Ce n'est pas un gouvernement (the treachery of tyrants)

What you see pictured here is a physical manifestation of the insanity and irrationality of the United States government. This piece of metal is legally a firearm. There is no trigger, no barrel, no way for a powder actuated cartridge to be ignited and expelled from this device, yet it is, according to the law and those who enforce it, a firearm, in and of itself. How can the governing bodies of such a large and powerful nation maintain legitimacy while maintaining the illusion that this object is an actual firearm? This is a sure sign of illegitimacy, not to mention corruption and tyranny. This lower receiver cannot be transferred between individuals without the proper permissions, fees, and paperwork, or else someone is going to jail (straightaway, no doubt). We have arrived.

Allow me to continue my tirade. The newsreaders on the radio report the US government's disapproval of the nefarious actions of the governments of North Korea and Russia. Apparently Russia is buying weapons and ordnance from North Korea and routing it through shell destinations. The US government is shocked and disgusted that North Korea would do such a thing as provide weapons to another government. How dare they, right? I can feel the hypocrisy dripping down the walls, soiling the drapes and thrusting its stench into my being. Have we not been hearing about the hundreds of billions of dollars the US congress continually approves to be sent to Ukraine, and the nonstop flow of weapons systems costing billions more? Congress shamefully mortgages our children's and grandchildren's futures for the sake of corruption and destruction (enriching their weapons industry cronies and themselves in the process, of course), while castigating Russia and North Korea for the same actions. This hypocrisy is overwhelming.

Did Magritte paint in vain? This not a pipe. This not a firearm. These are not my rulers. You are not my government, congress. Not you, not the executive branch, not your army of bureaucrats and regulators, not any of you. You are insane, you are immoral, and you are illegitimate.

Shower The People You Love With Love

 On March 8, 2021, The Washington Post declared a decisive victory in an important battle in The War on Poverty.

This took place on Twitter, and was obviously tweeted by a very important tweeter, because only an important tweeter would tweet officially for the Post. In case you can't see it for some reason, it reads, "Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty in defining move of presidency[.]" Wow. Sounds amazing. Great tweet, WaPo tweeter. Jeff Bezos will be proud of you and maybe give you a raise. I could talk about how stupid this is, and how it's a complete lie, how these federal [sic] stimulus checks are economically retarded, how Modern Monetary Theory is just repackaged garbage, etc. But there's something else notable about this statement. This WaPo employee (and obviously amateur propagandist) took an egregious economic catastrophe and poured a mountain of sugar encrusted halos on it. The "Biden stimulus" is showering money on Americans? It's $1400, to round out the measly $600 we got from Trump a few months ago. If this is a shower then we all still have stinky armpits. Still, this generous shower granted by His Holiness Joe Biden is sharply cutting poverty. Such a cut. Poverty will surely die from this wound any day now. But I'm getting sidetracked. My point is not to make fun of the noodlearmed commie who tweeted the tweet, my point it this: A major news outlet (I'm supposing. I don't really know how major the Post is) owned by the Current Richest Man In The World Jeff Bezos, is showering honor and glory on a massively destructive bill passed by congress and signed by a senile imbecile of a president. This is everything that's wrong wrapped up in one brief, ridiculous statement. There is no functioning news media in the United States, there is only this—the poorly concealed, manipulative propaganda of a kept press being used as a blindfold over the eyes of a completely ignorant public. [Imagine a line of blindfolded prisoners being lined up against a wall, ready for execution, and they start celebrating because they got cigarettes. That's you and your stimmy.] Demented politicians, oligarchs, and the lackey media are holding hands, which leaves the rest of us as victims of their shared purpose, which is an another discussion altogether, but trust me, the end of that shared purpose looks something like a North Korean work camp, or maybe it looks more like Planet of the Apes without the apes. That regular people have lost control over the political process and aren't allowed to know the truth about what's going on is a serious problem, the kind you can't vote your way out of.

Declaration of Apostasy

Recently there has been an uproar of sorts over the possible (probable, actually) excommunication from the LDS Church of John Dehlin and Kate Kelly, two people who apparently have websites and use those websites to disseminate their opinions about stuff. Church headquarters seems to have an issue with this kind of activity, and for obvious reasons. I mean, talking about stuff and having opinions and saying stuff—that's bad. So you can see where they're coming from down there in Salt Lake. But isn't excommunication a pretty serious deal? I always thought that was reserved for worst-case scenarios, things like becoming a polygamist, becoming a polygamist without your wife knowing about it, using church buildings on Monday after 6PM, or not being an Eagle Scout. Apostasy and other "crimes involving moral turpitude" also make the list (according to Bruce McConkie in Mormon Doctrine).

So what is apostasy? A total desertion of or departure from one's religion, principles, party, cause, etc, that's what. So really, someone who gets excommunicated from The Church for apostasy shouldn't care, because they've already deserted or departed from it, right? Congratulations all around for a big accomplishment, getting rid of someone who is already gone! But according to Dehlin and Kelly, they haven't left The Church and don't want to, although Dehlin has stated the he loves The Church but doesn't believe some of the doctrines associated with the restoration. To me, that doesn't make him apostate as much as it makes him an idiot. Seriously, he'll keep the hellishly boring three hour block on Sunday, the Pharisaical culture that measures the sleeves on girls' prom dresses and assigns social standing based on the results, and assumes grievous sin if guys show up to church in a non-white shirt, but he's willing to abandon doctrines that clarify Christianity and the nature of God? He's exactly backwards as far as I can tell. But whatever. If that's what he likes, fine. So how is Church headquarters defining apostasy if Dehlin and Kelly are apostate? And why did Rock Waterman, a blogger who had definitely not deserted or departed from his "religion, principles, party, cause, etc," get notice of a disciplinary hearing that will likely lead to his excommunication? Is disagreeing with a certain level of the Church hierarchy the new definition of apostasy? Are these guys infallible and not to be questioned ever on anything? Before we pick a favorite baseball team should we wait to see what President Tomassissmonson (Uchtdorf pronunciation) says is his favorite team? Because that would be important, no? If that's the new definition—disagreeing with anything anyone at Church headquarters says or does or decides—then I suppose I'm apostate for wondering why there exists a committee dedicated solely to collecting information on members and using that information against them should the opportunity arise. That's the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and why in the world does it exist? There must be something better to do. Maybe hometeaching, maybe printing up bright yellow Mormon Helping Hands shirts, maybe almost anything else. That's a real committee, sadly, and that's how Dehlin, Kelly, Waterman, and many others, including the already exed Denver Snuffer, have come to the attention of Church headquarters. There is a network of people who tattle on those who might have an opinion that puts them outside of what the rat perceives as normal. That sounds like a great organization, and exactly what Jesus would do. Are they getting rid of these people because it's bad PR? Guess what, it's worse PR than letting them have their causes and just simply ignoring them. How's this article on Daily Beast for PR? Good luck in the LDS press room guys. You're probably winning!

