Friday, April 27, 2012

Rocks and Clods


If you read my previous column on this topic (“Picking Rocks,” 4-11-2012), you know that rocks represent the politicians, bureaucrats and policies that harm our prosperity and limit our liberties. Rocks must be removed from the field whenever we encounter them. They will damage our tools (yes, I broke a tine on my 3-point tiller on my final pass before planting) and disrupt our seeding if we allow them to remain in place. Rocks hide just under the soil until a rain exposes them, and that is when the diligent farmer must retrieve them and remove them from the field.

Clods are somewhat different from rocks. Clods are tightly wound or clustered hunks of soil that resist the manipulation of the seed bed preparation tools. Clods are made of the same stuff as the remainder of the fertile soil so the goal is not to discard them, but to pulverize their stubbornness into cooperating with the rest of the seedbed. While clods are actually soil, their tendencies to deflect seeds at planting time can limit plant growth and diminish the harvest. Cultimulchers and cultipackers are useful for breaking the clods, but sometimes after a gentle rain clodbusting can be accomplished by the more gentle application of a harrow. The harrow is preferable because of compaction issues related to the two packer types.

Yes, we do have some clods in the liberty-patriot movement. They are the ones who may be focused on only one issue, one candidate or one party. Their sentiments are with us and our goals, but their blinders have caused them to be resolutely bullheaded about what they perceive as our best path. Oddly… most clods believe that all the other members of the movement are thickheaded and cloddish. They suspect that we are unusually dense because we cannot grasp the obvious superiority of their point of view. They stay with us, but constantly grouse about our failure to see it their way. They bitch a lot. They rightfully discern that their opinions are unappreciated. While they profess loyalty to the Declaration, Constitution and other Founding or Framing principles, they insist on government intervention into certain aspects of our lives. Typically the clods support a Homeland Security-type effort that crushes individual liberty or they promote federal legislation that defines strict guidelines for personal behavior. Neither approach is constitutional nor respecting of individual sovereignty. Clods rarely understand how their positions may be counter to the Founding vision. Instead, they interpolate the characters and integrity of the Founding Generation into hard-fast legal requirements. They fail to realize that the Framers’ insistence on citizen virtue as a fundamental element of our nation’s success was an individual necessity not a collection of laws and rules.

Clods are not hopeless. They are valuable members of the field. If treated with care and carefully cultivated, they will become very fertile members of the movement. Rocks are permanent, always dangerous and must be removed. Clods generate bumpy rides and are difficult and obstinate, but they must be massaged to become the productive assets they can be. Leaders and Do-ers sometimes have difficulty discerning the difference between rocks and clods. Clods often seem to be obstructionist and disruptive, but their hearts and souls are laden with patriotic fervor. Their reasoning, understanding and knowledge must catch up to their passion, and they will become the indefatigable warriors for the cause of liberty. Admittedly they’re a little thick, somewhat hard and very rough around the edges, but clods are precious and will carefully nurture the seeds of freedom if they are treated appropriately. Clods will become vital parts of the fertile field when they accept the goals for the harvest.

Always discard the rocks. The politicians, bureaucrats and unconstitutional policies, programs and agencies are lethal. Their very presence displaces the seeds of liberty and destroys the work of freedom. When the rocks are numerous and control the field, the harvest is meager and the people starve. Rocks are deadly. Clods can counteract the rocks. Before they have become integrated into the fields of freedom, clods are used by rocks to stir the people and advance the rocks’ agendas, but when the clods understand and appreciate their rightful places in the fields of liberty’s labor, they will expose the rocks for what they are. Move and destroy the rocks. Nurture and work with the clods. Liberty will win.


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