day 103 - thoughts for a sleepless night

 Today is the 5th day of the 15th week, the 13th day of the 4th month, the 103rd day of this insane writing project for 2023, and:

• International FND Awareness Day - if nothing else an awareness day means I have to go and look up what the acronym stands for!  FND stands for Functional Neurological Disorder.  In computer terms, there is nothing wrong with the hardware or structure of the brain, but input and/or output is being restricted somehow.
• International Plant Appreciation Day
  
• National Borinqueneers Day
• National Make Lunch Count Day - this one is part of an advertising campaign by TGIF
• National Peach Cobbler Day
• Scrabble Day
• Sterile Packaging Day
• Support Teen Literature Day
• Thomas Jefferson Day - he was born on this day in 1743
• the last quarter of the moon at 5:12 AM EDT

Quote of the day:
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."

~ Thomas Jefferson, American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father of the US as well as the third president of the fledgling nation.  A member of the upper class, his views were astonishingly liberal in the context of his time.

I think sometimes we forget just how radical a concept the idea that government existed for no other reason than to ensure the wellbeing of all citizens was back in the late 1700's.  Of course, the definition of what was a "citizen" seems rather ludicrous to us today because it basically was  white, male, well-to-do landowners - and it seems to many of us that some would like to turn the clock back, returning to that definition today.  Those people assume that Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers, would adhere to that same definition, whereas I think these highly intelligent and thoughtful men, so radical thinking in the context of their own time, would be much more liberal in today's context.  I think we would find them embracing an expansion of their category of "citizen" to be far more inclusive, and would be arguing for a healthy, viable, secure social safety net for all.

Of course, I also believe that definitions change over time as all concepts do.  Words that have become labels, [like liberty, freedom, liberal, conservative, independent] are not set in amber for all time - they mutate, shift, grow.  And refusal to see that doesn't make for "traditional values", it means calcification and eventual extinction as it refuses to adapt to new reality.

We see this playing out in the American West right now.  Laws and agreements for water use were carefully hammered out and codified.  Unfortunately?  those were based on expectations of having more water available than nature provides today.  Faced with complete dry-up, the affected states are prepared to go to court to defend their right to get was was originally allotted knowing there isn't enough water, because by gum there was a law!

Nature doesn't give a damn about an executed agreement or your definition of what your rights are.  Adapt or die 

Yeah, I think all the Founding Fathers, but Jefferson especially would've adapted to todays world's needs and realities.