Well, time for a list of apostate opinions. Let's see if I can be declared Officially Apostate.
·The presiding high priest, colloquially known as The Prophet (even though there is no such office), should not be dedicating banks and malls as if they are temples. What would Abinidi do? Not that, I hope.
·Speaking of malls, City Creek Mall is a multi-billion dollar embarrassment of a boondoggle. Why a Church related corporation is involved in wasting so much money is beyond me. O Baylon, O Babylon.
·Church is boring. I blame this on the correlated curriculum, and the tradition of guilting people into speaking when they have no desire to speak at all. And also on the fact that Sunday school seems to be mistaken for a babysitting operation.
·Scouts is not an inspired program. If I wanted to send my kids to military school I would do that. I didn't. So The Prophet (there it is again) chose it to be the de facto Young Men's program in 1492 or whatever. So what. That doesn't mean six years of nationalist brainwashing is inspired, and anyway, church units DON'T EVEN DO SCOUTING THE WAY SCOUTING SAYS TO DO IT. So it's inspired, but not enough that we'll actually follow the program. I see.
·Everything every General Authority says is not scripture/doctrine/gospel truth. This is just a matter of logic, because any point can be reinforced by a quote from someone at some point in history. Pro-war, anti-war, pro-Coke, anti-Coke, racist, non-racist, etc forever. To prove my point, here's a quote from Harold B Lee:
"It is not to be thought that every word spoken by the General Authorities is inspired, or that they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost in everything they speak and write. Now you keep that in mind. I don't care what his position is, if he writes something or speaks something that goes beyond anything that you can find in the standard works, unless that one be the prophet, seer, and revelator—please note that one exception—you may immediately say, "Well, that is his own idea!" And if he says something that contradicts what is found in the standard works (I think that is why we call them "standard"—it is the standard measure of all that men teach), you may know by that same token that it is false; regardless of the position of the man who says it."
·Also on that note, I disagree with this talk  from Gordon Hinckley. I disagree with nearly everything in it, but especially this statement: "I believe that God will not hold men and women in uniform responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do." I am also disturbed that someone who claimed to be a seer and revelator would defer to national intelligence agencies on the matter of what was true and what was not. "Gosh, I don't know. We should ask someone… who should we ask… I know, the CIA! They'll tell the truth!"
·And then there's this one from Thomas Monson in 1991. Yikes. Count me out.
·I didn't vote for Mitt Romney. Hey, if you want to investigate someone who is publicly departing from doctrine, there's your guy. What an embarrassment. And everyone was saying what great publicity it would be for The Church. Yeah, if being used as a patsy pawn in a joke of an election is good publicity, then it was great. Did anyone even look at his platform? Holy cow, excommunicate him.
·The existence of the Strengthening the Members of the Church Committee is disturbing. Why do we have a snitch network? Why do we have dossiers on members, even if they are rabble rousers? The best thing to do with attention seekers is ignore them if you don't like them. That's pretty basic. Or at least I thought. But a committee like this is straight out of Stalin's playbook. What's next, disappearing undesirables and erasing them from pictures? Oh, wait, that already happened. Original. Stalinized version. Let this soak in: The LDS Church has a secret committee dedicated to collecting information on member who may be dissenting on some issue.
·The New Coolest Thing is to be gay. Suddenly society is ultra-tolerant, to the point that it has become intolerant to any opinion other than the prevailing one. So Church HQ makes a website, mormonsandgays.com, to make sure everyone knows we're not intolerant. Fine. And then when a few members have an opinion about it, they're on the chopping block. Seems contradictory to me, and bad PR as well.
·I don't like the primary song Follow the Prophet. It's annoying.
·White shirts and ties are not doctrinally mandated attire. There. I said it.

Have I totally departed from or deserted my religion, principles, party, cause, etc? Or have I merely formed my own opinions? If Rock Waterman is apostate, then I'm apostate too. So what?

The Essence of Politics

My kids like to watch youtube videos—never unsupervised, of course. Sometimes we watch videos of cats doing funny things, for the younger kids. Sometimes we watch videos of Barry Sanders or Walter Payton. Fortunately, youtube is not without opportunities for education. The best videos are educational and funny. This is one of those.

She likes Obama just because she got a phone. Some people! I mean, these welfare types are out of control, right? But whoever this woman is, she did an amazing thing, despite the condescending tone of the guy behind the camera. In twenty-five seconds she exposes the foundation of our whole political process, and that's something that most people who claim to be knowledgeable about politics couldn't accurately describe if you gave them an hour to do it. Thanks to this brief youtube video my kids know it.

The thing that caught my attention was her honesty. Obama gives me stuff, so I like him. Simple. And that's really what politics is all about. A politician tells one group of people that he will take the property of another group to give to the first group. This is how he (or she, to be fair) wins. You can't prove otherwise unless you use Ron Paul as an example. HL Mencken put it this way: "The state, or, to make matters more concrete, the government, consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting "A" to satisfy "B". In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods." So this woman in Cleveland is simply more honest than, well, probably you. Most people think they're voting for an ideology, or for someone who will Do The Right Thing, or maybe even for the Lesser Of Two Evils, but probably they're just voting for the guy who says he will get more of the things he and people like him think are right, and the people who are wrong will get less, and also pay for the things that are right. Although, of course, we must all Do Our Part and Pay Our Fair Share. There's really no getting around that.

After a few views I noticed something else. Her critique of Romney was hilarious and also accurate, but it was also typical of most political dialogue. "He sucks—bad!" That sums it up from both sides. Because no one could come right out and be honest about their motivations—we like the warfare state! We like the welfare state!—the whole world was stuck with two years of vapid, vacuous, verbosity that got us nowhere but the same place as always. For two years there were endless speeches about who would spend the most money in the worst way, or about who would invade which countries, or whose nonexistent plan was better, or who spent more on a haircut, or who bullied someone back in the day, or who didn't have the requisite experience to do any of the above mentioned things. And then everyone took sides, but didn't really know why. Here's this lady who says Obama gave her a phone and Romney sucks, and you think you can do better? Do you really think that voting for Romney because "He's a Mormon!" or "He's a conservative!" or "He's a good businessman!" is better? Guess what, you're on Cleveland Lady's level. Those aren't arguments or rational thoughts, those are emotions, and that's all you had, because Romney never had a plan for anything. Tell me what it was. Yeah, that's what I thought. No plan, just saying the right words, tailored just for you, the target audience. He never had anything better than "Obama sucks—bad!" and neither did you.

