So very proud to have had you as my intern for two years, and as a good friend these many years. Roll on.

Former Kansas Senator.

For at least the last thirty years, during which time the ultra-wealthy elite (Buffett, Soros, Bing, etc) have largely favored the Democratic Party.

Businesses get sick just like people do. Theft, lying, cheating and ignorance are the germs that are killing our businesses today.

The story does, at least for me, a good job of supporting your other points, which are all worth considering. However, it’s hard to see how the history of a local community voting to abolish a market that they found to be destructive of their norms and values supports this statement, which frankly, I find to be somewhat devoid of meaning on its own. Certainly, if it’s a choice between being beholden to the state or to the market, Republicans choose the market; but in this case, the community was choosing between the market and their values, and the market lost.

For the record, I prefer the freedom to drink. We can agree or disagree about the value of our freedom to get blotto, but in general, it often seems that “The Republican Party favors markets” because it does, full stop. End of story. However, how that de facto support relates to local communities, the embededness of tradition, the hearth and home and the relation of the soul to the larger community, is still very vague.

Let me say though that, if I could, I would probably vote for you!

As a musician, I feel as though this idea has been lost not only in story telling through narrative, but also in music. It is interesting to see that through the ages, folk music has served to augment the oral and written traditions (especially the oral)and to reinforce certain ideas, virtues, morals, etc. Even in instrumental music in different cultures, the imagination runs wild with remembrance as the melodies and harmonies remind those listeners of their ancient past. However, commercialized and popular music today seems to be more concerned with exploring one’s own position as an individual, rather than propagating the Great Story and Conversation of culture and of history. The seemingly never-ending desire to be “original” causes many artists to extract themselves from that river of thought, at least in philosophy, rather than to become a part of it and enhance it, and to pay homage to their forbearers – and in fact, to see themselves as being superior in creativeness.

Those are just some of my observations as I interact with the music community. In addition, as one who appreciates fiction, I find the most compelling novels to be those that allude to the masters that have come before – T.J. White and Cormac McCarthy come immediately to mind as authors in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This is a very interesting topic and one that I am particularly fond of. I know you were speaking in political terms, but when viewed holistically, I believe it extendes to all areas of life and thought -from political theory to the arts.