Bookworm Room » Disneyland as a microcosm of the best of American ...

by Bookworm

I happen to be a huge Disney fan, whether we’re talking about the man, the movies, or the lands/worlds.  I don’t know if I can hang onto that forever, as the current Hollywood corporate entity, with its TV station, seeks to market sanitized sleaze to our tweens and teens.  I do know, though, that for decades, Disney has stood for imagination and, thanks very much to Walt Disney, to an inspired vision of a singularly happy America that manages to throw everything on our shores into the melting pot and come up with gold.  Walt as America’s cultural alchemist.

Patrick, who blogs at Paragraph Farmer , is also a big Disney fan.  After a recent trip to Disneyland, he penned (typed?) a moving homage to Disney’s place in American exceptionalism.

For you folks near SF, at the Presidio we now have the Disney Family Museum. My guy and I went last week. Pricey $20 admission, but a terrific evocation not only of Walt but of the history of the cartoons and the Disney world which marked so much of my childhood, to say nothing of being a reading of America in the 20th century. Surprisingly engaging place, very friendly and full of great info and images.

If intrigue, management and corruption can avail, … nothing but the virtue of the people can prevail. How can a republic last long under such scenes of corruption?

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power is the right of suffrage.-Jackson

Jackson’s political thought, therefore, embraced the Revolution’s most republican ideals. As a first principle, he affirmed the conservative doctrine of limited government. He opposed a broad definition of constitutional power. He advocated states’ rights, but the states must never regard themselves as superior to the general government. Nor did they possess the right of secession. Jackson also stressed debt reduction as an important article of faith. He regarded the national debt as a national curse and a danger to free government. For Jackson, therefore, the total elimination of the national debt became a very real objective. As President, it was one of his major achievements.

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