Mendax News Service
John Bull lives in an upscale gated community. A week or so ago, his neighbor Tommy Atkins who is also head of the Home Owners Association told him of a proposal by some members of the HOA to attach GPS tracking devices to the vehicles of the residents of the community.
Mr. Atkins said that they also thought it would be a good idea to put cameras on everybody's car so they could see everywhere the car went. It was also suggested by some of the board members that everybody in the association have his phone tapped, email intercepted and browser history monitored.
Mr Bull was not receptive to the idea and even expressed opposition to it, threatening to stir up opinion against it. Atkins tried to reason with Bull by explaining that it was all for the good of the members and if he had nothing to hide, he should have no objection. Atkins also pointed out that there were already cameras everywhere he went and that the government was probably reading and storing his electronic communications anyway, so it was no big deal. Bull was not mollified and pointed out that it was different when the government did it because they had a good reason and the HOA was just being a bunch of busybodies. Atkins asked how it was "different" when the government did it, but Bull said he didn't know, it was just different.
Atkins pointed out that there would be safeguards on the information collected so that it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands and that the HOA had no power to jail him or confiscate his property. Bull remained his bull-headed self, arguing that it would be an invasion of privacy even though he didn't have anything to hide and that it was none of the HOA's business where he went, who he talked to or what sites he visited.
Atkins could see that he was getting nowhere, so he tried to reason with Bull by pointing out that if his wife broke down at night in the middle of nowhere the GPS would be a lifesaver (maybe literally) in locating her whereabouts. "And just think how it might benefit your children if a sharp-eyed board member notices that they're fraternizing online with murderers and child molesters" Atkins said.
Bull was getting madder by the minute, so Atkins tried to calm him down by telling him that the proposal was going to be voluntary anyway and all a member had to do to opt out was fill out a few forms and pay a nominal fee of twelve-hundred pounds a month over and above the usual HOA dues. If a resident wanted to opt out of having pole mounted cameras facing his house there would be an additional charge for that.
Bull starting ranting and raving about "invasions of privacy," "peeping Toms" and a "police-state atmosphere" to the point that Atkins could see that he was paranoid. He was about to go home and let Bull cool down when Bull asked, "Why do you want this information?" Atkins explained that it would make the community more secure and provide a sense of well-being, solidarity and help in the fight against terrorism.
Atkins also took pains to point out to the thick-headed Mr. Bull that the HOA couldn't charge him with a crime although they could report him for criminal or suspicious activity, but that would never happen. He reminded Bull that, "This isn't Spain, this is England!" and that there was nothing to worry about.
Atkins' condescending attitude only succeeded in inflaming Bull's temper. Bull accused Atkins of being a busybody, a spy and a voyeur and shouting that where he went, who he talked to or what websites he visited were "none of his damn business." Atkins saw that Bull was clearly crazy, but he had never seen this before because they had always talked about sports, the weather, or maybe the war against foreign terrorists. In the past, Bull had even expressed approval of illegal wiretaps, illegal and quasi-legal activities to catch criminals, traitors and terrorists, so his reaction was doubly surprising.
Bull, now that his privacy was being compromised, had suddenly become some kind of civil libertarian. Atkins decided to go back home and talk to Bull in a day or two after he had come to his senses and to ponder why Bull objected to his neighbors spying, but not the government.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Out of Palestine Solidarity with a displaced people
Read more
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Questions For Voters
Several months ago I wrote a series of questions that I would like to see asked of Presidential candidates. In the subsequent months I have encountered people who support their candidate for no definite reason other than something like he's the most likely of the four remaining candidates to "beat Obama" - as if that's all that matters.
With that in mind I decided that I would like to ask the supporters of all the candidates a series of questions to ascertain why they support whomever it is they support. Most or all of these have no "right" answer since they are largely concerned with future conduct.
1. Which candidate do you think is most likely to appoint judges who will follow the constitution's original intent?
2. Which candidate do you think will be most vigilant in protecting individual rights?
3. Which candidate do you think is most likely to respect the powers of the states?
4. Which candidate do you think is most likely to veto unconstitutional legislation?
5. Which candidate do you think is most likely to say what he actually thinks?
6. Which candidate do you think is least likely to support inflationary policies?
7. Which candidate do you think is least likely to approve rendition and torture?
8. Rank the four candidates, Gingrich, Paul, Romney and Santorum as most likely to act from pecuniary motives - most likely to least likely.
9. Which candidate do you think is most likely to obtain a declaration of war from congress before going to war?
10.Which candidate is most likely to reduce spending?
