An Open Letter to Republicans/Conservatives

Dear Ones,

We hold the last bastion of traditional thought. But blabbering it abroad indiscriminately is akin to holding a viper in one's bosom.

This viper will bite and suck until it has drawn the last drop of blood from our collective veins because the 'other team' and even some of our own do not include the word 'tradition' in their vocabulary except as a profanity. Tradition and by extension all of it's relatives, such as constitutionality, and reverence for the founding fathers of America constitute profanity against progressivism; a drag on the marketplace of ideas that frankly are the driving factor behind most big business.

Can you imagine for a moment what might happen to the most prominent market genuis of our day, if they used the idea of tradition as a marketing ploy? Yeah, well those who dis Apple, the ultimate model of success, do so at their own peril.

It's not that traditional values are the enemy of the modern world, because they aren't. In fact you probably agree with me that they are a big part of the answer for the onslaught of violence, poverty and pain in our world. However the perception that one is remaining in or returning to the past endgenders all kinds of nightmares including but not limited to, slavery, the oppression of women, and a world without, *gasp* the constant flow of communication and information.

Now, I know that for us T/C types this is not necessarily true, but it must be understood before any ground is gained on the poitical front. "Know thy enemy" was never more crucial advice.


If I hear another politician on the right use the phrase traditional values, I think I will zone out like a kid listening to a sermon on transubstantiation.

Recently I heard a sane voice calling on all candidates to "find the issues that transcend party lines" and it has been buzzing in my head ever since.

While the viper of the semantic of traditionalism is a real danger, the other is more elusive.

It is a lack of vision, a vaccum waiting to be filled by the left with a myriad of social issues that all hunker under one battle cry - "Fairness". Such a nice idea. I wish it could be legislated. While I remove my tongue from being embedded in my cheek, please take a moment to think how the idea of "Fairness" has stripped reason and initiative from the country. Lest you mistake, "with liberty and justice for all" as a substitute for fairness, may I suggest that "fairness" at least in our household of four daughters, is a dead ringer for dissension and lack of unity.

Here then is the vision that is so sadly needed. Unity. One people. All different. Life has not treated them all the same. It never does. Get over it. Get beyond it. We may have forgotten that we are one people, no matter our party affiliation. We must remember it lest we tear ourselves apart.

Let's go after a "more perfect union" and let's take everyone with us.

A Mother Only a Son Could Forgive

When Philip Oglesby's mother is in the room, the tone is unmistakably, well, not motherly. She has a demeanor that dominates by insulting decency itself. This is precisely why he did not really want to visit her on Mother's Day. 

But, in fact, he did. And that visit rewarded him with a trip to jail for being an accessory to Williemaye Oglesby's armed robbery of a church. But that's not the most insane outcome of the story that Vincent crafts from the sardonic tale of lost childhood, neglect, and dysfunction that runs so deep you can cut it with a knife. Amid the backdrop of the American south, complete with comfort food, nepotistic law enforcement, and what would be a comedy of errors but for the sobering fact that Vincent just might know about this firsthand, we are treated to a backdoor peep into rural America. But the most remarkable element of the story is the choice that Philip Ogelsby makes after the chaotic and  criminal way he has been treated by the woman who should have protected him, proving once again that evil can be overcome with good.