"The Privilege of Being American"

Over the next days (weeks?) I'm going to post some quotes from a crappy old book of very short essays written by a man my father admired greatly.  These quotes have nothing to do explicitly with BIG Food or BIG Gardens. But they do-- explicitly and implicitly-- have something to do with living a BIG Life.

Although I take care to properly cite what I quote-- I hate a thief and plagiarism is a form of theft-- I am not going to attribute these quotes just yet because I want this man's words to be what you read, should you care to read them. (Ha. I just searched the title of the essay. This wasn't written by Geithner.)

The Privilege of Being American

I AM CONCERNED, as I know you are, too, with the fact that many of us are losing sight of what I call the main road of American progress-- the exercising of individual initiative, the assuming of individual responsibility. We have let ourselves stray a long way on a side road, by gradually, almost imperceptibly, relinquishing our privilege to do a job for ourselves.

Maybe it seems strange to you, my using the word "privilege" in such a sense. Privilege, to most people means something-for-nothing, an unearned opportunity. ...

I use "privilege" in the sense of opportunity to fulfill one's destiny, to increase one's stature as a human being, to produce. That is what I call our special American privilege. And that is the one we must fight to keep.

If every one of us reading these lines should resolve that, from this day forward, he would be the master of his own life as an American individual-- if every one of us should resolve he would let no opportunity pass to assert his independent right to remain free-- that wold be a big step forward.