The only real sway any politician has comes from what he has promised to take from someone else to give to you, whether it's a phone or a fleet of new (yet nearly obsolete) airplanes and bombs to go with them, or maybe a whole stack of new debt to fund the "cleanup project" you're "working" on, or maybe even those green jobs we've been hearing so much about for so long. You might as well be honest and get a new phone.

The Deadliest Pool

Sometime last winter I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I ended up as the general manager of the private pool we belong to. That part of the story isn't really the point here.

Skip forward to the summer of 2012. Teenage lifeguards, on break from public schools where the main objective is to teach children to dutifully submit to state-approved authority, are surprised by a visit from the local Environmental Health Technician* (this title should have your Orwell sensors lighting up). According to the list written up by the inspector, the pool was just barely on the safe side of being shut down. The list included lethal items such as missing skimmer covers (we didn't have any missing, by the way) and no separate filter shut off thingy for the small pool (the reason for that is because the water in the big pool and the water in the small pool is the same water. Very observant, Inspector Clouseau!). A former manager informed me that the list was just a list of recommendations, and there was no threat of the pool being shut down, despite the inspector's notice that the items should be fixed within 24 hours or else. For the remainder of the summer we suffered exactly zero drownings, zero illnesses from contaminated water, zero limbs amputated by missing skimmer covers, and zero injuries unrelated to the idiocy of the injured person.

The other day I got a letter from the county health department concerning the pool. My pool, a private pool for members of the pool on private property, run by members of the pool privately for their own private use, and also not open to the public under any circumstances. I'm quoting now: "This letter is a follow up on the routine inspections of the above referenced facility's pool performed during the 2012 season." I'm flattered! Continuing: "During these inspections the following item was discussed and must be corrected to maintain compliance with WAC 246-260 prior to opening your facility in 2013." Egads, bold letters! The words "must" and "compliance" were used, this must be seriously official! But it gets better, and then it gets even better after that. The item to be corrected is the obtaining of a chlorine test kit, which can be found by any blind moron in the pump room of the above referenced pool. We have a test kit, which is how the lifeguards tested the water multiple times everyday for the entire summer. But it seems that our beloved inspector deemed our kit inadequate. Whatever shall we do?

Here's the even better part. Quoting the, uh, technician again: "Please note this item is a central component of a safe and healthy facility. It is your responsibility to ensure that your facility remains as safe as possible. It is important to fix this item prior to opening in 2013, as failure will result in closure of your facility until corrections have been implemented." This small group of sentences really made my day. There's so much there. Failure will result in closure. We must recognize the stringent standards set forth by the state. Failure is not an option. These people run a tight ship, and there is no room for sloppy or inaccurate water testing. Yes, the state demands success, no failure allowed. Those with a bad attitude toward authority might point out that the state itself is the source of more failure than any other single source, and that the state fails at everything it ever attempts to do, aside from fleecing the general population and creating an endless and metastasizing labyrinth of bureaucracies. But I'll refrain from that. The other thing I noticed was the very clear assignment of responsibility. "It is your responsibility…" Well, if it's my responsibility, then why have I been sent a letter about this problem? Why not mind your own business, county health department? By your own admission, it is none of your business, because it's my responsibility. Wherefore do you concern yourself with my pool, Inspector/Technician? It is not your responsibility, after all.

At this point some may be wondering what purpose the county health department serves at all, what with no responsibility whatsoever to oversee the correct testing of pool water. Well, plenty of purposes, that's what. It even says it on the letterhead: "Always working [sic] for a safer and healthier community." See? That's gotta be a purpose, right? So while they're out working [sic] to save the community from the community's own dumb non-self-preservational self, I'll be responsible for the safe operation of the pool, even though I didn't need them to tell me I needed to do that in the first place. Maybe the department will be in your kitchen next, testing your knives to make sure they're clean before you cut vegetables with them, or maybe making sure there are no dangerous tree branches in your back yard. And did you flush the toilet? Inspector, where are you when we need you? Community safety first!

So I'll close with some words from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, an invitation to the technicians and inspectors down at the county health department, and personal pledge to never deserve what happened afterward: "And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."

*This guy could be different from the actual field inspector. I don't know, but does it really matter?

Defeating Terror, Part 1

While some may say that the US government's War on Terror is a ruse, and you can't declare war on a tactic, the truth is this: a lot of people—terrorists—living in remote regions of Central Asia, the Middle East, and the continental United Sates, are so insanely jealous of the obscene amount of freedom we have here that they have vowed to spend their lives to destroy those very freedoms.

One example is written about by Claudia Rosett, although she has kind of a bad attitude about it. As you will be able to see after reading that, our Freedom Defenders in DC have taken a bold step toward keeping us safe from terror. Because really, if the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, and we keep removing freedoms, then they will have no reason to hate us, which means they won't need to attack us as they are now constantly doing. So, voila, we are free from terror. Thusly, freedom must be destroyed in order that we may be free. QED.

So don't complain when you can't buy 100 watt bulbs starting in January. Don't see it as an invasion of your home by meddling bureaucrats in the indirect employ of fascist corporations which have purchased Our Dear Congress in order that their products may be purchased even though the marketplace has rejected them. See it as safety. Someone get George Bush to strut around in a flight suit so that we can recognize the fact that the mission has once again been partially accomplished.

This Is Why

When—if—parents and other responsible adults begin to fight back against paramilitary bullies like Frank Gordo, it will be things like this that cause it. Because…

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more — we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Sooner or late the cursed machine will grind to a halt.

The Yin-Yang Heart of Elspeth Gilmore

Laurence Vance just informed me (not personally, of course, but that's the great thing about the internet) about Elspeth Gilmore. He calls her "the dumbest of the 1%," referring to the now ubiquitous and probably mythical division of wealth in American society, the 99 and the 1,made popular by Occupy Wall Street. Mr Vance calls Elspeth Gilmore dumb because she apparently can't see the massive, glaring flaw in the logic she so proudly espouses in a recent commentary on NPR. Vance is correct in that the flaw is there—anyone can see that. Gilmore is begging—demanding, even—that the government help her give away more of her money. It does seem pretty dumb at first, but maybe she should get the benefit of the doubt until some further research can be done.

