1776

As Gord wrote below, Gore made an excellent speech yesterday and I caught the highlights last night. Hillary also came out forcefully too, I hope it rubs off on the rest of them.

Over the past few days, I've been going over (reading and watching) a lot of historical information about the time of our revolution. It seems to me, none of us are cut out of the cloth our Founding Fathers were, especially our elected representatives. Same for the press. The people I see coming closest are the progressive bloggers.

The conservatives of the time were motivated by the same things they are today, money and power. They wanted to preserve the status quo and their 'peculiar institutions'. Say what you will about them, they've stuck to their principles, regardless of what they call their party.

Where are the progressives today? On Benjamin Franklin's birthday, where are they? Where are the Franklins, the Jeffersons, and especially the Adams'? Where are the agitators who will stand up in front of Congress and speak the truth? Where are the ones who will stand up and dare King George to silence them? I want to know the answers to these questions because the times are similar.

I want representatives who would rather be 'hanging on some far off British hill' instead of covering their asses and being unwitting tools of the 'monarchy'. I want people like Tom Paine in the mainstream press who will write of the crimes committed by our boy King. Our population has increased a hundred-fold in 230 years, where are all these enlightened folks?

You'll find them in the progressive blogosphere, mostly. There are a couple in Congress, and a couple in the press, columnists mostly, but where are our icons? Where is the 'voice'? Where are the eloquent writings of Jefferson? Where are the policy gurus like Franklin? And especially, where are the agitators like Adams?

As John Adams sang in the musical 1776, where are those with commitment? "Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?"

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to cross the Rubicon and burn the bridges behind us. It is 1776 all over again and it's time to send our own King George back where he came from.