I just finished John Adams, by David McCullough

and my sensibilities have yet to recover. As an American who avoids party spirit and gives in to cynical diatribes far too often, I feel renewed and revitalized. My party is the United States of America.

What an eye-opening book. John Adams embodied what we see as an American citizen. Flawed, eccentric, intelligent, a voracious reader and student, determined, and quintessentially American, this man deserves recognition as the man who saved this country multiple times.

Read this book. Read it and weep.

Raise your hand

if you want to know what this country was founded on. What drove our Founding Fathers to what they did for us.

I quote from John Adams by David McCullough:

"One day, as [Adams] and Benjamin Rush sat together in Congress, Rush asked Adams in a whisper if he thought America would succeed in the struggle. 'Yes,' Adams replied, 'if we fear God and repent our sins.'"

Marvelous. It gives me tingles.

I am reading John Adams by David McCullough

and was floored by the flap text. So this is a good book. I guess it was made into some TV mini-series not long ago, starring Paul Giamatti and others.

Anyway, some kind of inexplicable shift has happened in this country. I want to share something from this book, and then I will do my very best not to start flaming. I might add a thought or two, but... anyway.

As his family and friends knew, Adams was both a devout Christian and an independent thinker, and he saw no conflict in that.

John Adams and many of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians, and were obviously thinking men. They were well-versed in philosophy, literature and had immersed themselves in many of the greatest thinkers' writings. Here's a list of what John Adams had been reading:

He read Cicero, Tacitus, and others of his Roman heroes in Latin, and Plato and Thucydides in the original Greek, which he considered the supreme language. But in his need to fathom the "labyrinth" of human nature, as he said, he was drawn to Shakespeare and Swift, and likely to carry Cervantes or a volume of English poetry with him on his journeys. "You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket," he would tell his son Jonny.

Practically a laundry list of the greatest thinkers in all Western Civilization. But he was a devout Christian as well and we learn that John Adams was very reluctant to travel on the Sabbath.

If a modern prominent politician was reluctant to campaign and stump on the Sabbath, he or she would be derided as a fanatic or extremist. People would jump to say he or she was judging those who did not honor the Sabbath. They would call him or her self-righteous and someone who was mindlessly, blindly filling the role of a devout Christian.

In short, folks today would name call and form constituencies to make themselves feel better about the fact that they are suddenly confident that this is a better person than them. Is it envy that is driving this derision of excellence and devotion? The ugly green monster is in control of our country and media, perhaps?

I don't know.

I had better stop there, or I'm going to start shouting. Have Senators McCain and Obama even read Cicero, Plato's Republic, Cervantes? Have they read the Constitution and studied the founding principles of this nation?

Or are they being fed poll numbers by their lackeys and just trying to appease a nation of people who are, even if they don't realize it, hungry for more than just sound-bytes and words? Starving for more than just platitudes, promises and moderation.

I say to hell with moderation inasmuch as it quells our desires to be excellent. I say Hades take empty promises of politicians who are trying to appease, rather than lead. Bring back John Adams. Or at least give us a statesperson who is studious, devout, dedicated to excellence and filled with a fire to match that of our founding fathers.

I said I would stop.

But I'm also going to stop spending my time reading the headlines about celebrities and I'm going to start spending my time reading biographies of great men and women. I'm going to study more of the good things. That's why I have this blog.

Because I don't want this to be a weary, humdrum, status quo, blending in life. And neither should you.