I suppose there's a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it's the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a sense of loss regarding the ideals of freedom and minimal governance from the era of Thomas Jefferson.
George Will's quote conveys a feeling of nostalgia for a time when liberty was idealized, emphasizing a perceived decline in American values. It suggests that society has strayed from a vision of minimal government intervention, leading to a collective sense of melancholy about the loss of innocence and the expansive freedom that once characterized American life.
In practice
Use this quote during a discussion about the evolution of American political values.
The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.
The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.
Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.
Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?
Ever building, building to the clouds, still building higher, and never reflecting that the poor narrow basis cannot sustain the giddy tottering column.
I am not in England; I live in the Caribbean. So I am not hungover by prizes and awards because it does not happen very often.
If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.
In the maxims of the law, God is seen as the rewarder of perfect righteousness and the avenger of sin. But in Christ, His face shines out, full of grace and gentleness to poor, unworthy sinners.
In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.