Like our Founding Fathers before us, We The People must summon the will to shed our bovine deference to The Powers That Be, boldly proclaim our sovereignty over ourselves, and then continue to reinvent American-ness to suit our own ends - and not just meekly accept what we are told it is. After all, what could possibly be more American? According to Thomas Jefferson, "Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness..." I intend to take Mr. Jefferson at his word, for this is a muster - a Call to Charms!
I'm disturbed by our current mechanistic harshness, aesthetic brutalism, and the tendency towards monolithic, absolutist belief systems and methodologies. I propose a more humane way of life, and believe in the constant generation of modest, provisional notions that work within a limited sphere for a limited time - and then dissipate, much like living things. Through Affected Provincialism and a concept I call the "Lark-State," I propose a means to implement this vaguely Jeffersonian/Franklinian sensibility. I believe that it is time for America to become new and weird again.
Imagine an archipelago of Arcadian enclaves sprouting through the dead, grey slab of the status quo. "Stars and Stripes," meet the "Luna and Lightning Bugs!" "Old Glory," may we present "Old Glamor!" The United Shires of America are a network of "pataphyical provinces" - mischievous aesthetic refuges. The United Shires exist in both the physical and non-physical realms, and can shift between the two very well. Finally, a country you can imagine, download, pack up, or wear on your back! It keeps down costs, and avoids legal and/or military entanglements.
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My grievances against our current day should not be seen as a plea to return to the past, but rather as a call to adopt what has worked well in the past, and create for ourselves a richer vision of the future than is currently offered us.
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