Norman — I am not going to argue with John Walker or anybody else about whether we have a right to health care, not with the way the argument is being framed in Washington these days.

Democrats: You have a God-given right to health care, and I am going to provide it for you by forcing you to buy insurance.

Republicans: Our current system, under which the Octomom has a right to health care but you don’t, is perfect in every respect and I will fight tooth and nail against any attempts to change it.

If you think I’m going to defend either of those propositions, you are out of your ever-lovin’ mind.

But I do think something needs to be said in regard to John’s pontificating in last week’s Universal Joint on “one of the perennial Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson.”

I had no idea Thomas Jefferson was a perennial. I once visited his grave, late enough in the year for all right-thinking perennials to have at least sprouted if not budded out and bloomed, and there was no sign that Mr. Jefferson had emerged or was planning to do so. There was no sign that he had even turned over in his grave. There was, in fact, nothing really noteworthy about Thomas Jefferson’s grave except for the headstone, which neglected to mention that he had served as president.

The epitaph, which he wrote, reads:

“HERE WAS BURIED

THOMAS JEFFERSON

AUTHOR OF THE

DECLARATION

OF

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

OF THE

STATUTE OF VIRGINIA

FOR

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.”

It wasn’t modesty, because he spelled out the accomplishments for which he wished to be remembered. And it wasn’t that he just forgot to include a few things, because he left instructions that not a single word was to be added. The Declaration of Independence, the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and the University of Virginia: those were his more cherished achievements. His service as president, vice president, secretary of state and governor of Virginia; his contributions to architecture and archaeology; the Louisiana Purchase, which must rank fairly high on the hit parade in terms of the largest acquisitions of land with the least bloodshed; his many inventions — none of that made the cut.

Over the years, I’ve read miles of copy written by people who believe — or at least expect us to believe — the Framers and/or the Founding Fathers shared a single perfect vision of what this country should be, and it is our job to read their minds in relation to whatever new issue is being discussed and do what they would have wanted us to do. These writers have discovered passages that show exactly what a Founding Father would have thought about this issue and, like most things people tell you the deceased “would have wanted,” it just happens to coincide with their own views.

That age produced many profound thinkers who disagreed on numerous points, altered their views as their thinking matured and sometimes weren’t clearly in one camp even on the issues of their day. (On slavery alone, trying to reconcile Thomas Jefferson’s words and his actions into one coherent stance could drive you to drink faster than you can say “Sally Henning.”) An appeal to the Founding Fathers from one side is likely to call forth from the other side the response, “I’ll see your John Adams and raise you two James Madisons,” so the argument goes on and on with little hope of reconciliation in sight.

However, when you start scanning the Jefferson canon for clues as to what we should do about global climate change, embryonic stem cells or rights to Internet privacy and health care, you quickly run into an inconvenient fact: He told us.

He said, “The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.”

He said, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

He said, “We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.”

He expressed similar sentiments over and over throughout his life, with all the fervor of a man who, because of a provision in a law he had no part in making (and, according to the tour guide at Monticello, didn’t even know about until it was too late), spent virtually his entire adult life weighed down by a crushing burden of debt inherited from his father-in-law.

And, looking back at the accomplishments of a long and eventful life, he wrote the words to be chiseled on his tombstone spelling out his legacy: The Declaration of American Independence. The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom. And the University of Virginia.

The freedom to forge our own destiny. The freedom to think for ourselves, even when that thinking goes counter to the authorities of the day or the revealed wisdom of the ages. And tools to help us do those things to the best of our ability.

With a legacy like that, I can see why he might not want to clutter it up with extraneous facts like having served as president.

Linda Henley 366-3530 citydesk@normantranscript.com