Surprise, surprise!

OK, I admit it. The wide-spread reaction to the recent SCOTUS decision that it's acceptable for the government to steal from the poor to give to the rich (so long as the gov't gets its cut, of course) has caught me flat-footed. I am surprised.

What surprises me is the surprising amount of surprise the 5-4 decision has engendered amongst those who ought to know better. Surprisingly enow, these folks are mainly statists, or--better yet--Statists, who think the gov't is the cat pyjamas so long as its activities suit the paradigm required by their own political philosophies.

Hell, the capitolists at various levels have been practicing Robin Hoodlumism since time immoral. (Not a single typo in that sentence, folk). According to Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of The Land of the Free(tm) only the "well bred and rich" were to be recognized in governmental circles. "Lower people," as he liked to refer to them, were to have little or no part in government and would be controlled by "coercion of laws and coercion of arms." That wasn't even a new idea when old Alex got hold of it, though. It had been around as long as the concepts of "rich" and "well bred" had existed.

But Hamilton and his cohort had a new wrinkle to add and for the gullible it continues to work right up to and including today. The real trick has been to convince us "lower people" that we really are in charge of how the country is run. But as it was then, is now, and ever shall be it is the "well bred and rich" who are actually in charge. They pretty much run things any which way they damned well please as they go about their charade of caring for the little fellow.

We needn't worry about our property, though--it isn't ours, anyway. We can't "own" it without their permission; they must always have their cut ("taxes" they call it); they will remove it from us--or us from it--when it suits them. Their actual message to us is: "We are your rulers; you will do as you are told or we will kill you." If you don't believe me, try dropping out by not paying your taxes and then resist to your utmost when their agents come to remove you.

The late ChiCom chairman, Mousey Dung, had it nailed when he said, "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun."

The Supremes have actually done us a favour by hanging out that dirty laundry for all of us to see.

And that's the way it is.

Thanks, Marty, Jim and crews!

Call me silly, but there are numerous reasons I can think of to be glad to be living right here in North Platte, Nebraska. Yes, there are many local whiners out there that can do nowt but carp about how awful they think it is here, but notice that they don't seem to be in any hurry to leave. If we could get them interested in moving, perhaps a one-way ticket to--oh, say--Compton, CA, would be in order.

However imperfect our local law enforcement folks may be, I am grateful we have the ones we have. No way they would be involved in anything like the following story. (As a sidebar: It's pretty scary imagining what happened to the other 116 bullets, isn't it.)


13 LA deputies to be punished for shooting
From the Associated Press via the Seattle Post-Intellegencer (online)

COMPTON, Calif. -- Thirteen sheriff's deputies will be disciplined for firing about 120 shots at an unarmed driver last month, an incident that sparked outrage in the community and prompted some deputies to apologize.

One deputy will be suspended for 15 days. The others will receive shorter suspensions or written reprimands, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said Thursday.

While some community members hailed the announcement, others said they were disappointed. Lolitha Jones, who held a sign protesting the shooting, said the deputies should have faced tougher measures.

"An ordinary citizen going down the street on a rampage like that would have gone straight to jail," she said.

Winston Hayes, 44, was struck by four bullets in the May 9 shooting, which was captured on videotape following a brief pursuit of Hayes' sport utility vehicle. The vehicle matched the description of one thought to be involved in a previous shooting. It was later determined that Hayes was not involved in that incident.
[snip]

View entire story at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Police%20Shooting&searchdiff=0&searchpagefrom=1

The one that didn't run

[I have found that holding resentments (grudges) is unhealthy for the holder. It creates heartburn, jangles up the blood and can give birth to tension headaches from hell. Therefore, I hold no resentment against the person who made the editorial decision not to publish the following "Starting Over" column. Howsomever, I believe that the subject of this column is such a dishonest and reprehensible critter that it needs be published in some venue or another. So here it is.]

"Operation Silk Purse"

My grandmother used to have a saying for every situation. One she used to whip on me fairly often and that was “If you can’t say something nice about someone, button your lip.” It’s one that I ought to heed more often, but the business I’m in requires that I often must express occasionally unflattering opinions about various public persons and the way they conduct themselves. Perhaps my own favorite of Granny’s sayings is one that you don’t hear much anymore: “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

One of our earlier US presidents admonished us that whilst it is possible to continuously dupe the gullible few and occasionally gull the entire populace it is impossible to fool everyone forever. Even those slowest of us, if we are not simpletons, eventually will catch on to the machinations of the snake-oil peddler.

So it is that the general populace of our fair town has begun to awaken to the churlishness of the little editor of the almost-daily corporate newsletter, the North Platte Telegraph, who has been masquerading as a conservative probably because someone told him that most of us here are conservative by nature.