Here is Elspeth's plea from her sign at Occupy Wall Street: I inherited money at 21. I have had health and dental insurance my whole life. I want to live in a world where we all have enough. I have more than enough. Tax me! Rich kid for redistribution! I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%.

There are numerous questions that could be asked here, such as what health and dental insurance have to do with social justice, or what enough is, and what it is enough for. But the question I want to ask is whether or not Elspeth Gilmore is dumb. Isn't it possible that she just has a kind heart, and that when she sees a poor child with crooked teeth her heart breaks because it isn't fair for a child to go through life with crooked teeth? It could be that she is so selfless that she can't stand to see so many go without basic needs: "adequate infrastructure and roads, well-funded school systems, clean water systems, innovative transportation and health care for all." Way too nebulous, but well-intentioned, I'm sure, although I'm not sure that those are basic needs, let alone needs ("why are you crying little child?" "Because I don't have any innovative transportation!"). To provide for those needs she wants to close "loopholes for corporations" and "increase millionaire taxes." She wants to use her money to help others. How very nice of her. Her heart seems to be in the right place.

This apparent kindness is the yang side of her heart. Yang eventually turns into yin. Instead of choosing on her own how her money can help others (which is why Vance calls her dumb, in case you haven't figured it out yet), Gilmore wants her money to be forcibly removed by federal officials so they can decide how to help poor folks (note to Elspeth: shooting missiles and dropping bombs on poor people in foreign countries—which is what Uncle Sam would do with it—doesn't count as helping). It doesn't end there. She wants this choice to be made for everyone in her situation. Everyone with "more than enough" must be separated from a large portion of their wealth until they just have "enough." And then, apparently, everyone will have enough! The stupidity rears it head once again. Just in case you think the state doesn't forcibly take property, watch this hilarious video of Harry Reid in denial of that fact. So Elspeth wants people with guns to show up at the country club and threaten violence to raise a little revenue from the well-to-do. It only seems fair to her. They have more than enough!

Not realizing she can give her own money away is dumb. Not realizing that the state's only tool is violence is ignorance. Foisting this ignorance on the world in the name of fairness and equality is evil. The kindness of Elspeth's heart is also the darkness of her heart. I don't think she gets this. I can help her.

Last year the insurance company that we bought our dental insurance from decided not to cover orthodontia anymore. We had already agreed to the terms of contract, and we had already begun the process of installing braces. We had paid our portion of the cost. The insurance company had not paid their portion, and told the orthodontist that they didn't plan to pay it either. So we had to pay it. My wife was angry. Fortunately, Washington has an insurance commissioner's office to protect unsuspecting consumers from being victimized. This is what taxes are for, right? To pay for scads of lawyers to defend us from corrupt corporate predators, right? After weeks of waiting, an attorney from the commissioner's office informed us that the insurance company had canceled that portion of their service, and so obviously they couldn't be expected to pay for a service they didn't offer. This wise attorney also informed us that he had closed the case, which I assume is one of those extra mile services that can only be offered by a state-run institution. If it weren't for the insurance commissioner's office, we would be out $3500! Oh, wait, we were out $3500, despite all the efforts of the beneficent and magnanimous state to save us from that end. Huh. As an extra benefit, the insurance commissioner of Washington also protected us from similar dental plans because he had not personally approved them for our area of the state. You cannot imagine how protected I felt at that moment. I don't know if this is what Elspeth wants, but this is what her method would produce. Listen closely Elspeth—it was the very existence of this government agency that allowed the insurance company to act this way. Their corruption was protected by the state. It's a very simple process: the state violently takes money; the state violently entrenches agencies that promote a monopoly on services; the state violently enforces it's monopolistic policies; the state violently prevents individuals from breaking the monopoly; the state protects it's monopoly with violence. As an alternative, let's pretend there is some measure of freedom involved in the process. We buy orthodontic insurance. Our kids get braces as per the contract. So simple! Here's another one. We want to buy orthodontic insurance, or we want one of our kids to get braces. There is too much money involved. Elspeth sees this, and writes a check for the required amount. Simple yet again! No violence, no crony protectionist rackets, no fury. In the third scenario, three parties benefit. The orthodontist (or his wife) is able to continue spending large amounts of money on whatever, our kids gets straight teeth, and Elspeth feels good about using her inherited money to help the 99%. In the first scenario there is only violence.

If Elspeth Gilmore and other one-percenters really want to help the lowly ninety-nine percenters, they can start by not demanding that violence be done to us in the name of equality. We don't need more violence, we need more liberty. And people like her need more economic common sense.

Chris Sullivan on The Lesser of Two Evils

How can you not be interested in a post that features the statement, "A Vote For Jesus Is A Vote For Lucifer," really?

Keeping The World Safe From Chinese Imperialism

Hillary Clinton—everyone's second favorite Secretary of State, after Henry Kissinger—recently said, on a visit to Zambia (that's in Africa), “we don't want to see a new colonialism in Africa.” She was apparently speaking of the Chinese, because then she said that Washington was "concerned that China's foreign assistance and investment practices in Africa have not always been consistent with generally accepted international norms of transparency and good governance." I see. Chinese energy companies have been brazenly bribing African locales with new schools, roads, and other infrastructure, all in an attempt to gain access to natural resources, which it surely plans to selfishly horde. The gall.

Clearly though, the Chinese don't realize that transparency can be best learned from the government of the United States. In order to make your intentions known, the most obvious step should be a military invasion, or if that doesn't work out, then at least build a huge military base in the country next door and act belligerently until you get what you want. That would be the transparent thing to do, but no, China insists on pretending to be peaceful capitalist traders, using boosts to the local economies to make the people think it might be a good idea to do business with them. Hello Africa, these are communists! "Peaceful trade" my foot. How long can that last? 50 years? 100? And then boom! They'll communize you. Suckers.

In conclusion, Africa will be lucky if NATO, lead by the US, prevents Chinese colonization by invading as many areas as possible and building bases to prevent advancement by the Chinese. The NATO countries have historical experience in Africa anyway, so it would be a good fit. NATO countries like Portugal, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, and the UK used to control the entire continent, so it would be perfect and fitting for them to invade, build tons of bases, and bring in hundreds of thousands of civilians from their countries to live there in order to prevent colonization. In fact, the US already has a plan for this, but they have wisely extrapolated it for the whole world. Here's a picture.



See? Divide it up into military zones, build a thousand bases, patrol the seas and skies with mighty military force, and everyone* is happy. Keeping the world safe from colonial oppressors, like usual.