11.Which candidate is least likely to support detention without charge or trial?
12.Which candidate is least likely to append signing statements to bills?
13.Rank the four candidates from biggest liar to most truthful.
14.Which candidate is most likely to honor the separation of powers between the branches?
15.Which candidate has the greatest grasp of economics?
16.Which candidate seems to attach the greatest importance to oaths?
17.Which candidate is most likely to put American interests before those of other countries?
18.Which candidate is most likely to observe the civil liberties of both people and companies?
19.Which candidate is most likely to eliminate federal departments?
20.Which candidate is most likely to attempt elimination of income tax?
21.Which candidate is least likely to compel a seceding state to remain in the union?
22.Which candidate is least likely to approve censoring the internet?
23.Is it important for a president to be honest?
24.Which candidate is most likely to eliminate the TSA?
25.Which candidate is most likely to remove trade and travel restrictions?
26.Which candidate is least likely to bail out failed banks and other companies?
27.Which candidate is most likely to support an individual right to keep and bear arms?
28.Which candidate is most likely to eliminate immewing protesters in "free speech zones"?
29.Which candidate is most likely to support "money freedom," i.e., competing currencies?
30.Which candidate - if any have read it - has the best understanding of the Constitution?
31.Who do think would be the most conscientious steward of government funds?
32.Who do you consider to have been most consistent in his positions and votes?
33.Which candidate seems to have changed his position most often?
34.Have you read any books by any of the candidates?
35.If your preferred candidate isn't the nominee, will you vote, stay home, or write in?
36 Is it more important to beat Obama or to prevent the Republican hierarchy from rigging things?
37.Would it be better to suffer four more years of Obama or to vote in a Republican almost as bad for eight years?
38.What is more important, beating Obama or putting decent people in the Congress and Senate?
39.Is it likely that a Republican Congress will oppose bad policy from a Republican president?
40.Do you think the Republicans would overturn Roe v. Wade if they could?
41.Which candidate is least likely to bomb another country on his own initiative?
42.Which candidate seems to have the biggest ego?
43.Which candidate do you think the GOP hierarchy least wants?
44.Do you think it's possible that the Republicans are using pro-lifers as political pawns?
45.Do you think that the commerce clause has anything to do with mandating health insurance?
46.Many people talk of "taking back America" or "throwing the bums out," etc. Who is most likely to accomplish this objective?
47.What is the greater threat, an external enemy or an ever-expanding government?
48.What is a bigger threat, debasing the currency or global warming?
49.What is more important for a president, being bound by the Constitution or having the "correct" views on various disputed questions?
50.Has the country been going in the right direction for the past one hundred years?
With that in mind I decided that I would like to ask the supporters of all the candidates a series of questions to ascertain why they support whomever it is they support. Most or all of these have no "right" answer since they are largely concerned with future conduct.
1. Which candidate do you think is most likely to appoint judges who will follow the constitution's original intent?
2. Which candidate do you think will be most vigilant in protecting individual rights?
3. Which candidate do you think is most likely to respect the powers of the states?
4. Which candidate do you think is most likely to veto unconstitutional legislation?
5. Which candidate do you think is most likely to say what he actually thinks?
6. Which candidate do you think is least likely to support inflationary policies?
7. Which candidate do you think is least likely to approve rendition and torture?
8. Rank the four candidates, Gingrich, Paul, Romney and Santorum as most likely to act from pecuniary motives - most likely to least likely.
9. Which candidate do you think is most likely to obtain a declaration of war from congress before going to war?
10.Which candidate is most likely to reduce spending?
11.Which candidate is least likely to support detention without charge or trial?
12.Which candidate is least likely to append signing statements to bills?
13.Rank the four candidates from biggest liar to most truthful.
14.Which candidate is most likely to honor the separation of powers between the branches?
15.Which candidate has the greatest grasp of economics?
16.Which candidate seems to attach the greatest importance to oaths?
17.Which candidate is most likely to put American interests before those of other countries?
18.Which candidate is most likely to observe the civil liberties of both people and companies?
19.Which candidate is most likely to eliminate federal departments?
20.Which candidate is most likely to attempt elimination of income tax?
21.Which candidate is least likely to compel a seceding state to remain in the union?
22.Which candidate is least likely to approve censoring the internet?
23.Is it important for a president to be honest?
24.Which candidate is most likely to eliminate the TSA?
25.Which candidate is most likely to remove trade and travel restrictions?
