I’m from rural America. I grew up in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, minutes from the Buffalo National River, America’s first national river, in an area of the country that is naturally pristine and abounding with clear air and water. More than one and a half million people visit the Buffalo each year. The area is a paradise of sorts, and a popular destination to this day for the outdoors enthusiast. It was and is the kind of place a child can grow up in an atmosphere of awe and common sense practicality all at the same time and in perfect harmony with each other. And for the most part, it remains unaltered by the insanities of the modern world, with just enough technological and societal progression to understand you don’t really need a lot of progression to be happy on the planet and be able to take care of yourself and even your neighbors in ways that progression cannot and never will be able to. As most of the people who are from this kind of area know, God has provided on the planet what you need in close proximity to where you are, and in cooperation with your neighbors, you can and will be able to live a productive and satisfying life without a lot of extras, and common sense will be your guide through the rest of life outside your own rural paradise.
It’s a unique mindset in today’s world. Everywhere you go, people are in a desperate hurry. It’s almost as if the world has convinced everyone that you need to get all you can get as quickly as you can get it or you risk missing out on things everybody else is going to get if you don’t get there soon enough. It’s a vicious cycle to say the least, and not uncommon to hear of stress related health issues most every day, the result of pushing the human body and psyche too far too fast. All in the name of progress. And all at the apparent risk of the well being of the people progress purports to benefit.
And at the bottom of the food chain in this feeding frenzy for your attention in the overly busy world of progress is the crooked politician. Make no mistake, the majority of politicians are just like you and me, with a civic mindedness that drove them to the world of administration of our collective governmental affairs, and work hard to stay above the pollution of the political structure. These people are to be commended for choosing to work in what now appears to be more of a sanitation career than a representation career. Bless their hearts, as they say in the south. But the others, the ones who obviously are not involved in politics to benefit those of us who elect them into their positions are another topic altogether, and something that all of us need to discuss more in detail, lest we blindly give away our freedoms and our rights to their ridiculous pursuits.
Which bring us to the subject of today’s Our Land. The word ‘ignernt’. Not to be confused with the word ‘ignorant’ but definitely to be compared to it. Ignernt has a definition entirely different from its root word ignorant, and is used to describe something elevated beyond just not knowing. Ignernt is used to describe somebody that knows better but does it anyway. It’s a word that fancy city people and those educational elites, the ones who look down their nose at the fly over people in Our Land all across America, should know and use themselves about anyone in politics or other positions of power who are using their positions to push radical progressive ideas onto the people of America.
How many times must progressive policies be proven wrong before everybody refuses to accept them anymore? How much money does your retirement and stock portfolios need to lose before you refuse to take your chances yet again on political policies and candidates who have already been proven wrong and are telling you once again they have the right answers to your problems? And just how many times are you going to elect crooked politicians into positions of power over you and your family based on pie in the sky speeches of unrealistic utopia before you are willing to admit that those kinds of progressive policies may sound sort of right on the surface, but in the real world do more harm than any good they could ever have imagined?
I’ve heard the word ‘ignernt’ used in other parts of Our Land, so I know we didn’t invent it in the Ozarks. And in common use, turns out the word is an affirmative and firm way to say ‘you’re stupid if you think anybody thinks you’re right’. The word can and should be used to describe the politicians who stand before us and claim one thing but do another when we give them the chance. Those people are ‘ignernt’ and the word is used to talk about them not because of their skin color or their party affiliation or their gender. It is actually a kind word used to define them as someone who knows better but does things anyway and therefore needs help and assistance to make things right. In this case, it goes without saying when you say about a crooked politician ‘that boy’s ignernt right there’, you mean they are trying to play you a fool and you’re about to vote their butt right out of the office they are holding, therefore helping your family and your neighbors avoid more unnecessary harm.
At this point, you’re probably agreeing with the direction of this discussion, but it’s only appropriate that we now pull out a mirror and ask an important question to ourselves. If we are ignorant of the facts of the politics that affect us as citizens of this great country, are we doing an injustice to our families and friends and neighbors? If so, wouldn’t it just make sense to pay more attention to what’s actually happening in the world of policy making that is behind the results we all have to experience and pay for? Wouldn’t that help us to better understand why it is important who we elect into positions of power over us?
Of course it would make sense, and once we learn the facts, we are no longer ignorant in that regard. And it becomes apparent at this point just how dangerous it is to ignore the realities of what takes place in our government daily. Decisions are being made every day that will affect your pocketbook, your children’s education, and your personal safety in very real ways that can be measured and seen in real time. And it is the people who ask you to vote for them that ultimately cast their own votes in favor of or against the policies presented to them in congresses both large and small all across
America. And if we simply vote for these candidates based on how we feel about their personalities, we aren’t just risking our own futures, we are directly affecting the futures of our children, our parents, our extended families, our communities and yes, our entire system of freedom that is undeniably the best way to live on earth.
I for one do not want others to ever say about me ‘that boy’s ignernt’. But I am aware that I run the risk some day of looking back at my unconcern for the way my country is ran by those who I voted into positions to run it. And it wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility but my own to be aware of what is right and good in politics and what is false and dangerous, and that my own decisions in regards to voting and supporting people and ideas can and would directly affect those I love and those I live in community with both in my immediate area and across Our Land collectively.
I am under full conviction at my age to remember those who came before me in my own family who either gave their life, or were physically wounded, and walked away from wars with emotional scars that would never totally heal, all for my benefit, not their own. These people invested in my future and I refuse to ignore their efforts and gamble away what they fought to keep safe for me. America is great, because the people are great. The government and the people running it are servants of the people. This must be remembered and respected. And if the people we send to run the government do not respect the people, they must be removed and banished from participating in that process.
Much of the current administration in Washington D.C. doesn’t seem to respect the people they are there to serve. It is evident in the arrogant ways they conduct themselves, and in the policies they push on the American people, costing all of us so much at the expense of our families’ futures, based on policies that preach a utopia that anyone with common sense knows cannot exist as long as there is evil in the world that has to be fought both physically and spiritually on a daily basis. Daily, the politicians tell us all they are fighting for us, and the very same day pass legislation that cripples Americans in very real ways.
Those people are ‘ignernt’, and must be removed from power, as they have prostituted the government we pay for into something that benefits themselves and leaves the rest of us constantly struggling to survive the latest nonsense they have caused. If a politician blatantly lies to me once, that should be enough for them never to hold office again.
If they lie to me twice and I still vote them back into these positions, you are hereby authorized to use the word ‘ignernt’ when referring to me in conversation.
Super post. Great points thanks. As a Tennessean dedicated to plain speech, grounded reality, and the promise of continued improvement given by our Constitution and form of government this is welcome. Yes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. It is our responsibility to remove these tyrannical kleptocrats from office and prevent them from ever getting another chance.