The Social Security Administration website tells us that the first recipient ever of a Social Security check was a woman named Ida May Fuller. On January 31, 1940 she received a check for $22.54. Thirty-five years later, at the age of 100, she had collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.
In 1955 Ms. Fuller stated that “Social Security is a wonderful thing for the people.” Ms. Fuller did not mention that in her working career she had contributed to the trust fund total taxes of $24.75. Bernie Madoff would be proud of a scheme like this, and apparently so is the Social Security Administration. They tout Ida May Fuller’s story in the historical section of their website (www.ssa.gov/history/idapayroll.html).
Without making too much political hay out of an economic issue, it should be obvious that a system so structured cannot be sustainable forever, particularly with an advancing age demographic and declining payroll taxes. Clearly depending on Social Security for your security is a fool’s errand, particularly for those of us who are not yet receiving benefits. The system must have a major overhaul including reduced benefits as a cornerstone or the Treasury will print itself into economic oblivion.
This means you must do two things. First, don’t depend on the government for your sustenance and support. If you are collecting Social Security don’t feel guilty about taking a Social Security check, but realize they spent your share of the trust fund a long time ago and are currently borrowing form the Chinese to pay you.
If you aren’t receiving a check, do what you must to assure that you’ll be able to survive without one when the time comes. That might mean living below your means and accumulating your own personal retirement fund. It means a smaller house than the realtor says you can afford and a pre-owned car instead of a new one. It means less frequent vacations and maybe a longer working life. On behalf of the Baby Boomer generation, I apologize that we didn’t solve the problem on our own backs before it got out of hand, but if it makes you feel any better, we’ll have our own heavy price to pay as well, particularly because most of us never bothered to plan ahead. We weren’t called The Now Generation for nothing.
The second and the most important thing, we can do is to recognize the source of our true security. The most egregious disservice the government has foisted upon us is the false idea that the government is the source or our security and support. During the Silly Season of the political campaign cycle, they bombard us with the frightening prospect that unless we stay on the plantation and vote for the ruling establishment, we’ll all be poor, and will probably get sick and die. After all, we mere peons aren’t capable of taking care of our own needs, and without the benevolent hand of the Great White Father in Washington, we’ll be at a complete loss on how to live our lives. The Road to Serfdom is now a four-lane highway. Those arguments sound suspiciously similar to those their political predecessors used to justify the keeping of slaves.
Thus we have arrived at the place where the government has set itself up as a false god. Maybe that was the intent, or maybe not, but whatever the case, as society has become more and more secular there seems to be a concerted effort to ban the face of religion, particularly the Judeo-Christian kind, from the public square. The government does not like competition, and maybe Jonah Goldberg was on to something when he coined the term “God-State”. (Read his book Liberal Fascism for a full explanation).
It is to the God-State that we are to look for every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). Dance with them and they will direct economic activity in your direction (Revelation 18:3). But try to do without them, and they will make your survival difficult indeed (Revelation 13:16-17).
Or at least so goes their story. In the true reality, the reality beyond what we see, all governments that the human race establishes are fleeting entities. Far better to put your trust in the true Prince of Peace. In the words of the Psalmist, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.” (Psalm 118:8-9)
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Friday, July 30, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Baby on the Bottle
A marketing genius told me about one of the more amusing marketing failures in the history of corporate America. The corporation in question decided to market its product in Africa. The target market in this story was an illiterate one, and the population identified the contents of the package by the picture on the label. If the label had a picture of a tomato, the can was a can of tomatoes. If the label had a picture of apples, then the jar was a jar of apples.
So when Gerber went to Africa and put a picture of a baby on the label, you can understand why they sold few jars of baby food.
One American auto company had trouble breaking into the Japanese market because, among other reasons, in Japan they drive on the left side of the road, whereas the imports from the good old USA assumed that everybody drives as we do.
That mistake was easily fixed, but another one still lives in the annals of cultural legends. General Motors had difficulty selling their most popular Chevy model south of the border until someone figured out that Nova in Spanish means, “It doesn’t go”. ( No va!) Would you buy a model named “It doesn’t go”?