26.Which candidate is least likely to bail out failed banks and other companies?
27.Which candidate is most likely to support an individual right to keep and bear arms?
28.Which candidate is most likely to eliminate immewing protesters in "free speech zones"?
29.Which candidate is most likely to support "money freedom," i.e., competing currencies?
30.Which candidate - if any have read it - has the best understanding of the Constitution?
31.Who do think would be the most conscientious steward of government funds?
32.Who do you consider to have been most consistent in his positions and votes?
33.Which candidate seems to have changed his position most often?
34.Have you read any books by any of the candidates?
35.If your preferred candidate isn't the nominee, will you vote, stay home, or write in?
36 Is it more important to beat Obama or to prevent the Republican hierarchy from rigging things?
37.Would it be better to suffer four more years of Obama or to vote in a Republican almost as bad for eight years?
38.What is more important, beating Obama or putting decent people in the Congress and Senate?
39.Is it likely that a Republican Congress will oppose bad policy from a Republican president?
40.Do you think the Republicans would overturn Roe v. Wade if they could?
41.Which candidate is least likely to bomb another country on his own initiative?
42.Which candidate seems to have the biggest ego?
43.Which candidate do you think the GOP hierarchy least wants?
44.Do you think it's possible that the Republicans are using pro-lifers as political pawns?
45.Do you think that the commerce clause has anything to do with mandating health insurance?
46.Many people talk of "taking back America" or "throwing the bums out," etc. Who is most likely to accomplish this objective?
47.What is the greater threat, an external enemy or an ever-expanding government?
48.What is a bigger threat, debasing the currency or global warming?
49.What is more important for a president, being bound by the Constitution or having the "correct" views on various disputed questions?
50.Has the country been going in the right direction for the past one hundred years?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sacraments and the State
Here's an interesting and timely article in PDF format.
by David Gilbert (full text)
http://cssronline.org/CSSR/Current/Articles%20-%20Gilbert.pdf
(in case the link doesn't work)
Friday, February 17, 2012
Harvesting The Whirlwind
Several years ago, a bishop got into trouble for his intransigence and was transported to the capital city to be punished as an example to all the others who thought they need not obey the law of the land. As he was on his way he wrote seven letters, one to another bishop and six to various churches. The letters mainly consist of exhortations to keep the faith and describe what the faith is. In at least one, he asks the citizens not to interfere with his punishment since he is hoping to be killed by the State. He is much more concerned with speaking the truth in season and out than currying favor with anybody. He is a model of what a bishop -or any clergyman - should be.
Courage has always been the exception rather than the rule. If we try to think of clergy that have spoken the truth to their great peril or death a few might come to mind, but not many; Mindszenty in Hungary; von Galen in Germany, Fisher or Becket in England, Wyszynski in Poland, Athanasius in Africa, or in the example above, Ignatius of Antioch in Rome. Ignatius eventually got to Rome and was thrown to the lions under the Emperor Trajan. Most of these early controversies concerned doctrinal disputes, not opposition to existing social evils such as the slave trade or oppression of women, but as the Church gained influence in secular society social evils came under scrutiny. After the Edict of Milan, proclaimed by Emperors Licinius and Constantine in 313, Romans were free to practice any religion they pleased and the official persecutions largely came to an end. Looking back on this era, it is hard to see how bishops ever had that kind of courage.
After most of the official persecutions had ceased there were still problems (as there will always be) to be dealt with. St. Patrick, the former slave wrote a Letter to Coroticus condemning the enslavement of baptized Christians. Pope John VIII, in 875 forbade the owning of slaves by any Catholic and Bishop Bartolome de las Casas was known as "Protector of the Indians" for his condemnation of their treatment in New Spain.
Today the American bishops are faced with government trying to force its will on the Church and the populace. The Obama administration along with congress (which is equally culpable) are trying to force everyone to provide health insurance that provides services that are considered by some - not just Catholics - to be morally objectionable.
This is largely a problem of the bishops' own making. The bishops and many other clergymen of various religions never met a social program they didn't like and support. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops seemed to be a political action committee for the Democrats most of the time. Church and Church-affiliated institutions willingly took money extorted from the citizenry in order to do good things such as feeding people or running hospitals and schools. Schools, hospitals, shelters and so on are worthy endeavors, but they should be funded with contributions, not exactions.
The bishops never seemed to oppose coercion when it benefited them, but now that they are the victims of it, they are suddenly discovering the Constitution and its First Amendment. Every day they should meditate on the line from the Epistle to the Galatians that advises, "...for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."