Perhaps a bit of historical perspective is in order here. The little editor is, for want of a better term, a hired gun who was brought to town by a former Telegraph publisher whose misanthropic bent led directly to the founding of the North Platte Bulletin. The Bulletin was, and is, staffed by a bevy of skilled and talented folks whom that publisher managed to run off from the Telegraph, including the very talented editor who preceded the little hired gun and who now edits the Bulletin. That publisher’s own failings and the rising fortunes of the Bulletin—standing where no newspaper had stood before—led to his professional demise; but he gave us an awful legacy, a sort of a poisoned apple left hanging on the tree. The little editor walks among us (figuratively speaking of course) sowing hate and discontent wherever he treads.

Some were on to him from the very start. People who have worked for him have told me that he is a very angry and vengeful person who is in the habit of massaging a legitimate news story so that his own agenda and prejudices proclaim themselves from the news pages as well as from the editorial section. Lots of local folks are catching on.

His notoriety has even spread beyond our area. A Bulletin reader writes from Lincoln concerning the recent rise in local public negativity: “Of course, none of this could happen without the willing participation of [Telegraph editor] Dave Simpson. He may not be a member of the association, but he certainly is a ‘camp follower and drum beater.’”

A Colorado subscriber opines: “ I ain’t always glad I’m me, but I’m overjoyed I’m not Simpson. That bruiser must eat a **** sandwich for breakfast every morning.” (The word bruiser and the asterisks are mine. This is a family newspaper.) And an official in the State Department of Development tells us that the pervasive negativity engendered by the Telegraph and its allies has already begun to poison the atmosphere in and around North Platte so much so that prospective businesses are already beginning to discount us as a possible place to locate.

Whatever else he is, the little editor is not totally stupid. He is obviously aware that his credibility is fading. In an effort to rehabilitate his rep the almost-daily ran a quarter page, full-colour ad extolling the little editor’s journalistic virtues. (Operation Silk Purse we call it here at the Bulletin.) He needs to get a much tighter hold on the reins, though. If one of my employees ran a photo of me that made me look like Punxsutawney Phil wearing a necktie and spectacles I would boot him immediately.

I guess I’ve really trashed Granny’s maxim on not speaking ill. Oh, well, Granny never met the little editor, did she?

Well, since you put it that way....

The Difference Between Taxes and Theft
by Lysander Spooner, from his essay "No Treason III" (1870).

The The payment of taxes, being compulsory, of course furnishes no evidence that any one voluntarily supports the Constitution.

It is true that the theory of our Constitution is, that all taxes are paid voluntarily; that our government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily entered into by the people with each other; that each man makes a free and purely voluntary contract with all others who are parties to the Constitution, to pay so much money for so much protection, the same as he does with any other insurance company; and that he is just as free not to be protected, and not to pay tax, as he is to pay a tax, and be protected.

But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: "Your money, or your life." And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.

The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

The proceedings of those robbers and murderers, who call themselves "the government," are directly the opposite of these of the single highwayman.

In the first place, they do not, like him, make themselves individually known; or, consequently, take upon themselves personally the responsibility of their acts. On the contrary, they secretly (by secret ballot) designate some one of their number to commit the robbery in their behalf, while they keep themselves practically concealed. They say to the person thus designated:

Go to A......... B........., and say to him that "the government" has need of money to meet the expenses of protecting him and his property. If he presumes to say that he has never contracted with us to protect him, and that he wants none of our protection, say to him that that is our business, and not his, that we choose to protect him, whether he desires us to do so or not; and that we demand pay, too, for protecting him. If he dares to inquire who the individuals are, who have thus taken upon themselves the title of "the government," and who assume to protect him, and demand payment of him, without his having ever made any contract with them, say to him that that, too, is our business, and not his; that we do not choose to make ourselves individually known to him; that we have secretly (by secret ballot) appointed you our agent to give him notice of our demands, and, if he complies with them, to give him, in our name, a receipt that will protect him against any similar demand for the present year. If he refuses to comply, seize and sell enough of his property to pay not only our demands, but all your own expenses and trouble beside. If he resists the seizure of his property, call upon the bystanders to help you (doubtless some of them will prove to be members of our band). If, in defending his property, he should kill any of our band who are assisting you, capture him at all hazards, charge him (in one of our courts) with murder, convict him, and hang him. If he should call upon his neighbors, or any others who, like him, may be disposed to resist our demands, and they should come in large numbers to his assistance, cry out that they are all rebels and traitors; that "our country" is in danger; call upon the commander of our hired murderers; tell him to quell the rebellion and "save the country," cost what it may. Tell him to kill all who resist, though they should be hundreds of thousands; and thus strike terror into all others similarly disposed. See that the work of murder is thoroughly done, that we may have no further trouble of this kind hereafter. When these traitors shall have thus been taught our strength and our determination, they will be good loyal citizens for many years, and pay their taxes without a why or a wherefore.