Christianity, in order for it to be successful, also must be aware of the culture around it. Jesus and the earliest disciples all hailed from a Middle Eastern culture and were Jewish by religion and race. They viewed the world from the perspective of that people. But in order to break out of the culture of one people and to appeal to the entire world – a world that largely did not know the God of Israel – the peoples of other lands had to be approached from a perspective that they could understand.
When the Apostle Paul, who had the advantage of both a classical and a Jewish education, entered the picture he was able to speak in terms understandable to both Jew and Greek. “To the Jews I became a Jew,” he wrote, “that I might win the Jews. … To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. … I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
He knew how to approach people from their perspective, sometimes quoting their poets and always speaking their language. If Christianity is to capture the hearts of today’s world, today’s Christians need to learn all they can about popular culture and what makes the world tick. The language that worked in the more biblically aware world of fifty years ago cannot work today. It no longer works to tell people that they need to “be saved” because most don’t even know they are lost. Telling them to repent of their sins when “repent” is meaningless and “sin” a doubtful concept will do little more than solidify in their minds a stereotype of Christianity.
Just like those marketing gurus in foreign lands, we can have the best of intentions, but the signals we send do not address who we are and what we stand for. Just as Paul could converse in the language of the day, we must do the same. We must approach people in a way that is meaningful for them, and quite often that means providing a meaning to life in this increasingly nihilistic world. It means learning the rationale behind the relativistic philosophies of the day and showing where such philosophies inevitably lead.
And it means living in a way that is consistent with our values, not only to give glory to God (which is important), but to also show that the way we walk works, even in a world that might scorn it.
Lenny C.
www.kccog.org
So when Gerber went to Africa and put a picture of a baby on the label, you can understand why they sold few jars of baby food.
One American auto company had trouble breaking into the Japanese market because, among other reasons, in Japan they drive on the left side of the road, whereas the imports from the good old USA assumed that everybody drives as we do.
That mistake was easily fixed, but another one still lives in the annals of cultural legends. General Motors had difficulty selling their most popular Chevy model south of the border until someone figured out that Nova in Spanish means, “It doesn’t go”. ( No va!) Would you buy a model named “It doesn’t go”?
Christianity, in order for it to be successful, also must be aware of the culture around it. Jesus and the earliest disciples all hailed from a Middle Eastern culture and were Jewish by religion and race. They viewed the world from the perspective of that people. But in order to break out of the culture of one people and to appeal to the entire world – a world that largely did not know the God of Israel – the peoples of other lands had to be approached from a perspective that they could understand.
When the Apostle Paul, who had the advantage of both a classical and a Jewish education, entered the picture he was able to speak in terms understandable to both Jew and Greek. “To the Jews I became a Jew,” he wrote, “that I might win the Jews. … To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. … I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
He knew how to approach people from their perspective, sometimes quoting their poets and always speaking their language. If Christianity is to capture the hearts of today’s world, today’s Christians need to learn all they can about popular culture and what makes the world tick. The language that worked in the more biblically aware world of fifty years ago cannot work today. It no longer works to tell people that they need to “be saved” because most don’t even know they are lost. Telling them to repent of their sins when “repent” is meaningless and “sin” a doubtful concept will do little more than solidify in their minds a stereotype of Christianity.
Just like those marketing gurus in foreign lands, we can have the best of intentions, but the signals we send do not address who we are and what we stand for. Just as Paul could converse in the language of the day, we must do the same. We must approach people in a way that is meaningful for them, and quite often that means providing a meaning to life in this increasingly nihilistic world. It means learning the rationale behind the relativistic philosophies of the day and showing where such philosophies inevitably lead.
And it means living in a way that is consistent with our values, not only to give glory to God (which is important), but to also show that the way we walk works, even in a world that might scorn it.
Lenny C.
www.kccog.org
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Mick
Every boy needs a hero, and mine was Mickey Mantle, the great Yankee slugger of the 1950s and 60s. That’s why I enjoyed the his autobiography, the great summertime read The Mick.