*Except for the evil and oppressive Chinese imperialists, of course.

Patty Murray For The Win! Wait, Nevermind.

I just got an email from Senator Patty Murray highlighting her many legislative achievements, including Protecting America's Workers by updating the 1970 OSHA travesty, Bringing Technology to the Classroom (huzzah! Children can finally learn!), Going to Bat for Seattle Sports Fans (exactly why she was elected, by the way), and Highlighting the Unseen Human Costs of War in Afghanistan, in which the Senator emphasizes the need for these often unseen human costs to be factored in drawdown decisions… what!? Could it be?



If you can make it through that awake, she was referring to the unseen human costs as it applies to Americans. And here I thought she was calling for an end to the needless and destructive occupation of a foreign country which has resulted in the (unseen) deaths of thousands of unwilling noncombatants, sometimes referred to as "collateral damage." That'll teach me to be optimistic.

Well, since we're on the subject, here's a video of some collateral damage.



Turns out "collateral damage" is actual people. Maybe if the Senator saw some of these unseen costs she'd be less of a lickspittle (see 0:05 to 0:12 in the video) to the murderous fiends who direct those heroic drone attacks.

Astonishingly, there are some Americans who wish this kind of destruction on their own country. One of them is an Elected-American, Congressperson Dana Rohrabacher of California, who recently hinted that Iraq should start thinking about paying the US back for the generosity it has shown over the last decade. The real kicker comes when he says, "We could certainly use some people to care about our situation as we have cared about theirs." See? He wants the Iraqi army—and maybe the Afghans too—to invade us, traipse around the country kicking in doors, confiscate weapons, execute disobedient mundanes, and generally assault the entire population while destroying the economy and pulverizing whatever infrastructure they come across. And then, of course, stage a mock trial and execute the president, and then install a puppet government that will do whatever needs to be done to make sure their bribes keep coming. I'm not sure why Dana thinks "we" could use that kind of care. Maybe it's because he's a jackass.

Michael Rozeff sees this kind of delusion as an insight into the mentality of the DC parasite class. While he does an excellent analysis on the meaning of the jackass Rohrabacher's statements, he doesn't go so far as to say that people like the jackass should, at a minimum, be handed over to the very people he demands payment from to collect from them personally, like I would have said. He would need to take beatings or personal checks in lieu of cash.

Compromise

Normally I hate compromise. It reveals a lack of principle on the part of the compromiser, and it earns a healthy disrespect. But, as with everything, there are exceptions, and I've been thinking about this for a while and have decided that I'm willing to give some ground on an important issue.

In 1947 the Department of Defense was created to replace the Department of War and the Department of the Navy. I've been of the opinion that it should go back to War, if not Offense, but I realize that probably isn't going to happen. I can see how it would diminish the effectiveness of tricking the "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" crowd into thinking that there is any actual national defense going on, so I have an idea. I'm willing to allow DoD to keep it's current name, but with one minor adjustment. It should be the Department of "Defense" instead. It still sounds the same, but reflects reality in a much more accurate manner. I'll try it out. In a recent report from the Department of "Defense," blah blah blah. I think it works.

Other executive departments that are named in such a way as to cause uproarious laughter due to the disparity of their name and their actual function:

Treasury
Justice
Agriculture
Labor
Health and Human Services
Housing and Urban Development
Transportation
Energy
Education
Homeland Security

Surprising Pro-Liberty Votes. Maybe.

Twenty-three United States Senators voted against extending the non-eternal provisions of the contemptible and misleadingly named Patriot Act of 2001. The most vocal of the opponents had to have been Rand Paul, which is no surprise since Ron Paul has been the lone voice against the act from the beginning. The surprise—at least to the casual political observer—is that only four of the twenty-three dissenting votes were Republicans. Why would nineteen Democrats—you know, the ones who hate freedom and constantly try to control everyone's life from birth to death and beyond, according to conservative estimates—vote against something that allows spying on Americans who haven't committed any crime? Why vote against Big Brother when Big Brother is your goal?

The bigger surprise, at least to me, was that both Senators from Washington, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, were in that group of nineteen naysayers. The two Senators are both documentable "liberals," or in other words, not "conservatives," so it stands to reason, or so I assumed, that both would be on board with permitting the state to surveil, harass, and intimidate any person, anywhere, with no due process, on any grounds. Someone who stands by the selfgenerated right of the state to determine what kind of food you should eat, what types of light bulbs you should be permitted to have in your home, what type of business you should be able to operate, what kind of car you can drive and how far you should be able to drive it, how much of your money should go to the government, and which tools you should be allowed to defend yourself with, surely wouldn't mind a few wiretaps here and there. Just applying whatever logic got you to the conclusion that the state knows best would, or should, help you reach the conclusion that the Patriot Act and all of it's tenticular provisions are OK, and we can all trust the government to do the right thing and only watch terrorists. Something in the provisions must have rubbed these two the wrong way to make them vote against their own power.

I can only think of two reasons: civil rights and republicans. It could be that, even though both Senators voted for the original Patriot Act*, they have come to the realization that the act has been ineffectual in figthing terrorism, and the ramifications have been detrimental to society in general, and have been the greatest factor in creating an embryonic paranoid police state full of tasers and check points. It could be that they care somewhat about civil rights, even though they haven't seemed to see their way to caring about other things that libertarian-minded people care about. Yet. The other possibility is that House Republicans were the driving force behind getting the bill to the Senate (because Republicans care about freedom, and protecting Americans from terrorism, and also, they want to win the War on Terror, or course), and anything the Republicans want, the Democrats don't want. Petty partisanship, in short.

Either way, voting against this heinous incursion into our natural rights was a good thing. To paraphrase Pavlov, any behavior that is reinforced is likely to be repeated. It might be a good idea to contact Senators Cantwell and Murray—despite the odds against them actually reading an email—to let them know we appreciate their respect for civil rights, and hope to see more votes n the future against travesties of justice like the Patriot Act, and more votes for liberty.



*Did you know that USA PATRIOT Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act? These government folks are clever.

Lose-Lose

So Osama is dead. Supposedly. I'm not sure why anyone would take DC's word for it, since nothing resembling truth ever comes from that wretched hive of scum and villainy, but they say he is. Nice to know that "justice" has been done, and that the American variety of justice is now slimmed down and more efficient than ever, having been completely stripped of due process, fair trials, and innocent-until-proven-guilty tradition. And it's about time too! That stuff is just for the Soft On Crime types.