It is under such compulsion as this that taxes, so called, are paid. And how much proof the payment of taxes affords, that the people consent to support "the government," it needs no further argument to show.

MIND MEETINGS

OK, I am new to this thing--bloggery if you will--so, lacking a firm footing, I will start by merely priming the pump with a few kernels of speculation and ideation trusting that when properly planted they will grow into fruition. (How's that for a thoroughly mixed metaphor?) For want of inspiration I will call them:

MIND MEETINGS

1. The conventional wisdom that faith and idealism cannot survive exposure to experience is not only wrong it is wrong-headed. Experience, correctly comprehended as an educational tool, should teach us that in the so-called real world our only hope for salvation is a devotion to--and belief in--personal goodness, civic virtue, and humanitarian duty. Anyone who propounds the contrary view is either a fool (and an easily misled one, at that) or a rapaciously predatory knave who survives by feeding on the despair generated by the sense that all is lost.

2. But even the Cynic recognizes that the practice of virtue will only improve the practicer. The practice of virtue to improve the character and/or conduct of others is a time-wasting activity. The expectation of other-centered change as the result of such effort will inevitably lead one into actions and attitudes which cannot be described as even remotely virtuous.

All right, so it's not a particularly auspicious beginning, but--what the hell--it is a beginning. Anything further in this vein I will label "Mind Meetings" also, so that if one wishes to avoid reading more of my equine fecal matter it will be a snap to do so. If I ever come up with any red meat I shall probably save it for my weekly column in "The Bulletin" but if not, I'll figure out a different label for such at this venue.

Thanks for visiting.

Papa Goat

Cycle of Rage

RAGE: A Life Study in 6 Parts

******************

Part the First: Wherein we find our hero "safe" in the bosom of his motherland.

DRAGONS

Once I lived in a happily time
upon a highland, blessed by sun
kissed by rain, stalked by the frisky,
friendly breeze in a waist-deep sea
of sacred grass as green as gods.
But facing westward I could see
tempests newly birthed and brewing
fully a hundred miles from me:
towering nightmares, juggernauts
of menace, filled with violence
aforethought, empty of mercy.
Two hundred times I heard me sigh
as I watched them prowl on by me
searching out some less dutiful
prey who had neglected his prayers.
Two hundred times I watched me smile
overfilled with relief and joy
at knowing I was privileged:
fortune's rightfully chosen heir.
Then, in May it was (passion's month
when everything can happen once)
I watched it form: a devil's beast--
plundering angel, gravid storm--
ill of purpose and heading east.
Not prayer nor virtuous intent
could purchase me a battlement
from which to conquer or deter
that hell-bitch and those dragons which
she whelped and dropped that they might land
on all my earthly goods endowed
by heaven's most bounteous hand.
If made by nature or by men
it made no difference to them;
those monsters swallowed everything.
So, plucked as clean as Sunday's hen
readied for mother's stewing pot,
I watched them go and made no sighs,
or smiles, or self-acclaim. At last
my luck has gone to ground. That which
has been given, has been taken,
and I am left with nothing but
the sun, the rain, the playful breeze,
and holy grass as old as time.


Part the second: Wherein he asks the musical question, "Which way is up?"

ROYAL FLUSH

DORIS, Queen of Memphis [City of the Dead, ed.],
waiting for something to happen
(afraid it won't, afraid it will),
mainlining on boisterous thrills;
trying, in vain, any vein
not as yet collapsed
under boredom's humdrum crush.
Comes now MORTIMER, King of Fools,
who has never learned
a goddamned thing
in his unwashed, wasted life;
looking for filthy love
in all the right places;
offering to pay
with a handful of gimme
and a mouthful of much obliged.
Redundantly stonyassed stupid,
willing to try anything twice, as long
as it hurts enough to indicate
something inside him is still alive.
But that really won't work, either,
because he's too much of a moron
to know enough to lie down,
even after he finds out
that he's already started to rot.
So here they are:
KING MORTIMER JUKE
and
QUEEN DORIS ENNUI
(made for each other, eh?),
sharing a germ-ridden spike full
of Elysian Fields.
And once they have
become beautiful,
he spears himself into her and:
(a little drum roll here, Professor)
they conceive yet another disaster
who, one fine day,
will have the weary viewers of the daily
suppertime bad TV local bad news
[blurry pictures at ten]
asking each other: "Just what in the
Sam Hell is this country coming to,
anyhow, Herb?"