Written in 1985, long after his baseball career had ended and after his admirers had grown to adulthood, it was a good, light read for this former Yankee fan, a sin for which I long ago repented.
Though Mantle softens some of the more raucous experiences of his baseball years, he does paint a portrait of himself as a flawed human being who did many foolish things, but a man who loved the game of baseball and loved being a New York Yankee. His carousing and barroom brawls with his buddies Billy Martin and Whitey Ford make for great story telling, but the Mick is clear that his exuberance for living was fun at the time but foolish in the long run.
I was hoping for a redemption moment in his story, and after a manner there was one. Mantle’s last few chapters discuss the strain his career and antics placed on his family, and that he never grasped that until after he had hung up his bat and glove. The regret of not being there for his wife and boys from March to October during some very critical years was a palatable regret, but I was looking for more from this man whom I idolized in my youth.
Mantle was clearly a religious skeptic. He says that he began to doubt God when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The Mick had virtually no religious instruction as a youth and thus had no context in which to place the trials of life.
Later in the book he speaks of Bobby Richardson, the great Yankee second baseman well-known for his deep faith and commitment to that faith. Richardson conducted Bible studies for his Yankee teammates, and Mantle not only attended but recruited several of his fellow Yankees. Then Bobby Richardson made a mistake. Intentionally or not (I’m guessing not), Richardson embarrassed Mantle in front of his teammates by asking him if he would conclude their worship time by reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Mantle did not know the Lord’s Prayer! Feeling humiliated, he never went back.
This is an object lesson in how fragile people can be and the need to be sensitive to their unseen hurts and pains. Psychological and spiritual injuries are every bit as real as a broken arm, but with a broken arm we can immediately recognize the injury. You can’t tell that someone is hurting on the inside just by looking at them, nor can we always know what will act as a trigger. Those who are in position of encouraging and teaching others need a special bit of wisdom, a discernment that can only come from God.
Written in 1985, long after his baseball career had ended and after his admirers had grown to adulthood, it was a good, light read for this former Yankee fan, a sin for which I long ago repented.
Though Mantle softens some of the more raucous experiences of his baseball years, he does paint a portrait of himself as a flawed human being who did many foolish things, but a man who loved the game of baseball and loved being a New York Yankee. His carousing and barroom brawls with his buddies Billy Martin and Whitey Ford make for great story telling, but the Mick is clear that his exuberance for living was fun at the time but foolish in the long run.
I was hoping for a redemption moment in his story, and after a manner there was one. Mantle’s last few chapters discuss the strain his career and antics placed on his family, and that he never grasped that until after he had hung up his bat and glove. The regret of not being there for his wife and boys from March to October during some very critical years was a palatable regret, but I was looking for more from this man whom I idolized in my youth.
Mantle was clearly a religious skeptic. He says that he began to doubt God when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The Mick had virtually no religious instruction as a youth and thus had no context in which to place the trials of life.
Later in the book he speaks of Bobby Richardson, the great Yankee second baseman well-known for his deep faith and commitment to that faith. Richardson conducted Bible studies for his Yankee teammates, and Mantle not only attended but recruited several of his fellow Yankees. Then Bobby Richardson made a mistake. Intentionally or not (I’m guessing not), Richardson embarrassed Mantle in front of his teammates by asking him if he would conclude their worship time by reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Mantle did not know the Lord’s Prayer! Feeling humiliated, he never went back.
This is an object lesson in how fragile people can be and the need to be sensitive to their unseen hurts and pains. Psychological and spiritual injuries are every bit as real as a broken arm, but with a broken arm we can immediately recognize the injury. You can’t tell that someone is hurting on the inside just by looking at them, nor can we always know what will act as a trigger. Those who are in position of encouraging and teaching others need a special bit of wisdom, a discernment that can only come from God.
Friday, July 23, 2010
No Wonder I'm Tired
So I'm sitting in my sister's backyard with family and I realize I'm the only one there who has a job. Then my niece shows up and I don't feel alone any more. Now I know how it feels to be a Gen Xer.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Printing Money Does Not Always Bring Inflation
Printing more money does not always bring inflation. The Japanese have been trying to re-inflate their economy for two decades through deficit spending and a loose monetary policy, but have not been able to pull it off.
