Not all acts of courage are political suicide as proven by Jimmy Duncan speaking his mind voting his conscience & rejecting the arrogant lip service that serves as fig leaves for Empire’s shock & aw

American wars seem anymore never to be declared by Congress as * constitutionally required. Instead, there is an authorization. Republican John J. “Jimmy” Duncan Jr., like Democrat Al Gore, is from Tennessee. On October 11, 2003, U.S. Representative Jimmy Duncan voted against the authorization of the war on Iraq. Joining him was

Ron Paul of Texas,
John Hostettler of Indiana,
Amory Houghton of New York,
Jim Leach of Iowa, and
Connie Morella of Maryland.

80 percent of the vote went to U.S. Representative Jimmy Duncan in the next three elections after his vote against the latest mission of Empire, King George’s War.

Jimmy Duncan described the invasion of Iraq as, “like the University of Tennessee football team taking on a second-grade football team – it’s unbelievable.” To Jimmy Duncan the invasion of Iraq is a bloodsport only for the major league Empire, not the minor league American Republic. An Empire, which always needs an enemy, is made up of impersonal corporate managers and media-driven smugness demanding subordination of one’s critical judgement to the whims of only the Empire’s major league Team Red and Team Blue.

Jimmy Duncan though is a true principled maverick. He knows there is no such thing as only Team Red and Team Blue. It’s in his heritage. His paternal grandparents lived in Scott County, Tennessee. In 1861, the residents of Scott County, Tennessee refused to follow The Volunteer State into The Confederacy. Instead, they opted to declare themselves the Free and Independent State of Scott. They represented the best of what is America and an American Republic. That is small town America, minor leagues with pine tar in the air from resin bags mixing with the mouth watering aroma of concession-stand hot dogs, communal atmosphere, armed militia neutrality, grassroots base, and good-natured acceptance of eccentricity.

Their son John J. Duncan also became a minor league player and advocate. He was a batboy, ball shagger and scoreboard operator. He attended the University if Tennessee in Knoxville where he was the Smokies’ public announcer. John J. Duncan was later to be Knoxville mayor, then Tennessee’s congressman, along the way becoming a co-owner of the Knoxville Smokies’ baseball team. In 1984, the people of Tennessee elected his son John J. “Jimmy” Duncan Jr. to the United States Congress.

When it comes to Knoxville America or the Empire, Jimmy Duncan, like his forebears, never hesitates. Jimmy Duncan is also the congressional leading opponent of the universal metric system. U.S. Representative Duncan hangs in his Knoxville office a framed quote from Janet Ayer Fairbanks 1930 political novel, The Lions’ Den.

“No matter how the espousal of a lost cause might hurt his prestige in the House, Zimmer has never hesitated to identify himself with it if it seemed to him to be right. He knew only two ways: the right one and the wrong, and if he made a mistake, it was never one of honor: He voted as he believed he should, and although sometimes his voice was raised alone on one side of a question, it was never stifled.”

Jimmy Duncan adheres to pre-empire Senator Robert Taft conservatism. He is no more welcome in the Bush-McCain-Romney-Giuliani-Palin GOP than George McGovern was to the Democratic Party. Jimmy Duncan knows his place. That place is Tennessee and America. He says, “I’ve become convinced that these wars have been brought about because of a desire for money and power. It’s ridiculous to say that they’re a threat to us because they ‘hate our freedom.’ They don’t hate our freedom. They hate our politics. They hate our foreign policy. I believe very strong in national defense, I just don’t believe in international defense.”

Amen.

• Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution vests Congress with the sole power to declare war.

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