They have sown coercion - or at least not opposed it - and now they are reaping its harvest. Even now they don't object to the government forcing everyone to buy insurance, they only object to certain procedures that must be provided.
It is not just in the financial realm that they have approved coercion. Many religious people supported laws that embraced what Frederic Bastiat called "forced fraternity." This is the brother of "philanthropic tyranny." It never seemed to occur to supporters of forced fraternity that the admonition to love one another did not mean "love and associate with one another or go to jail."
The solution to this problem is actually very simple, but difficult to implement. It was outlined about 450 years ago in a small treatise by Etienne De La Boetie called The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. In it he counsels his readers to overthrow a tyrant by withholding obedience.
“It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or rather, apparently welcomes it.....What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves?....From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces."
Stealing money through the agency of government has resulted in an odd situation in which the parasite is actually invigorating the thief and thereby endangering itself. Now the host has turned on the parasite which is actually a good thing, although it might not appear so yet. The first step in the return to self-determination is to refuse funds from the government. Money from the government is like free dope from the drug dealer. There will come a time when it will cost a great deal.
Courage has always been the exception rather than the rule. If we try to think of clergy that have spoken the truth to their great peril or death a few might come to mind, but not many; Mindszenty in Hungary; von Galen in Germany, Fisher or Becket in England, Wyszynski in Poland, Athanasius in Africa, or in the example above, Ignatius of Antioch in Rome. Ignatius eventually got to Rome and was thrown to the lions under the Emperor Trajan. Most of these early controversies concerned doctrinal disputes, not opposition to existing social evils such as the slave trade or oppression of women, but as the Church gained influence in secular society social evils came under scrutiny. After the Edict of Milan, proclaimed by Emperors Licinius and Constantine in 313, Romans were free to practice any religion they pleased and the official persecutions largely came to an end. Looking back on this era, it is hard to see how bishops ever had that kind of courage.
After most of the official persecutions had ceased there were still problems (as there will always be) to be dealt with. St. Patrick, the former slave wrote a Letter to Coroticus condemning the enslavement of baptized Christians. Pope John VIII, in 875 forbade the owning of slaves by any Catholic and Bishop Bartolome de las Casas was known as "Protector of the Indians" for his condemnation of their treatment in New Spain.
Today the American bishops are faced with government trying to force its will on the Church and the populace. The Obama administration along with congress (which is equally culpable) are trying to force everyone to provide health insurance that provides services that are considered by some - not just Catholics - to be morally objectionable.
This is largely a problem of the bishops' own making. The bishops and many other clergymen of various religions never met a social program they didn't like and support. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops seemed to be a political action committee for the Democrats most of the time. Church and Church-affiliated institutions willingly took money extorted from the citizenry in order to do good things such as feeding people or running hospitals and schools. Schools, hospitals, shelters and so on are worthy endeavors, but they should be funded with contributions, not exactions.
The bishops never seemed to oppose coercion when it benefited them, but now that they are the victims of it, they are suddenly discovering the Constitution and its First Amendment. Every day they should meditate on the line from the Epistle to the Galatians that advises, "...for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."
They have sown coercion - or at least not opposed it - and now they are reaping its harvest. Even now they don't object to the government forcing everyone to buy insurance, they only object to certain procedures that must be provided.
It is not just in the financial realm that they have approved coercion. Many religious people supported laws that embraced what Frederic Bastiat called "forced fraternity." This is the brother of "philanthropic tyranny." It never seemed to occur to supporters of forced fraternity that the admonition to love one another did not mean "love and associate with one another or go to jail."
The solution to this problem is actually very simple, but difficult to implement. It was outlined about 450 years ago in a small treatise by Etienne De La Boetie called The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. In it he counsels his readers to overthrow a tyrant by withholding obedience.
“It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or rather, apparently welcomes it.....What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves?....From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces."
Stealing money through the agency of government has resulted in an odd situation in which the parasite is actually invigorating the thief and thereby endangering itself. Now the host has turned on the parasite which is actually a good thing, although it might not appear so yet. The first step in the return to self-determination is to refuse funds from the government. Money from the government is like free dope from the drug dealer. There will come a time when it will cost a great deal.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Unfit Parents?
Mendax News Service
Reports have surfaced that the Department of Child Protection is looking into the details of a couple that lost their pre-teen son for three days without reporting it. The boy attended some kind of religious festival with his parents and relatives when he somehow got separated from them. It wasn't discovered that he was missing until the group had already been traveling home for a full day.