That seems counterintuitive. If there is more money available and no increase in goods and services for that money to purchase, it only stands to reason that prices would rise. Let’s examine this.
Suppose some guy – let’s call him Ben – gets in a helicopter and dumps $1 billion dollars on your town. Everybody now has millions of dollars of potential buying power, and all of these people converge on the local Wal-Mart and new car dealer shops to buy stuff. One of three things will immediately happen.
1. The shelves will be bare.
2. The retailers will increase their prices to soak up the additional demand.
3. A combination of the two.
But suppose something else happens. Instead of spending the money, people run around and gather up the $1 billion from Ben’s helicopter and furtively stuff all that dough in their mattresses. Therefore:
1. None of the shelves are bare
2. Prices will not increase to soak up the additional demand
3. There will be no combination of the two.
At its core, that second scenario is what is happening right now. The government is doing everything they can to pump more money into the economy, but people aren’t borrowing it, banks aren’t lending it, and people aren’t spending it. The Federal Reserve is literally letting banks borrow money from them at 0%, but the banks are simply taking that free money and turning right around and depositing it back in the Fed at .5%. Not a huge interest rate, but easy, risk free profits!
So all these bank reserves are in the system, but because they are not being use to demand goods and services, inflation has remained benign.
The government’s solution to this (at the urging of Keynesians like Paul Krugman) is to have the government borrow and spend the money for us. That, along with the eventual release of bank reserves that are currently staying put, could be an impetus for inflation in the future. Think of your home town and what would happen if everybody raided their mattresses all at the same time to buy stuff.
That seems counterintuitive. If there is more money available and no increase in goods and services for that money to purchase, it only stands to reason that prices would rise. Let’s examine this.
Suppose some guy – let’s call him Ben – gets in a helicopter and dumps $1 billion dollars on your town. Everybody now has millions of dollars of potential buying power, and all of these people converge on the local Wal-Mart and new car dealer shops to buy stuff. One of three things will immediately happen.
1. The shelves will be bare.
2. The retailers will increase their prices to soak up the additional demand.
3. A combination of the two.
But suppose something else happens. Instead of spending the money, people run around and gather up the $1 billion from Ben’s helicopter and furtively stuff all that dough in their mattresses. Therefore:
1. None of the shelves are bare
2. Prices will not increase to soak up the additional demand
3. There will be no combination of the two.
At its core, that second scenario is what is happening right now. The government is doing everything they can to pump more money into the economy, but people aren’t borrowing it, banks aren’t lending it, and people aren’t spending it. The Federal Reserve is literally letting banks borrow money from them at 0%, but the banks are simply taking that free money and turning right around and depositing it back in the Fed at .5%. Not a huge interest rate, but easy, risk free profits!
So all these bank reserves are in the system, but because they are not being use to demand goods and services, inflation has remained benign.
The government’s solution to this (at the urging of Keynesians like Paul Krugman) is to have the government borrow and spend the money for us. That, along with the eventual release of bank reserves that are currently staying put, could be an impetus for inflation in the future. Think of your home town and what would happen if everybody raided their mattresses all at the same time to buy stuff.
Monday, July 12, 2010
PJ O'Rourke on the Virtues of Automobiles
We're told cars are dangerous. It's safer to drive through South Central Los Angeles than to walk there. We're told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We're told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it's hard to reach the drive-through window at McDonald's from a speeding train. And we're told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Turn Ye Again
Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever. (Jeremiah 25:5 KJV)
If you are inclined to blame political leadership for all the wrong in our country, you need to rethink it. Sometimes political leadership is nothing more than a reflection of the people it represents, and that is especially true in a representative republic such as ours.
In the last chapter of II Samuel, King David makes an appalling mistake. At the time he is a powerful figure in the Middle East. He has conquered lands as far away as present-day Iraq and beyond. He has friendly relations with the Lebanese to the north and the Egyptians to the south. His nation’s enemies are at his feet, and there is no national security interest for any further conquests.
