-ceasing power to interfere in their daily lives, they sent him a Dear John...er...George letter and informed him that his power over the colonies had ended.

We call this the beginning of the American Experiment. It is called that because it was a breaking away from the prevailing political philosophy of the day. The world was just beginning to emerge from the Divine Right of Kings that taught that the king, el rey, le roi, the tsar, the emperor, etc. was put into his position of authority by God and therefore was to be followed unconditionally.

New philosophers came along that taught of liberty, equality, democracy, the republic - not new concepts by any means but concepts that were not in practical, widespread use in Western Civilization. When these concepts found a foothold in the New World, an experiment was born. The world was watching to see what would come of it.

The first lesson was that freedom and independence are great motivators for the home team. Crispus Attucks and the others facing off against the Lobsterbacks. Patrick Henry's passionate "Give me liberty or give me death!" Nathan Hale standing on the gallows lamenting the fact that he could only give all for his country once. The bloody footprints of patriots in the snow of Valley Forge. A young Polish nobleman named Cassimir Pulaski dying alongside a ragtag bunch, including slaves and Haitians, during the assault on occupied Savannah. And John Paul Jones wasn't even getting warmed up yet.

Why did they do this? What makes a man endure the cold snow of of December in Pennsylvania with no shoes? What makes a school teacher stand confidently at the gallows wishing he could do it again? What makes a man like Pulaski seek a new homeland to fight for?

It was the concept. Home rule. Self-determination. The opportunity to fly or fall. Freedom from Big Government's umbrella - be it protecting or interloping. That's why we call it Independence Day.

From that point the experiment spread. Soon French revolutionaries would storm the Bastille and then overthrow their despot and embark on an experiment of their own. From this point, monarchy was on the wane in the West. It was a colossal shift in ideology. Freedom progressed.

So why do we look at the modern philosophy that vows to pull us further and further under the Big Government umbrella as "progressive"? When the Israelites in Sinai lamented and begged to return to Egypt no one called them "progressive". Had Lewis and Clark stopped at the Mississippi and turned back, would we call them "progressive"?

So why is centralization and constant strengthening of government power within the ultimate experiment of decentralized power considered to be a "progressive" philosophy? Why is it "progressive" to stand at the palace gates and beg for food money or medical insurance or the rights that the Constitution already acknowledged that we have? Why is it that, in this experiment to see just how little government men can get by on, it is considered "progressive" to see how much government we can create? How is that progress?

The men at Valley Forge did not leave bloody footprints in the snow so they could apply for food stamps. Nathan Hale did not lament only being executed once so we could buy federally mandated medical insurance. Cassimir Pulaski and his diverse band did not bleed in Savannah for graduated income taxes. Crispus Attucks did not die for mandatory fluorescent light bulbs And they surely did not die so that we would have to sit still and humbly obey the orders of despots that enrich their personal finances on the money they seize from ours.

If you leave a locale because you hate it, go to a better place and then return to your starting point again....that's not progressive. That's regressive.

What's in a name?

Names can be funny things. Used to give a proper identification to all the special nouns in our lives, names can inspire the good and bad emotions of people depending on how we associate the terms with our personal lives.

Just for a start: I've climbed the peaks of each of the seven hills of Rome, toured the historic centers of education in Athens, investigated the warrior culture in Sparta, searched for a pot of gold in Dublin, heard the music in Vienna, sampled the sausages of Bremen and just missed a soccer game in Manchester.

All without ever leaving Georgia.

Some of these names have origins that are sort of obvious. Throughout the South you'll find the names of the great cities of antiquity, especially places named in the Scriptures. There are associations with such places that Southerners wished to celebrate and, on some level, emulate.

But names also play another role - helping us identify foreigners:

If you go to South Georgia and you pronounce "Cairo" they way they do on CNN, you have blown your cover. The word is "Kayro".

There are two kinds of people that pronounce "Bowdon" with a long first O - Yankees and the new guy on the six o'clock Atlanta news.

Albany is in New York, "all-BANNY" is down yonder past Cordele (cor-DEAL).

LaFayette was the great Frenchman that came to America's aid. We thanked him by naming a town "luh-FET" in his honor.

For security purposes, I cannot disclose more than that.

But I can mention some places with names even I don't understand. Places like The Rock, Smarr, Ludowici, Unadilla and, of course, Enigma.

And then there's Warwoman Dell...be afraid. Be very afraid.

But lest you believe oddball names are unique to Georgia:

There is a place in South Alabama called Smut Eye. I've seen some local folklore that suggests women using this term to scold their husbands for sitting at the blacksmith's shop & drinking beer. Supposedly they came home with the smut from the forge all over their faces and the ladies knew where they had been. The name stuck, or so says the legend. But who knows where the name really came from?

When I was an adolescent, long before my enlightenment of the French language and cultural background of the Gulf Coast, we visited Gautier, MS. I didn't think it was any gautier than the next town. But, than again, you never know.

I spent two nights in Sulphur, LA. There's a name to really summon good feelings. Made me wonder if the rival high school might be down the road in Methane.

And Florida isn't off the hook because I've been to Interlachen, Lochloosa and Blitchton - and if you aren't careful with those, you might get your mouth washed out with soap.

While I do know that such names are not unique to the South, they ingrained in our maps and on our landscape. A little stretch off the beaten path and you might find yourself in one of these places. Might not be a skyscraper or a water park there but you might have found an excellent conversation piece.