Anyway, if Osama is really dead, and they really ditched the body in the ocean in one of the most asinine and ridiculous moves in the history of executive assassinations, then it's only bad news for the rest of us. A foreign military, combined with a team from the elected dictator's private army, went into another country, unannounced and uninvited, raided a residence, killed several people, and then left a wrecked helicopter for the host* nation to clean up. Nice. I'm trying to imagine the righteous indignation of Ann Coulter or Michele Bachmann (if she could find a way to form coherent sentences) on hearing news of the death of a notorious Mexican drug lord at the hands of Mexican Special Ops. In Nebraska. Somehow I don't think everyone would be happy with uninvited foreign military operations in America. So along with bad PR (and honestly,who really cares about PR anyway? Can't we just let the brilliance of Hollywood be our ambassador to the world?), Pakistan has a serious grudge against us—which they probably already had, and for good reason—and the rest of the world knows that "we" (not me, really) will come barging in anytime, anyplace, with the gift of democracy or maybe with teams of assassins, and along with that a bunch of people will have a solid and rational reason to believe that the United States loves to kill muslims and then desecrate their bodies. As if they didn't have enough reason to believe that, but hey, slow learners over there I guess.

All of this, plus American citizens have been revealed as a gaggle of chanting dunces, prone to gathering spontaneously in order to celebrate the assassination of some hobgoblin or other, not to mention that it took the self-proclaimed bestest military ever in the world multiple trillions of dollars that don't exist and innumerable lives (that just happened to be in the way) to find and kill one guy. And some of his family. "We" lose.

But if none of that is true, it's a whole different story. Or at least a similar but different story, because now the world—which is full of muslims, who are, obviously, just waiting for any opportunity to explode in a fiery ball of primitive rage and force their brutal religion of violence and oppression on the grand civilizations of The West, obviously—knows, or thinks it knows, what the elected officials of the United States would do in that situation. So if the whole thing is a lie, it's a really stupid lie. Burial at sea? If you wanted to raise suspicions there is no better way to do it. If it's a lie, latent terrorists are still mad because they think all of that stuff happened. "We" lose again, for mostly the same reasons, plus being uncreative liars.

If neither of those is true—maybe he's been dead for years, maybe he's still alive somewhere—then the whole thing is a surreal circus event, inadvertently revealing how deeply the tentacles of an unspeakable parasite have entrenched themselves in everything, from an unthinking, collaborative network of media prostitutes, to the psyche of the people who call themselves Americans. Bin Laden, if he's still alive, continues to bask in the glory of his victory over the greatest and best freest country in the world. He laughs every time a TSA goon sticks their hands down your pants, smiles every time the border patrol searches a car at a check point nowhere near any border, and claims victory every time our wise leaders in congress borrow another trillion dollars from our great-grandchildren to spend on technology that was cutting edge ten years ago. Every time some moron claims we have to give up our freedoms in order to protect freedom, bin Laden puts another mark in his win column, two if that moron happens to be the president. If neither story is true, we live in a world where no lie is off limits, because the liars know that we'll believe anything we're told, and we'll endure any abuse to be safe from whatever it is the liars tell us is dangerous. If the raid and assassination are a complete fabrication, then we are obviously the gullible Eloi the Morlocks assumed we are. In which case, "we" lose.



*Do I mean "host" like the host of a party, or "host" like the host of a parasite? I don't know, maybe both. Pick whichever one you like better.

Original Gangstas

Defending the Homeland, thousands of miles from home.

Thank Goodness I Live in a Free Country

An essay of thankfulness, by Don Cooper. Yes, our public servants do serve, and serve well. Thanks and praise to them, and to the leaders and masters who make it possible. What ever would we do without them? Aside from making our own choices and living our own lives, of course.

Stealing From The Government

Harold Crick: It says, in the file, that you only paid part of your taxes for last year.
Ana Pascal: That's right.
Harold Crick: Looks like only 78 percent.
Ana Pascal: Yep.
Harold Crick: So you did it on purpose?
Ana Pascal: Yep.
Harold Crick: So you must've been expecting an audit.
Ana Pascal: Um, I was expecting a fine, or a sharp reprimand.
Harold Crick: A reprimand? This isn't boarding school, Miss Pascal. You stole from the government.
Ana Pascal: No I didn't steal from the government. I just didn't pay you entirely.
Stranger Than Fiction, 2006

The idea of stealing from the government presents a discrepancy, and if thought about too deeply could result in the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. Of course, everyone knows stealing from the government is bad. It's worse than stealing from a regular person. If you steal cash out of a purse at the mall, you might get in some trouble and have to wear an orange vest and clean up a little trash along the highway, but try sneaking a book of stamps at the Post Office and you've really crossed the line. You stole from the government. Those were The People's Stamps, and you selfishly tried to make them your own. The cash was just from some lady—an individual—but the stamps, those belong to the people. Until an individual buys them, but whatever.

The government (technically multiple governments, but there's only one Capital G Government, because they all answer to, and beg money from, the federal one) has lots of property, and you can't steal any of it. Cars, trucks, buildings, land, anything really. Sometimes it's even called public land, but the public (that's us) has to ask permission to use it, and even then it can only be used in a very limited manner (unless the particular member of the public has tons of money, and then it's different). The big question is where does the government get all of this stuff? Does land automatically just belong to the government? How do they buy those fleets of vehicles? Well, the government is rich, right? It can just buy whatever it needs. Sort of.

Anyone who has ever paid taxes has helped the government acquire all of that stuff. Actually, some people who haven't paid taxes yet, and maybe aren't even born yet, will, in some distant future, be paying for the stuff the government has right now. Maybe you didn't know this, but the government, with the help of the non-government Federal Reserve, borrows more money than you can imagine. The government is not rich, the government has a huge credit card. So either way, whatever the government claims it owns, was actually paid for, or will be paid for, by the subjects it disingenuously calls citizens.

That begs the question, is it possible to steal from the government? The government (meaning, of course, the state, but that's a different topic) has forcibly* extracted money from everyone in the form of taxes, including the sneaky tax of inflation, in order to get whatever it is it needed to continue, in a less efficient and more brutal manner, to extract increasing amounts of money from the same everyone. If a private sector thief takes your property are you justified in trying to retrieve it? "Hey, that's my TV, give it back!" Seems legit. Try getting a TV back from the local TSA office. Even though he had an enormous mustache, Friedrich Nietzsche was right when he said, "Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen." If the state hasn't stolen everything it has, then why is there a need for an armed collection agency? Why are people coerced** into filing tax returns every year? If given a choice, we wouldn't buy the things the government buys, so they have to take it with threats of violence. Can you really claim to own something you bought with stolen money? Can you really be angry when someone steals what you stole first?

