What Is A Jeffersonian Patriot? Repeat After Me: Peace. Freedom. Democracy.
Thomas Jefferson loved to share his thoughts and ideas, so he wrote long letters to friends and colleagues, and kept a series of diaries that now invite us to visit his brilliant world, even though he is long gone. Each time I read an entry from his diaries, I feel him standing over me, reciting it to me. And I no longer feel small, alone and frightened by the coming battle.
When I did my last security mission, this one in 2007, I was sure that I wouldn’t make it back home. So sure that I did something I’d never done before: left a “death letter” to anyone who found it. It was addressed to Dear Reader, not some family member or friend or colleague. Just the person who discovered it and took the time to read it. As I wrote it, tears filled my eyes and I cried the whole time, knowing this would be the end of all I had done in life, all I had worked for over almost 30 years as an adult. And when I’d signed it, the tears ceased and I felt a new resolve.
During that last mission, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It wasn’t that I wasn’t in my best shape or frame of mind. I was in that zone. I felt incredibly alive and strong and fast. And it was at that very time that the Universe decided to challenge me like never before, throwing one bad guy and nasty incident at me after another. It was like a violent video game, running away from one butthead I’d just dispatched, only to find another and another. It seemed never to end, all this violence.
In the end, though, I had only run into two people who wanted my client dead. Two. Those two, in my shot mind, had morphed into 30. I swear I used up all my clips of ammo on those 30 guys. I swear. And I shot and killed every one of them.
All two of them. . . .
When it was over and my client was safely ensconced in a safe haven, I limped back home and fell into a deep sleep that seemed to last years. It was only a couple of days, though. Spent, I went to my computer to see what had gone on in the world while I was, uh, away: not much happened in the world while I was out searching for peace, freedom and democracy. After a twelve-pack of Beck’s–or was it Heineken?–I was alive again and ready to face the world. That’s when I saw the death letter, resting comfortably in front of my computer monitor, Dear Reader emblazoned across the front in bold hand-scratched black marker.
In it, I’d said the most outrageous things, stuff like: if I had to do it all over again, I would’ve started killing bad guys the moment I left high school. Or this gem: That night I was aboard that guy’s boat, looking at all the memorabilia he’d safely tucked away over a lifetime, I was deeply saddened that there were no pictures of him with anyone. Not a single picture in the entire place. Beautiful yacht, yes. But empty and cold, lacking in any humanness. I also said crap like, if I ever meet the woman of my dreams, she’ll be a few years older and wiser, and more than I ever wished for. Dumb stuff.
As I read more of President Jefferson’s thoughts and ideas and beliefs, I am struck by how he, too, struggled day to day with life’s vicissitudes, yet somehow managed to come out on the other end, all the wiser. He had to deal with men who were more comfortable with the status quo, i.e. toeing the line of King George and his handler, Mayer Amschel Rothschild. It must’ve been difficult to persuade these weak men to adopt the idea of Peace, Freedom and Democracy, esp. in the face of incredible odds.
Weak men are in abundance nowadays. So too were they in the 1770s. Ironically, perhaps, they’re the ones who normally prevail, as people like President Jefferson take to the front lines and get shot, stabbed and massacred long before the weak-dicks ever see the fires of combat. It’s true that we do indeed leave our heroes on the battlefield, although many weak-dick survivors would have you believe otherwise.
People ask me what a Jeffersonian Patriot is. Simple: someone who espouses and fights for Peace, Freedom and Democracy.
Period.
Any questions?
Oh, I have one for you: given I continually put my ass on the line as a Jeffersonian Patriot, what are YOU willing to do, to gain back this beautiful country of ours? Huh, huh? Are YOU willing to fight to the death, whether it is YOUR death? I am and I have. Repeatedly. Are YOU? If not, then please go away. If so, I need your support in the coming months and years. . . .
