When I said we need more men and women like him,
I meant to say that society would benefit from people
with greater reverence for tradition. I am, myself, a
traditionalist and a conservative, for what it's worth.

Tradition can be good or bad. There are many positive traditions, and
we celebrate many of them in our holidays. But - there is a dark side
too.

Tradition in some places holds that young men and women can be
betrothed to each other even if they are impossibly mismatched. Female
circumcision is traditional in some African nations, where the western
world would call it misogyny and brutality against women. Slavery was
traditional for millenia. Bigotry is traditional, and still holds sway
in many places on this planet. It is traditional for the rich to rule
the poor, the mighty to rule the weak, which of course goes against the
supreme law of the United States (even as the current leadership
attempts to bring it back - and I don't mean just Republicans either).

The Founders of the U.S. started several new ideas that were not
traditional at the time - sometimes, we have to carefully define what a
tradition is, lest we deceive ourselves.

Traditions are not infallible or universal or right - and we owe it to
our descendants to pick and choose those that are just, decent and
wise, while rejecting those that demean, brutalize, persecute and
ostracize.

Bruce Jensen