Agrarian of the Week, Thomas Jefferson.

 

Thomas Jefferson is on that cast of characters that's gone from deeply admired as a hero to treated as a goat in later years, the latter due to his problematic relationship with slavery, that latter being uniquely personally problematic in his case.

Jefferson was an agrarian, but he was not a member of the agrarian class.  Indeed, as a planter, his class was in some ways in opposition to the yeomanry.  But he saw them as the foundation for the republic and feared the day when that would cease to be the case, an act which led to his support for acquiring Louisiana, which he inaccurately believed would give the country 1,000 years breathing room.  His warnings once seemed too dire, but now seem to be rapidly coming into fruition.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 49th Edition. The speaking truth to the unwilling edition.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 49th Edition. The spe...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 49th Edition. The speaking truth to the unwilling edition.

De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace

Georges Jacques Danton (often mistakenly attributed to Frederick the Great due to misattribution in the movie Patton).

Governor Gordon had the audacity to speak the truth.  More specifically, he stated:

It is clear that we have a warming climate.  It is clear that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to that challenge. There is an urgency to addressing this issue.

Wyoming is the first that has said that we will be carbon negative.

Gasp!

Well, of course the populist GOP in the state leaped on this. 

Gordon is well-educated. Where you get your money doesn't determine scientific truths.  Loving the state doesn't mean ignoring dangers to it so that we can exploit it until we die, leaving our children with a less livable planet and one that was different from the natural world we love.

Nor, might I add, does having to believe in a set of facts contrary to science and nature amount to a requirement for being a conservative, and it should not be a requirement to be a real Republican.  Likewise, working in the current economy, in any occupation, does not amount to a requirement that you have to believe in its purity or that things should not change if they need to.

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.

Thomas Jefferson, slaveholder. 

Last Prior Edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 48th Edition. Freaking out over the Polish election.

Lex Anteinternet: Distributist Notes. Note 1. Distributist Notes. Note 1. A distributist or more distributist society makes democracy work.

Lex Anteinternet: Distributist Notes. Note 1. A distributist or mo...: 

Distributist Notes. Note 1. A distributist or more distributist society makes democracy work.

The more money that is vested in a middle class, with a very broad middle class, and the less that's vested in remote corporate boardrooms, means that the economy itself is vested at the widest possible self-sustaining level.

Jefferson's yeoman, so to speak.

"San Augustine, Texas. A meeting of the town council to discuss buying a new water tank to replace the one which was destroyed by the March tornado. Left to right around the table: Troy Mitchell, city manager; J.W. Ritchie, tinner; H.D. Clark, department store owner; Mayor Alonzo Rushing, druggist; Mr. Ramsey, city attorney; R.V. Hall, grocer; Clyde Smith, grocer; and Frank Phillips, city secretary".  April, 1943.

Conversely, if your economic well-being depends on a giant corporate employer with headquarters far away, you will none the less be inclined to vote their interests, irrespective of whether they are your own.

Lex Anteinternet: I think our governments will remain virtuous for m...

Lex Anteinternet: I think our governments will remain virtuous for m...: 

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural. . .

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

Thomas Jefferson