Part the third: Wherein he comes to grips with his own mortality.

“TEMPUS EDAX RERUM”

(Gone is our young simplicity of times,
this old world teems with wrongs, abounds with crimes.)

Having enjoyed the blessings of long years
together, we now have run--it appears--
out of highway, but not run out of rain.
(God, hold me harmless, protected from pain.)

Our candles gutter, lately losing touch;
and once they've quenched it doesn't matter much
what it might have been that conveyed us there.
(We always knew we were not of this where.)

Though ultimate loss was the deal we made
and grief was the price we agreed to pay,
love will preserve--in the nexus of night--
joy for the morning that calls back the light.

So if you care enough to give your best,
a shroud sewn from tears will cover my rest.
And you will live on, doing what you do,
trusting that someone will sew one for you.


Part the fourth: Wherein he comes to grips with his own morality.


JUST SOME OLD-FASHIONED KARMA
(Don't Forget To Pay The Fiddler, If You Please.)

I claim to believe that all men are brothers
and yet I complain of "they," "them," and "those others."
I'm quick to say "nigger" and "greaser" and "kike,"
bestowing unkindness on folks I'm unlike.
I'll steal from and cheat "them" because I don't see
what I do to others I'm doing to me.

What goes around, comes 'round--this lesson's well learned--
(when playing with matches I always get burned).
There is no escape clause, no loophole, you see;
the trouble I'm into I'm in 'cause of me.

For Karma is certain and justice is sure;
whoever says different is full of---manure.
Those books always balance. That lunch wasn't free.
What I "got away with" has been charged to me.

So please pay attention and try to get wise--
do not be deluded by self-talk and lies.
There's no way around it because, pal, it's true:
Whatever you're doing you're doing to you.


Part the fifth: Wherein the world is turned upside down



APOCALYPSE

"So write," he says, "as though you're dying."
And I thought: (Am I not? What the hell,
I'll say to him, mostly not lying,
but in whispers, things I wouldn't tell--
or think about--were I not dying.)
About the hers and the hymns I tried
(of course, for dissimilar reasons).
How as father and as son I cried
(albeit in opposite seasons).
How I was fearful: powerless to
let warmth smooth out my ice-crusted soul.
How I rashly squandered and misused
treasures I had to give but would not,
so fearful I was lest "all of they"
see those damaged goods which underlay
my ornate disguises worn to show
the Cosmos I am worthy of It
(although I'm thinking I’m not, you know).
Yes, that Very Universe--that Own
and Wonly--of which I never knew
I'm its germ, shoot, bloom, and fruit.

So, skin me out and slice me open
wide and you will see in there the core
of all that ever was, is now, and
shall be always, evermore.
Play me on your harp, or saxophone,
or drum, and you will hear sweet singing
thunder that can never be unsung.
Breathe me. Taste of me. Wash in my blood.
You’ll find nothing there to do you hurt
or take as chattel your mind or heart.
All my vitality grows in you;
and that energy which engenders
you, creates within me your image.
We are one, newly made every day,
every minute---hour---eternity.

And "those dread others" we have always
feared to be in the darkness, waiting;
relentless, stalking killers hating
us; we recognized the more they neared
our own frightened faces, dimly mirrored.


Part the sixth: Wherein he learns that life is lived forward but viewed backward.

x. "Respice Finem"

When she comes back this year, I fear
there’s every possibility
that I will be no longer here
(as far as anyone can see).

She and I are long acquainted
and though she knows my every way,
when grasses are flower painted
I doubt she’ll find me out to play.

Yes, I gave my word of honor
that I would welcome her again,
knowing I can depend on her
to lift me up and ease my pain.

Yet, I know my arms are weaker,
legs more leaden, senses dimmer.
And I see the landscape’s bleaker,
skies are grayer, prospects grimmer.

Every year the well gets deeper,
the ground more frozen, night more black.
Every year the hill gets steeper
when comes the time for climbing back.

Deep the winter lingered longer
than was good for me or for her.
Finally, the cold was stronger
than is my will to reoccur.

So when she looks about for me
and finds that I am nowhere near
she’ll know where I have gone, you see--
when she comes round again this year.


ix. "Desideratum"

That love--
which, singing at full flood tide,
sustained my feckless soul,
now is gone to
ebb and that one-time joyful,
boisterous song has faded
to become a half-attended,
spare, sad, breathless whisper
(dimly heard;
borne on the
night winds' vagaries;
come and gone,
now here,
now there)
now drowned
by the lethal shrieks
of brutal foes.

