LITTLE DOUBTS
Most of us, as individuals, are beset with many little doubts about a host of things. There are circumstances which, while not vital to our overall belief, might well be cleared up if we just knew how to go about doing so.
In recent years, it appears that many American “citizens”; to be read simply as meaning those who happen to live here legally or illegally, have, I firmly believe, been forced to alter some of their estimates of what a federal government should be in recent years.
Some such individuals find their concept of proper leadership demands changes to be made.. In spite of scores of instances in our history which, if totally stripped of concealment, might well equal or surpass those in which modern modern leader may have been engaged.
I recall the precise time when I, as a child, came to doubt that the President of the United States was not always a perfect person. My distrust came about from reading my Uncle's copy of a popular magazine of that that time called “The Literary Digest”. The cartoon artwork in that magazine depicted our President as a funny little man opening the top of a giant teapot and pouring out dollar signs to a joyous mob of toughs. We did not have radio in those days, but from conversations of adults I came to know all about the “Teapot Dome Scandal' and hushed conversations mentioned President Harding as being “womanizer” Teen talk of that time filled me in on what that might mean.
Another little doubt which assails many of us has to do with patriotism. I grew up in Southwest Virginia which brands me as being a hillbilly of the Appalachian breed. People I knew and respect to this day, made a point of having as little as possible to do with any of “them givernment men.” Some expressed themselves as being “agin “ many things that others thought of a being progressive. The “Great Depression” brought them in contact with government often with results verging on disaster. The New Deal and FDR still hold varied meanings among those folks. Never question the the term “patriotism”, however. In our Revolution, other wars, and more recent conflicts, there have been no finer patriots. I remember, too, how they disdained the politician who, at election time, chooses to “wave the bloody shirt”. They saw it as a direct insult to those who died for our nation.
These and other doubts trickle through the news I hear and see on TV in this modern election time of 2004. It takes some effort to put some of the old dislikes .“small cares” and “little doubts”in proper perspective.
Our greatest danger right now, I think, is to be found in the fact that a so-called “peace” movement rooted in narrow political party bickering might transcend the many really serious issues facing us as a nation.
A.L.M. February 5, 2004 [c495wds]