Mendax has not been able to get the full details, as they are sketchy, but the boy was found safe and sound after three days. It is thought that Child Protection officials are gathering details of the incident and will act to remove the child from his parents and place him in foster care.
How he got separated from the group and why his parents did not notify authorities have not been determined. It has been rumored that the parents thought that he was with friends or relatives in the group and did not check on his whereabouts for a full day.
The festival had something to do with Old Testament religious beliefs and apparently the entire group adheres to Mosaic and Levitical Law. Child Protective officials generally look with disfavor on religious groups that separate themselves from mainstream society.
Some witnesses who know the boy say that he seems extremely smart, respectful and polite, but attends a non-public school with no accreditation that has no electricity or central heating and air conditioning. If it is found that the parents were negligent, they could be sentenced to jail or ordered to perform community service.
Officials are being tight-lipped about details, but it is believed that they found out about the incident from a letter written to someone named Theophilus by a physician named Luke, last name unknown. The letter became public, thus disclosing the incident.
The mother of the boy is a housewife and the father - foster father, actually - is believed to be a carpenter or blacksmith. Shortly after the boy was born the parents fled the country, believing that somebody was out to kill him. The father claimed that he had a dream in which he was told it was safe to return.
Child advocates demand that the boy be taken away from his parents because of their negligence, but some people argue that losing track of a child can happen to the best of parents and that the state has no authority to intervene in the affair even if proven true.
If the boy is taken away from his parents, it has been suggested that he could be placed with his cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zachary who live in a nearby town and have a son about the same age named John.
Officials don't have any vehicle description or tag number as the couple doesn't have a car, but they have notified town authorities in Nazareth to be on the lookout for the parents. The mother's name is Mary and the father's name is Joseph Ben Heli
Reports have surfaced that the Department of Child Protection is looking into the details of a couple that lost their pre-teen son for three days without reporting it. The boy attended some kind of religious festival with his parents and relatives when he somehow got separated from them. It wasn't discovered that he was missing until the group had already been traveling home for a full day.
Mendax has not been able to get the full details, as they are sketchy, but the boy was found safe and sound after three days. It is thought that Child Protection officials are gathering details of the incident and will act to remove the child from his parents and place him in foster care.
How he got separated from the group and why his parents did not notify authorities have not been determined. It has been rumored that the parents thought that he was with friends or relatives in the group and did not check on his whereabouts for a full day.
The festival had something to do with Old Testament religious beliefs and apparently the entire group adheres to Mosaic and Levitical Law. Child Protective officials generally look with disfavor on religious groups that separate themselves from mainstream society.
Some witnesses who know the boy say that he seems extremely smart, respectful and polite, but attends a non-public school with no accreditation that has no electricity or central heating and air conditioning. If it is found that the parents were negligent, they could be sentenced to jail or ordered to perform community service.
Officials are being tight-lipped about details, but it is believed that they found out about the incident from a letter written to someone named Theophilus by a physician named Luke, last name unknown. The letter became public, thus disclosing the incident.
The mother of the boy is a housewife and the father - foster father, actually - is believed to be a carpenter or blacksmith. Shortly after the boy was born the parents fled the country, believing that somebody was out to kill him. The father claimed that he had a dream in which he was told it was safe to return.
Child advocates demand that the boy be taken away from his parents because of their negligence, but some people argue that losing track of a child can happen to the best of parents and that the state has no authority to intervene in the affair even if proven true.
If the boy is taken away from his parents, it has been suggested that he could be placed with his cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zachary who live in a nearby town and have a son about the same age named John.
Officials don't have any vehicle description or tag number as the couple doesn't have a car, but they have notified town authorities in Nazareth to be on the lookout for the parents. The mother's name is Mary and the father's name is Joseph Ben Heli
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Crocodiles And Government
John "Pondoro" Taylor was an Irishman who went to Africa to become a big-game hunter and ivory poacher.
He wrote several books on his exploits. In one of them he mentions how it used to puzzle him why the natives would go down to the river after having seen a crocodile erupt from the water the previous day or hour and drag one of their fellow villagers under.
Finally, it was explained to him that the natives believed that the crocodile was an incarnate soul of someone who had been wronged by the victim- sort of an avenging angel. They reasoned that since they hadn't cheated or killed or otherwise wronged anybody they had nothing to worry about.
