I will write briefly to remind my neighbors in the region of Port Townsend to re-enlist their former dispositions.

Having moved into Jefferson County 17 years ago, I learned to enjoy listening to the wide range of beliefs and dispositions of the people who embodied the culture of the region. As an unabashed Christian I found an ethos of free-thinking people, encompassing, former hippies, progressives, and variant forms of religious enquiry to be a welcome platform to crystallize my own beliefs. I felt welcomed, although it was often clear that many of my neighbors disagreed with me.

I fear our region has succumbed to a craven polarization, a reflection of the contrivances of a political elite. Our region should not be a reflection of the designs of an international cabal of corporate leaders, entertainment moguls or technological overlords. We must not succumb to the insistence by the priests of an international order that we suppress our “Divine” spark so that we may slavishly conform ourselves to adhere to a closed system of ideas. When this oversoul of humanity appears, its purposes are none other than the designing of an alchemical transformation of our humanity by forming our thoughts and inclinations. 

If we are indeed free, we must enjoin ourselves to the task of free people in the halls of history, who set themselves to the task of discerning truth, shrouded as it has always been in the realm of man, in a fog of misinformation.

Stephen T. Nieman
PORT LUDLOW