But instead of glorifying God for his fortune and fame, he is moved to take a census of his troops in a possible precursor to more warfare.
This seems mighty stupid for a man who has everything, but according to the text, stupidity wasn’t the issue. In II Samuel 24:1 we see that he was more likely just a bit player in this display of hubris. Instead it was the sins of the people that led God to take away David’s sound judgement: “The anger of the Lord was roused against Israel, and he moved David against them.”
According to this, God was angry with the entire nation, and therefore, in order to move the nation back to him, he moved David to make a stupid decision.
The point is this. We can rail against ineptitude in our elected officials, but they might lack wisdom in judgement because the people of our nation don’t want leaders who have the fortitude to make tough, principled decisions. As in the words of Isaiah, “This is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the LORD; who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us right things;
Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits.’” (Isaiah 30:9-10)
Don’t tell us that we can no longer live beyond our means. Don’t tell us that pet spending projects and earmarks for my state are killing us. Don’t tell us that we need to sacrifice in order to successfully prosecute a war. Rather, tell us we need to spend more, and borrow more, and receive more benefits. Tell us that it’s okay to bust up families because the kids of such unions are resilient and probably better off anyway. Tell us that pornography is a victimless crime in spite of evidence that it is as destructive an addiction as any. In short, if it feels good, do it. Whatever floats your boat. You are free to do anything you want, but let’s not bring God into the equation, and frankly, I really don’t give a hoot what happens to anybody else as long as my team wins the game this weekend and the pizza delivery truck can make it to my neighborhood.
It might be that the culmination of decades of moral and cultural decline is finally presenting its harvest to us, and that the wind that was sown by the atrophy of the old ways has now become the whirlwind we see before us.
It just might be that the poor judgement we see in our leaders is not their fault at all but our own. It just might be that turning back to the ideals to which we once aspired, but admittedly never quite attained, will once again lead us to choose leaders who have the wisdom and foresight that comes from the Father of lights.
Or in the words of Shakespeare’s Cassius to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
If you are inclined to blame political leadership for all the wrong in our country, you need to rethink it. Sometimes political leadership is nothing more than a reflection of the people it represents, and that is especially true in a representative republic such as ours.
In the last chapter of II Samuel, King David makes an appalling mistake. At the time he is a powerful figure in the Middle East. He has conquered lands as far away as present-day Iraq and beyond. He has friendly relations with the Lebanese to the north and the Egyptians to the south. His nation’s enemies are at his feet, and there is no national security interest for any further conquests.
But instead of glorifying God for his fortune and fame, he is moved to take a census of his troops in a possible precursor to more warfare.
This seems mighty stupid for a man who has everything, but according to the text, stupidity wasn’t the issue. In II Samuel 24:1 we see that he was more likely just a bit player in this display of hubris. Instead it was the sins of the people that led God to take away David’s sound judgement: “The anger of the Lord was roused against Israel, and he moved David against them.”
According to this, God was angry with the entire nation, and therefore, in order to move the nation back to him, he moved David to make a stupid decision.
The point is this. We can rail against ineptitude in our elected officials, but they might lack wisdom in judgement because the people of our nation don’t want leaders who have the fortitude to make tough, principled decisions. As in the words of Isaiah, “This is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the LORD; who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us right things;
Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits.’” (Isaiah 30:9-10)
Don’t tell us that we can no longer live beyond our means. Don’t tell us that pet spending projects and earmarks for my state are killing us. Don’t tell us that we need to sacrifice in order to successfully prosecute a war. Rather, tell us we need to spend more, and borrow more, and receive more benefits. Tell us that it’s okay to bust up families because the kids of such unions are resilient and probably better off anyway. Tell us that pornography is a victimless crime in spite of evidence that it is as destructive an addiction as any. In short, if it feels good, do it. Whatever floats your boat. You are free to do anything you want, but let’s not bring God into the equation, and frankly, I really don’t give a hoot what happens to anybody else as long as my team wins the game this weekend and the pizza delivery truck can make it to my neighborhood.
