Sunday….a day of reflection….a day of fables and stories with morals….

I have lots of time on my hands and that gives me way too much time to think about things…..some things more than others…..this time it is the price we pay for our beliefs….

In life there seems to be a price that must be paid….to society or the bank or your in-laws….regardless there is always a price….what made me think of this was an episode on the History Channel when there were “mainstream” scientist that were disputing some of the hypotheses that were made on the show…..

There is a certain code of conduct for scientists and academics…if this code is not adhered to then there are consequences, a price if you will, they could be called before a board or threatened loss of tenure or censured or a loss of funds, etc…….No institution wants to be associated with controversy…and if the threats and actions are not enough to make the person shy away from the subject then the big guns come out…public ridicule and shunned by their peers……and the big one….No Publication of papers.

Let me illustrate this for you in a “hypothetical” scenario…..

Let us say there was this young man who’s grandfather introduced him to the world of political philosophy by giving him a copy of Paine’s “Common Sense”…..the young man did not know what he was given for awhile but them he was introduced to American history and government in grade school and the book took on a whole new meaning for him.  Jump ahead to high school, all his interests were centered on history and government to the point that he became a political activists and it was in the day of the battle for civil rights…..he became radicalized he read extensively…Marx, Rousseau, Mill, Burke on and on and then there were the writings of Americans like Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Adams…..all this exposure made him hungry for a college degree in political science…

Then war came along and he went to serve in Vietnam and the war made him even more of a radical…the obscenity of war can have that effect on a person……he read to keep his mind active and off the situation around him…Lenin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Che and Giap…..and before long he was out and away from the disgusting thing called war….and he had the GI Bill in hand…

After going through the program he was awarded a BS in PoliSci and went into Grad school for International Relations…after about 4 grueling years a MA…..and he still was not satisfied he felt that he had to get a PhD in political philosophy….he felt like he owed it to his grandfather……still with a little left of the GI Bill off he went………

Many years of study and research he finally had the grades to apply for his PhD…it is now 1976, the Bicentennial…..our hero set off to prove that the Declaration of Independence was actually not written by Jefferson but rather by Thomas Paine…..it was an uphill battle….but after much work he had his research and his thesis in hand…..all that was left was to defend his thesis to a panel……a board……an inquisition…..

Awkward!  The board was made up of people that thought the world was created by the Founding Fathers and to accuse one of the most revered people of lying was an unheard of sin…..hours of questions…all answered…the evidence was there and documented….not one was accepted by the board……in short, our hero was denied….and denied again several years later…..no one would publish his paper, no one would acknowledge his work or his work was ridiculed and he decide to take a break…..he became bitter and more radicalized…….but his inquisitors told him that if would pick a more appropriate subject he would be reconsidered…….he stood by his research and his conclusion……can you say outcast?

For the next 30 years or so, our hero worked in lots of blue collar jobs and as a labor activist as well as a politician activist….he work in the Middle East as a researcher for a Spanish newspaper…..still radicalized….still reading…..he found at this point that socialist and Marxist organizations wanted people that thought outside the box….for awhile he had found a home…..he researched, published, and lectured….but his goal was still elusive…..During these years he took up the study of economics and finished up course work from the George Institute of Economics…..but during this time he continued to work at blue collar jobs and writing on politics and economics….but his goal was still elusive…..

But there is a happy ending to his saga…..Then out of the blue he was contacted by a University in Europe that had seen an old copy of his thesis and was interested in talking with him….after much correspondence and meetings…he was awarded a double PhD, political philosophy and political history……he had finally made his dream come true and dedicated all his efforts to his grandfather…..

I guess the moral of this “hypothetical” saga is that there is always a price to pay for your beliefs, but NEVER abandon them for the sake of anything…..our hero paid a huge price for his ideals for 30+ years before someone realized that he knew what he was talking about….

There is always a price to pay if you stand by your ideals……the price is well worth it, in my opinion……

Did our “hypothetical”  hero live happily ever after?  Happiness is a philosophical question and that is a whole other post……