[taraleigh]

…CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS ENTRY

I wrote a song not long ago called “Things You Can’t Stop With Your Hands.” It’s a song about the factory that was built in the field that separates my parents’ house from my grandparents’ house. We tried to stop it, tried to buy that piece of land ourselves. We didn’t succeed. So now the factory stands there… in that field where I used to walk barefoot to visit my grandmother when I was six years old, and she was dying of cancer. The factory, by the way, manufactures test bombs.

Tonight, I stopped in Greeneville to visit with my family at the end of this leg of the fall tour. My mom sat across from me and stifled tears as she told me that a plan had been passed to build a four-lane highway through our land. The plans appear to have the four-lane running less than 200 yards from my parents’ home, right by that factory. The builders will likely tear down the house that my great-grandfather built with his own hands, as well as the house where my grandparents lived and died, while destroying the road that was named in their honor. The county will probably “buy” this land from us at a pauper’s price, despite our adamant resistance. It has already happened to other friends of ours in this town.

I was incensed. This is strangely reminiscent of what happened a few hundred years ago when we came to this country and stole the land from the Native Americans that lived on the land, just because we wanted to use it for our own purposes. Land ownership is one of the primary freedoms afforded to us in this country. Does it mean nothing? Eminent domain – are you kidding me? How long will we spit on the graves of our fathers? I’m serious. History is repeating itself, on a much smaller scale, in my own backyard.

So in my secret moments of imaginary strength, I picture myself sitting on the roof of my great-grandfather’s house, refusing to let their bulldozers through, proclaiming something like: “You will not take our land. You will not take our freedom. Because if I give you my land, if I give you my house, what’s next? If I give you my guns, if I give you even one of my rights, what’s next? When will you come for my Bible? When will you tell me what to say, what to believe, what to think? I will not be a party to your arrogant disregard for individual freedom. By the people, for the people!”

And if the road does get built, I will vote against every political incumbent that passed the plan. It’s the principle of the thing: if you vote against my freedom, I will vote against you. I guess I fancy myself a bit of an activist… not in the hippie kind of way, but in the Braveheart kind of way, in the Rosa Parks kind of way. I believe so strongly in freedom, and that is why I believe it is my duty to speak out against those who try to steal my America piece by piece (both literally and figuratively). If you want Communism, move to Cuba. But don’t legislate me out of my freedoms. And don’t steal my land and call it progress. This is America.

TO BE CONTINUED…

[management]

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