It might be that the culmination of decades of moral and cultural decline is finally presenting its harvest to us, and that the wind that was sown by the atrophy of the old ways has now become the whirlwind we see before us.
It just might be that the poor judgement we see in our leaders is not their fault at all but our own. It just might be that turning back to the ideals to which we once aspired, but admittedly never quite attained, will once again lead us to choose leaders who have the wisdom and foresight that comes from the Father of lights.
Or in the words of Shakespeare’s Cassius to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
Monday, July 5, 2010
Jefferson and Adams
It’s July 4, 1826. On this very day, a lifetime after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, two titans of American history, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, finish the final chapter of their lives.
These two men, one breathing his last in Massachusetts, the other in Virginia, had not been in each others’ presence for decades. In fact for several years these two men who were once close friends and had pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, were bitter political enemies.
In a sense Adams and Jefferson personified two strains of thought that have been a part of the American political landscape from its founding. John Adams supported a strong federal government. Jefferson was the champion of states’ rights. Adams supported a strong mercantile class, Jefferson the idyllic world of yeoman farmers and craftsman. Adams represented the world of the Reformation and religion, Jefferson the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the supremacy of Reason.
The break between these two patriots began in the early days of the Republic, but came to an explosive climax during the Adams Administration. Due to a fluke in that day’s electoral system Jefferson, despite his antipathy to Adams’ view of the role of the chief executive, was elected as Adams’ Vice President. Thus two men with radically different views become political enemies even while they were supposed to serve side by side in the government.
It was only when Jefferson had finished his second term as president that a common friend and fellow Signer, Dr. Benjamin Rush, played the role of peacemaker and nudged the two titans to begin a correspondence that would last the rest of their lives, rekindling a friendship and enriching the heritage of our country.
These two warriors of liberty, whose friendship turned to rivalry, then enmity, blossomed in their mutual respect and friendship once again with the coming of old-age and the march of time.
Jefferson and Adams provide a model for political rivals. They had two differing views on the role of government, and those differences transformed a friendship into bitterness. Yet through the influence of a peacemaking intermediary they finished their lives with renewed friendship and respect, and our nation is the richer for it.
It was fitting that both of these old patriots who signed the founding document five decades before left this life on the anniversary of the day that changed their lives and our world forever.
July 4, 1826. Two titans passed from the scene. But their republic endures.
These two men, one breathing his last in Massachusetts, the other in Virginia, had not been in each others’ presence for decades. In fact for several years these two men who were once close friends and had pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, were bitter political enemies.
In a sense Adams and Jefferson personified two strains of thought that have been a part of the American political landscape from its founding. John Adams supported a strong federal government. Jefferson was the champion of states’ rights. Adams supported a strong mercantile class, Jefferson the idyllic world of yeoman farmers and craftsman. Adams represented the world of the Reformation and religion, Jefferson the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the supremacy of Reason.
The break between these two patriots began in the early days of the Republic, but came to an explosive climax during the Adams Administration. Due to a fluke in that day’s electoral system Jefferson, despite his antipathy to Adams’ view of the role of the chief executive, was elected as Adams’ Vice President. Thus two men with radically different views become political enemies even while they were supposed to serve side by side in the government.
It was only when Jefferson had finished his second term as president that a common friend and fellow Signer, Dr. Benjamin Rush, played the role of peacemaker and nudged the two titans to begin a correspondence that would last the rest of their lives, rekindling a friendship and enriching the heritage of our country.
These two warriors of liberty, whose friendship turned to rivalry, then enmity, blossomed in their mutual respect and friendship once again with the coming of old-age and the march of time.
Jefferson and Adams provide a model for political rivals. They had two differing views on the role of government, and those differences transformed a friendship into bitterness. Yet through the influence of a peacemaking intermediary they finished their lives with renewed friendship and respect, and our nation is the richer for it.
It was fitting that both of these old patriots who signed the founding document five decades before left this life on the anniversary of the day that changed their lives and our world forever.
July 4, 1826. Two titans passed from the scene. But their republic endures.
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