Responsibilities....................

     In my youth, we had a small farm.  I am convinced that the time I spent there had much to do with my firm resolve never to farm again.  Work seemed to spring eternal, like the weeds that consumed so much of our time and efforts.  One of the messages constantly conveyed in those days was our obligation to take care of the land and to use it to produce food for ourselves and others.  If there was to be independence, self-sufficiency, or freedom, then we first had to understand, accept, and discharge our responsibilities.  The latter were the necessary (but not always sufficient) antecedents or precursors of the former.  The only guarantee was that if you did not discharge your responsibilities, there could be no independence, no self-sufficiency, and no freedom.

-Clarence Thomas, as excerpted from his 2016 Hillsdale College Commencement Address