To most Westerners this seems like an obvious superstition, but many people entertain a similar idea about government. Any time someone expresses apprehension about some government program he can be sure that somebody will accuse him of being "paranoid." Fifteen or so years ago I coined the term (which strangely has not been adopted by the Psychology profession) "sanguinoid" to describe a mental disorder that renders the sufferer subject to delusions that everybody is out to help him. It seems that many people entertain this notion vis a vis government.
Many people in totalitarian societies had no fear of the secret police because they knew they hadn't done anything wrong. They didn't worry about the submerged saurian because they were innocent of any crime, real or imagined.
Every day there are stories about some TSA outrage; cops bursting into the wrong house and killing an occupant or two; feds raiding a farm selling raw milk, or seizing the computers of a guitar maker. Anybody who reads news stories has heard of at least a few of these, but most think that the victims "must have done something or they wouldn't be after them."
I have had someone tell me personally that he "hadn't had a problem" with the TSA even though he is aware of the agency's antics such as groping six-year-old girls or making eighty-something year-old women in wheel chairs remove their diapers. This is the American equivalent of going to the river after a croc attack.
It seems as though the average person has an infinite capacity to think that government abuses are never going to be directed at them. From drone attacks to planting drugs to detention without charges to roughing up demonstrators of various persuasions, it's never going to affect them. Besides that, "We" are the government, so there's another reason we have nothing to fear.
Japanese and Italian Americans found out just how much "We" are the government when the government concentrated them in internment camps during WW II.
Americans have forgotten - or never been taught - that government is a very dangerous tool. It is organized, monopolized force and should be kept on a short, securely anchored chain. St. Augustine wrote that the devil is a chained dog. He cannot hurt you unless you go within the radius of his operation. Government was set up to be something like that, but it keeps increasing the length of its own chain until its radius of operation encompasses all human activity.
Those who don't see the government for what it actually is are like the woman in the children's song who thought she could ride the crocodile:
She sailed away on a sunny summer day on the back of a crocodile,
"You see," said she, "he's as tame as tame can be;
I'll ride him down the Nile,"
The croc winked his eye as she bade them all goodbye, wearing a happy smile,
At the end of the ride the lady was inside, and the smile was on the crocodile!
He wrote several books on his exploits. In one of them he mentions how it used to puzzle him why the natives would go down to the river after having seen a crocodile erupt from the water the previous day or hour and drag one of their fellow villagers under.
Finally, it was explained to him that the natives believed that the crocodile was an incarnate soul of someone who had been wronged by the victim- sort of an avenging angel. They reasoned that since they hadn't cheated or killed or otherwise wronged anybody they had nothing to worry about.
To most Westerners this seems like an obvious superstition, but many people entertain a similar idea about government. Any time someone expresses apprehension about some government program he can be sure that somebody will accuse him of being "paranoid." Fifteen or so years ago I coined the term (which strangely has not been adopted by the Psychology profession) "sanguinoid" to describe a mental disorder that renders the sufferer subject to delusions that everybody is out to help him. It seems that many people entertain this notion vis a vis government.
Many people in totalitarian societies had no fear of the secret police because they knew they hadn't done anything wrong. They didn't worry about the submerged saurian because they were innocent of any crime, real or imagined.
Every day there are stories about some TSA outrage; cops bursting into the wrong house and killing an occupant or two; feds raiding a farm selling raw milk, or seizing the computers of a guitar maker. Anybody who reads news stories has heard of at least a few of these, but most think that the victims "must have done something or they wouldn't be after them."
I have had someone tell me personally that he "hadn't had a problem" with the TSA even though he is aware of the agency's antics such as groping six-year-old girls or making eighty-something year-old women in wheel chairs remove their diapers. This is the American equivalent of going to the river after a croc attack.
 |
| "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" |
Japanese and Italian Americans found out just how much "We" are the government when the government concentrated them in internment camps during WW II.
Americans have forgotten - or never been taught - that government is a very dangerous tool. It is organized, monopolized force and should be kept on a short, securely anchored chain. St. Augustine wrote that the devil is a chained dog. He cannot hurt you unless you go within the radius of his operation. Government was set up to be something like that, but it keeps increasing the length of its own chain until its radius of operation encompasses all human activity.
Those who don't see the government for what it actually is are like the woman in the children's song who thought she could ride the crocodile:
She sailed away on a sunny summer day on the back of a crocodile,
"You see," said she, "he's as tame as tame can be;
I'll ride him down the Nile,"
The croc winked his eye as she bade them all goodbye, wearing a happy smile,
At the end of the ride the lady was inside, and the smile was on the crocodile!
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