You can be prosecuted and punished for taking something the government claims to own, but is it stealing? Maybe, maybe not. You can be prosecuted and punished for not paying taxes—they call it stealing—but is it stealing? They are stealing it from you, not the other way around.

*Yes, forcibly. Just call the IRS and tell them you're never paying any taxes again and see what happens. They have guns.

**Watch this hilarious video of Harry Reid claiming the opposite.

Patriot Watch List

I got an idea from Liberranter about requesting to be on the Southern Poverty Law Center's patriot watch list. Here is the request I sent them:

I was just wondering if I could be on your "Meet the Patriots" watch list. I'm not really a leader of anything, and I haven't done anything infamous or dastardly, but I do harbor a lot of those so-called anti-government sentiments. I hope for the dissolution of the IRS, CIA, FBI, DHS, as well as the Departments of Education, Energy, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. I'm also not so impressed with Treasury and Defense, so those could go too, but at least the DoD could change it's name back to Department of War, right? That would make more sense. Or maybe Department of Offense would be more fitting. The State Department can stick around because someone has to be the official greeter for visiting dignitaries. I mean, I'm not totally unreasonable.

And another thing that's ticking me off is that Janet Napolitano sounds like a dude, but Tim Geithner comes off like a sissy. Obama, make Tim eat some meat once in a while! Toughen that guy up.

Here's another thing that might make me worthy of a watch list. I don't care about global warming, or climate change as they're calling it now. It's probably a big lie, but even if it isn't, the morons who are freaking out about it are just using it as another reason to regulate and control everything. Like Al Gore gives a rip about carbon emissions? Please!

Which leads me to another thing. I hate the UN. It would be great if the UN was just a collection of worthless money wasting blowhards, but they're worse than worthless, they're detrimental to civilization. They must think people are stupid, because they constantly send out "peace keeping" forces, but these "peace keepers" are riding around in tanks. And remember that one time when they helped the Hutus kill a bunch of Tutsis? Jerks.

And what about the Federal Reserve? I don't have time to explain how much I hate that whole corporatist swindle.

I could go on about things the government does that suck, but you'd be bored, I'm sure. If you want a more complete list, let me know. If it would help, I can try to organize a militia or something, but don't bother sending infiltrators. I can sniff those suckers out pretty easy.

Thanks a million and let me know what you think.

Sic Semper Tyrannis,
Isaac Stanfield

Do The Collapse

"Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy -- where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit."
Barack Obama

A person's last resort tends to be their most powerful god. A lifelong agnostic, hanging from a cliff by his fingernails, just might become less skeptical and try praying, just this once. So what happens when a nation's (or the world, but whatever) economy begins a downward spiral? Where do people turn? Barack Obama turns to government.* Only government can break this cycle (never mind that government intervention created the cycle in the first place). Only government is big enough, and powerful enough. Only government can raise taxes, redistribute wealth, regulate, legislate, and rescue industries in a way that would fix whatever problems ail us. In fact, one of the few moments of outright honesty since Obama's campaign started getting national attention came with an admission of that concept. The monopoly on violence government claims ensures the continuation of various attempts at rescuing the common folks from all manner of horrible and uncomfortable states of being. The federal government, being the largest and best armed, is the boss government, all others submitting to it.

If Obama (and Bush, and Cheney, and Romney, and all the rest of them) turns to government to cure our national ills, where do we turn? How do we display our faith? Who do we trust with the most important aspects of our civilization? Of course we don't trust our children to the government, that would be foolish. No, we raise our own children. Except for the 180 days a year of six (not including homework) hour days spent in government run schools, for thirteen of the first 17 or 18 years of their lives. Certainly not our homes, which belong to us, and are a sacred sanctuary from the world. Except government instructs us on how and where we are permitted to build (building permit, get it?), what materials we can use, how much we have to pay to keep it (property taxes), and the various agencies that can demand inspections and remove our children on the slightest whim, not mention the TV and radio—controlled by the government via regulation of radio and airwaves, among other methods—that are omnipresent within our homes. OK, fine, but not our personal safety. We can take care of ourselves! Except for guns, because the federal government needs to make sure that only safe people own guns, for our own safety. And knives. Some knives we can't have. And metal plates of a certain thickness. But other than that, it's just the taxes that are distributed (redistributed? Shock!) to the military for our national security. And to the intelligence agencies. And to the programs to connect the military, intelligence agencies, state police, and local police, for our own safety. Other than that, no way do we let the feds control our personal safety. I could go on about every aspect of modern life, but hopefully you get the point. I covered life, liberty, and property, so that should suffice.

What would we do without the federal government? What would happen if every person and every corporation stopped paying the extortion fee we call income tax? The federal government would collapse, right?** (Assuming they would run out of money, which they wouldn't because the Federal Reserve can print or "create" as much as it want, whenever it wants, without asking you, which it does on a regular basis.) And then what? Would the interstate highways crumble to dust due to neglect? Would communication break down and isolate us from distant populations? Maybe mobs would rampage through the streets, looting and pillaging, and warlords would conquer your neighborhood. There would be no food in the stores, because everyone knows that only the federal government can authorize food in the stores. Can you imagine the chaos if government appendages like the Department of Education ceased to exist? Who would educate the children? And the local favorite, the Department of Energy, what would we do then? Get the candles! Man the bicycle-driven generators! To assume that all of this flows from the federal government, or is in some way bestowed on us or allowed by it, is to assume that people aren't capable of doing these things themselves. That would be the same people who do it everyday, themselves, right now. Do power plant operators need a government agent to stand behind them everyday and convince them not to push the self-destruct button? Do they need the federal government at any point in their education, training, or career to be able to do what they do? Does any occupation? Dispelling the myth that we need federal agencies to guide every aspect of our lives only requires a little logic. So here it comes.

Pretend you somehow overcame the licensing and regulatory hurdles and you now own a dairy farm. What is your goal? To make money. How do you make money? People give it to you. Why do they give you money? Because you give them dairy products. So far so good. Everyone is happy. But wait, how can we be sure your milk isn't poisoned? Because we all know that people who are just out to make money are soulless vampires hellbent on ravaging the general population. We learned that in college. But that doesn't account for the fact that a dairy farmer can't make money if all of his customers are sick or dead. Even if a small percentage of people get violently ill from his products, people will hear about it, and then he's in big trouble. It's in the farmer's best interest to put out the best product he can, and for the best price he can afford. If slick marketing gets him a better price, good for him. So where does federal regulation need to come in? At what point do we need federal agents enforcing price controls? If one farmer can sell milk for $1 a gallon, fine. If we're so stupid that we pay $10 a gallon for a different brand, that's our problem. I don't see how it's the federales business what goes on with milk.

