Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

"Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Ezra Stiles, 1786. ME 6:25

"It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1786. ME 6:10

" principles founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379

"A government of reason is better than one of force." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:284

"The idea of establishing a government by reasoning and agreement, publicly ridiculed as an Utopian project, visionary and unexampled." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1797. ME 1:419

"Our people in a body are wise because they are under the unrestrained and unperverted operation of their own understandings." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:324

"This blessed country of free inquiry and belief has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1822. ME 15:385

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33

"Truth and reason are eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or ecclesiastical." --Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Samuel Knox, 1810. ME 12:360

"Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547

"A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VI, 1782. ME 2 7

"Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:258 Papers 12:15

"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:85

"It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:258

"Lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:261

"In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance." --Thomas Jefferson to David Harding, 1824. ME 16:30

"Nothing is so desirable to me as that after mankind shall have been abused by such gross falsehoods as to events while passing, their minds should at length be set to rights by genuine truth. And I can conscientiously declare that as to myself, I wish that not only no act but no thought of mine should be unknown." --Thomas Jefferson to James Main, 1808. ME 12:175

"There is not a truth on earth which I fear or would disguise. But secret slanders cannot be disarmed, because they are secret." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1806. ME 11 4

"Unlearned views... are, perhaps, the more confident in proportion as they are less enlightened." --Thomas Jefferson to Caspar Wistar, 1807. ME 11:243

"I think it is Montaigne who has said, that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1794. ME 9:280

"Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck." --Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822. ME 15:409

"It was more in our spirit to let things come to rights by the plain dictates of common sense than by the practice of any artifices." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1800. ME 19:120

And we have let him down.

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And that is why I have to type this as well as a supporter of Al Gore who is now on my second time reading The Assault On Reason which to me is a Jeffersonian doctrine of our time: Al Gore stated right from the beginning that this book is not a 'candidate' book. It is a serious look in the mirror not only for those in our government who have abandoned reason in exchange for the politics of fear, propaganda, and expediency over the rule of law, but more so for the complicit corporate media that is their accomplice, and even more so for the citizens of this country used by that fear, propaganda, and expediency who on the whole constantly complain about the state of affairs but who never seem to want to get their hands dirty when it comes to truly standing up for it. This book is a primer for them in doing that, and yet I don't get the feeling that is how many see it and that is disappointing to me.

Now I have stated many times how I would feel regarding Mr. Gore leading us in a system envisioned by Jefferson, and anyone who believes I am not absolutely heartbroken at the turn of events these past seven years doesn't understand where I have been coming from. He will always be my president, and has been since December 13, 2000. However, as he has stated as well, this is not about him but about all of us, and he has done more for this world as a statesman than any of the cretins that stole this Democracy from us and for that he will have my undying respect because he has done it and continues to do it against all odds with a conscience and moral awareness I frankly do not believe politicians possess, or are allowed to possess.

He is the premiere American statesman of our time which has come with many years of service, wisdom, and pain, and the words I read and am again reading in his book were not read with the eyes of someone just looking to use quotes in them to prop him up as a 'candidate' in a toxic system that kicked him to the curb when he was not considered a 'winner' to them. I see clearly what he is talking about in this book. And what he is talking about is exactly what Thomas Jefferson spoke of in his time when he was one of the premiere American statesmen of his time: and that is that a Democracy is only as 'Democratic' as the PEOPLE make it. It cannot be done from the cheap seats. It must be hands on or it is lost. And that does not automatically mean that by Mr. Gore not running in this election cycle that he is in those cheap seats or on the sidelines, and actually that offends me.

For people to think that because he may not do what they themselves wouldn't do that it makes him less of a man or an American or that he isn't answering the call is downright rude. For surely, he has now gone where many of us would not tread and in my view has found an inner strength and purpose that can only be found by seeing your soul in the abyss.

And he does get it as Thomas Jefferson got it, and like Jefferson is warning us of what we will forfeit if we do not take our place in history to right the many wrongs brought on by our own apathy. But do we really get it? Is it all as simple as one thirty second sound bite 'election' in a touch screen world? Not hardly. However, there is no real discussion of The Assault On Reason anymore only three months after its release, or its premises, it's truth, nor especially its challenge to US. Why is that?

We simply cannot sit and wonder why good men like Al Gore fall out of love with politics with what we are seeing going on now. Thomas Jefferson BTW, was not all that enamoured with it either and had to practically be hogtied to be president... so much so, that upon writing his epitaph of the contributions he wanted to be remembered for he did not cite being president of this country as one of them. I think because he also knew how Democracy and seeking it in its true pure moral and reasoned form transcends rank and title and goes to the very core of who we are as human beings. And without truly feeling that spirit in your heart and soul and living it everyday, you don't have it regardless of title.

I then think by simply pushing Mr. Gore's work, his passion, and his dedication and love for this country and especially this planet aside simply because he doesn't now follow a road he traveled for thirty years that showed him the way to this new road is premature and unfair. I believe like Jefferson's words, we need to read his words carefully and weigh their importance against what Thomas Jefferson said all those years ago because they are timely, they are true, and they are us.

I do have hope for the future and it is because I know that good men and women like Al Gore are in this fight with us. Let's hope we don't let them down as well. If you have yet to read The Assault On Reason, please do so. If you are an American who cares about your country it is required reading.