And thus I am
without defense or
any hope of recompense.

Disputes concerning means and ends
have caused us each to owe amends,
to one another--striving all
the while at staying friends.
Yet I feel that blood-hot,
murderous rage enough
to ’suade me thoroughly of

the need for breathing deeply and
chanting myriad sets of tens
to keep me holy, wholly whole.

“Holy Our Mother Mary pray,
for this poor reprobate today;
and if--or when--I die, pray then,
that I be taken home again
--corrected, healed, and reconciled--
prepared anew to be thy child.”


viii. "Oldfallen Snow"

Oldfallen snow, once new and beautifully
wind-dancing, feathery and dutifully
swirling past the street lamps on your way
earthward from the lowered sky to lay
on sheltering limbs of pine and cedar trees
or drifting there--waist deep--in houses' lees.
Softly, you remade our tangled bed
smoothing over seasons done and dead.
You sang your morning hymns to souls asleep;
we woke, and answered you with carols sweet.
Oldfallen snow with crust of icy grit,
bent by tempering days to ugliness
that even night's dark kindnesses can't hide,
suddenly pierced by Spring's green promises,
suffering when compared with blooms to come.
And we, ungrateful, cruelly bid you leave
with harsh, impatient shouts of "Get you gone!",
without a "Fare-thee-well" or even "Godspeed."



vii. "Finding the Light"

Walking along hallowed,
golden days--hand in hand
with lateness--when the last
rays of downslipping sun
turn everything to flame,
we are striving against
losing the light here in
our autumnal world.
I look into your eyes
and see there reflected
all the destined faces
of the children of our
children’s children’s children.
“I’ll go ahead,” I say,
“there’s so much yet to do
and it’s soon to be night.”
“Stay here,” you say, “with me;
for where we’re together
there’ll be abundant light.”
So I decide to stay
and trust that you are right.


vi. "0139 CDT September Twenty-Third Psalm"

Dressed in her best--her manner
warm, seductive, tempting--right
on time she arrives, smiling
to my face, beguiling me
with mild decay and honeyed lies
while snickering behind my back
and showing her true colors flying
just at the empty edge of dying.
I, slow learner, taste her fruits
and thus am sown with the seeds
of my own desolation
--gulled into welcoming her
inexorable consort,
just as though it were my wont
to embrace dead, frozen worlds--
never pondering whether
some part of me will survive
to couple with their offspring:
green, recurring, and reborn.


v. "Lux Aeterna"

Vast flocks wheel noisily about,
imploring God to point them south;
impinging dimness threatens all.
Terrified, we genuflect on
painfully unaccustomed knees
urging Him with desperate pleas:
“Our Father, dark are thy decrees;
deliver us from miseries
until thy blessed Sun’s reprise.”
Then, shining from within ourselves
bright Reason’s pure, eternal light
reveals to us Her Sacred Way
and gelid night thaws into day.


iv. "Bad Friday"

Under the circumstances,
I sort of expected better
weather.
After all that buildup
cool, gray drizzle just
doesn't do it for me.
Warm and sunny would seem
more fitting and proper for
such an auspicious occasion.
My back hurts,
my feet are killing me,
and my wrists,
you wouldn't believe.
Did I not know better,
I might just think that
maybe I made a mistake
back there somewhere.
But I have it on the
Very Highest Authority
that I did everything
just right.
Thank you, Sir, that
everything went exactly
as planned, because
if all this is the result
of perfection, I'd hate
to see what it would
have been like had I
screwed
something
up.


iii. "Los Niños"

There they are, future of our race
lying in the long grass, watching
for signs which announce our failing.
They smell our fear; their hunger grows.
Our fading fires brighten their eyes.
White teeth prepare to rip our flesh;
red tongues anticipate our blood.
One says, "Just take the sick and old."
Another says, "They've had their turn;
kill them all."
And no one argues.


ii. “They themselves”

Trapped in a Danse Macabré they daren’t end,
knowing all the while they cannot win,
driven to daemon terpsichory
by the predacious rape of Eire,
they trip on the fright fantastic, these
bloodlusty, vindictive assassins,
whirling to Ossian’s killing drums
on slippery slopes of Azrael, their
gravesteppingstones to Anathema.

Gaels ex cathedra; orthodox Angles;
right and left-footers; blue eyes and brown;
the old, the young--men, women, children;
bystanders, unblemished or wicked.
All of them have found The Dance to be
a wonderfully balanced equal-
opportunity destroyer.


i. Nomentum

Bereft of dreams
we are thrice becalmed:

Ship without sail,

sail without wind,

wind without heaven.