How about the aforementioned energy production? Would energy companies wantonly dump waste into rivers if not for government saving the day? Again, it doesn't make sense for a company that needs to make money to kill or harm those who will give it money. Only when government comes in and sets guidelines (and who can doubt that federal regulators are always experts in their fields and have only the best interest of the people in mind?) for who can do what and when that the minimum guidelines are met, absolving companies of any liability beyond that. Apply this to the banking industry, clothing, cars, computers, books, TV, all manner of agriculture, medicine, pharmaceuticals, money, etc, and you might begin to see that the federal government has its boundless nose where it doesn't belong in every situation.

Economically, the situation is simple. If Uncle Sam has to rob—I mean tax—Peter to pay Paul, that seems simple enough. But when he goes to pay Paul, there isn't enough. Uncle Sam had to take his cut, so now Paul is short. But look! There's James, rob—I mean tax—him too! It becomes an untenable situation because more than one person has to be robbed—I mean taxed—to pay just one person. Soon Uncle Sam will run out of persons to rob—I mean tax—with no shortage of people to pay. The numbers don't add up. The moral of this story is that whenever government invests in something, it isn't really an investment. Opportunity cost kicks in, and whatever opportunity Peter had to invest his money is now lost. Maybe he would have invested in Paul's enterprise, or helped James buy a new fishing boat in return for a percentage of the profit. But now he can't, because his capital is gone. He ended up "investing" involuntarily in Uncle Sam, who will use his cut to buy himself better guns with which to rob everyone else and fortify his position as the baddest bandit in the land. So every time something is heavily controlled and regulated (a redundancy, sure, but some people might be slow on the uptake) by the government, we can be sure that there were many more opportunities lost than there were created. I know what you're asking now, so I'll get to that.

"What about things that are just so important that the government has to do them?" you may be asking. "All of those national labs are working on such important stuff, we can't just leave it to chance." If these projects were so important, wouldn't they be undertaken by someone anyway? If there is an opportunity to profit from innovation, wouldn't someone take it on? If profit were the goal, wouldn't these projects be done on a budget and in as short of period of time as possible? History says yes. No one forced Rockefeller to revolutionize the petroleum industry. No one had to regulate Henry Ford into developing a faster way to build a cheaper car. No one legislated the light bulb into existence. And if there is no use for these government mandated projects, perhaps the harsh truth is that they aren't needed at all.

If you find yourself thinking that the most important things should be done under the direction of the most corrupt and inefficient entity known to human kind, then maybe you should think about it a little longer. And if you find yourself thinking that the most important aspects of modern life can only be saved by government, maybe you should examine who and what you put your faith in, and who you look to for salvation when it really matters.




*Just for clarity, government means that entity which claims control over the population of a certain geographical area. I've dispensed with the notion that "the people" are the government, because that doesn't really seem to be the case, with ample evidence available on the web. It's a whole different topic, so just go with it.

**To make it easy, I'm not going into how tenaciously the federal parasites would hang on to their hosts, and what means they would use to keep their power.

In order to give credit where credit is due, I should note that Do the Collapse is the name of an album by Guided By Voices.

The Emporer's New Clothes

I heard an astonished fake-news reporter on the radio the other day—this was the day the stock market was losing a billion points or something (suckers!) and cops in Greece were whacking people with sticks (perhaps they had just returned from a training session in the US)—commenting that the dirty little secret in the whole mess was that "the world has no money, and the emperor has no clothes." Take heart and join the club, Court Stenographer, we already knew that.

So as I was laughing at this poor sap who had lived his whole life without realizing that Wall Street and it's companion wretched hive of scum and villainy, Washington, DC, were absolutely not real and also totally fake, I started to think about this whole naked emperor scenario. Of course everyone knows the story (if you don't, please immediately chastise your parents—if you know at least one—for not caring about you and depriving you of useful fables during your obviously intellectually and culturally impoverished childhood). The emperor is afraid of looking foolish and low class, and the high class people of the court are afraid of falling out of favor with the emperor. The regular folks are somehow intimidated into pretending to see what the high class types saw, probably due to the effects of some variation of the corporatist system of bribery, extortion, and general corruption which was no doubt ravaging the economy of this allegorical empire, and which is also now extant in every corner of the actual world we live in. But anyway, in a high school English class way, who is supposed to be what? Is it generally assumed that the emperor is a stand in for real world royal types, and the peasantry is supposed to be us, the everyday people who can recognize the nonsense of the royalty* but don't? Is the little boy who has the courage (or total lack of awareness of appropriate public behavior) supposed to be those who are willing to "speak truth to power?" (as the smart folks are saying these days.)

Maybe. When this yahoo started practically sobbing about the stock market drop—which I assume he was worried about because his stupid pension and/or 401(k) is wrapped up in it—I started thinking that the emperor was us. We're the ones using phony fiat dollars everyday, pretending they're so valuable. We're the ones who have been duped by the cunning weavers into this whole program of trading valuable capital (labor, time, ingenuity, etc) for Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs). The weavers, by the way, would be the Federal Reserve System and the nefarious banks behind it, whichever those might be, and good luck finding out. We are also the ones who insist that the peasantry recognize our fine fabric as something other than the auto-delusional farce that it is (see how that works out? Because FRNs are made of a fabric/paper material. See?). Remember that one time when Iran said they wanted to stop using FRNs as the default currency for trading oil? And remember when the US started threatening Iran right after that? "See my fine clothes, wretched villain! Glory in the majesty of my extravagant finery!" We're the emperor, because he was so easily duped in his pride, arrogance, and ignorance, and because we persist in forcing our non-existent non-money on the world. True, they wanted it while the illusion held, but now that the intrinsic value of the dollar is being noticed, the masters of the system are reluctant to let go. Don't you hate being the emperor? I hate being the emperor. I think the emperor should have executed the weavers and tossed their bodies into the ocean for the crabs to eat, or at least shooed them away with a stern look. That seems to be the only sensible thing to do.

By the way, Ron Paul is the young boy in the crowd who dared to proclaim the nakedness of the emperor. Who else?





*I'm including elected officials here because let's face it, they really are. Don't try to argue against this.