Possessions and Society

I got to thinking recently, about what possessions people gather in order to establish social esteem or rank. As well, I wondered what people would gladly do without if such possessions were frowned upon society.

It would seem that there are two orders of possession;

> Those that we possess solely for our own gratification

> Those that we possess because others may esteem us more for having such

Obviously the gratification that we receive from the esteem of others is independent of material objects. If the rest of society were to frown upon the first order of possession, we might hide them from view, or at the least, would unaffected in our ownership. If the rest of society were to frown upon the second order of possessions, we would most likely choose not to own them at all

In this sense, we are all responsible--to a certain degree--with what the rest of society chooses to possess, or gives value to. In the same way we have a certain degree of power over what the opulent possess, or at least what they are willing to flaunt before society

A Bellyfeel Defense of Goodsex

I recently had the amusement of reviewing the controversial "THE MARRIAGE VOW A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY[sic]"

Before we even get to the slavery part (perhaps a future post) let's start and finish with the first paragraph:

"Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order – as conveyed by Jewish and Christian Scripture, by Classical Philosophers, by Natural Law, and by the American Founders – upon which our concepts of Creator-endowed human rights, racial justice and gender equality all depend."

um... okey dokey then... you betcha

Judeo/Xtian Scriptures: While monogamy IS mentioned in one of the epistles as being on of the endearing qualifyications of Deacons, it is NOT featured prominently in the scriptures in general. King David, who is described as a man after God's own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22) had a RIDICULOUS number of wives. It is said that the Judeo/Xtian deity commanded Hosea to marry a whore. And of course in the new testament, marriage is only recommended for those burning with desire (not Xtian counselors looking for a "beard" or the uninterested girl who thinks that God is commanding her to marry him... but I digress)

then there are "the American Founders." For the sake of argument, I am going to assume that rather than meaning the Puritans--who would flog women who weren't performing their wifely duties (which would of course be contrary to the pledge's later "Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control")--instead it is referring to the U.S. Founding Fathers. Men like Benjamin Franklin--who admitted to having "intrigues with low Women that fell in my Way", Thomas Jefferson who carried on a romance with the married Maria Cosway while in France, and Alexander Hamilton, who had an extra-marital affair with a woman to whose husband he paid hush-money.

So, the pledge's opening paragraph frames the rest (and by extension, anyone foolish enough to sign it) in a ridiculous disregard for reality. But, hey, it makes great bellyfeel for the Party faithful :P

An Objectivist In Sunday School

A fictitious satirical dialog :)

Jenny was a rather ingenious girl, something of a prodigy at age 12. She had read many long books. her favorite author was Ayn Rand. Having recently finished "Atlas Shrugged," it was a rather unfortunate time for her to watch Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" with her grandparents.

As the ending credits began to roll, Grandma wiped her eyes beneath her spectacles, and turned to Jenny, and was taken aback to see the cross look on the girl's face. "Did you like it?" she asked.

"It..." Jenny began, "It's just so irrational"

"Well, dear" There aren't real ghosts of course, "it's just to show the moral of the story"

"The moral of the story is irrational! It isn't RIGHT!" she exclaimed

Later Jenny's grandmother had a talk with her mother about the incident, and it was decided that her moral instruction had been neglected, so the following weekend, Jenny was sent to Sunday school.

Miss Franklin was a kindly woman who dressed a bit frumpily, in Jenny's opinion. She carried a drab, well worn little bible with several ragged paper place-markers of various colors hanging out the top. Her body language was timid, her manner was pleasant but not vital in the least. Jenny wasn't at all sure that she had anything to learn from a person of such lacking self-confidence.

"As I mentioned last week," Miss Franklin began, "our church will be starting our Christmas food-drive this week, and we'll be looking at some passages from the Bible about our responsibilities to the less fortunate, and what you as children can do to help" She opened her bible to a crinkled blue place-marker. "In Proverbs 3:27 tells us 'Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them.' " Jenny raised her hand, "yes, Jenny?"

"But how do we know who deserves it?" Jenny asked skeptically

"Well, these can be complicated things for children to understand, but I have a few more passages that can hopefully help us understand..." she turned to a ragged pink place-marker "In Luke 6:20, we read 'God blesses you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. God blesses you who weep now, for in due time you will laugh.' That is a rather hopeful thing for those who we aren't able to help. But there we have a responsibility to help as many people as we can. As Jesus goes on to say 'What sorrow awaits you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now. 'What sorrow awaits you who are fat and prosperous now, for a time of awful hunger awaits you. What sorrow awaits you who laugh now, for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow.' You see, when we have more than we need, and others have less than they need, that is a situation that deserves our help. Does that make more sense now?" miss Franklin smiled meekly to Jenny

"But that situation has causes..." Jenny was becoming indignant.

"Yes..." Said Miss Franklin, "...perhaps this will help..." She flipped to yet another page marker,

"'As Jesus was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to him, knelt down, and asked, 'Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'
'Why do you call me good?' Jesus asked. 'Only God is truly good. But to answer your question, you know the commandments: 'You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone. Honor your father and mother.' '
'Teacher,' the man replied, 'I've obeyed all these commandments since I was young.'
Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. 'There is still one thing you haven't done,' he told him. "Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'
At this the man's face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, 'How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!'
This amazed them. But Jesus said again, 'Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!'
The disciples were astounded. 'Then who in the world can be saved?' they asked.
Jesus looked at them intently and said, 'Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.'"

"But that isn't fair," said Jenny, "He followed all the rules. Above and beyond the laws of the land. How can he say that it is imperfect for him to have his reward?"

"Maybe we had better talk about this later, with your parents," said Miss Franklin

"But you're telling everyone here to follow this mysticism, and they won't be able to reason for themselves." said Jenny, her self-esteem welling up inside her, "It is rational thinking that is perfect, and you are telling them to ignore it, because some old mystic said they have to share what they have earned with those who didn't earn it. Then THEY will have to rely on force to make people who do think rationally give them what THEY haven't earned!"

"I'm going to have to have you go sit in the sanctuary until we're finished with our lesson. This has been enough of a disruption."

"Always the use of force to stifle reason, and to keep people mindlessly sacrificing themselves!" groused Jenny as she defiantly left the room.

As the door slammed shut, Miss Franklin turned back to the class and sadly said "Lets all say a prayer for Jenny, for 'What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?'"

And they all bowed their heads obediently...

Objectification

Whether from the nature of birth, or the result of conditioning, there seems to be the tendency of some members of society to objectify the rest of the members of society, and perhaps even to objectify themselves by the same standards. This tendency to view humanity as a mere commodity, that may be assigned a value based upon productive value or aesthetic appeal seems indeed a rebellion against that very essence of what separates humans from the brute creatures and against that refinement which the progress of time and effort has helped to nurture in our beings.

It might be wondered what incidents have led to this movement toward seeming devolution. Or has this throwback toward primitive concepts been ever present in our genetic code, ripe for exploitation by those in whom the tendency predominates their very nature. Regardless, it need only require patient observation of the other creatures that inhabit the earth to come to the conclusion that it is indeed a movement toward devolution, and one which ought to meet with our deliberate defiance.

When we examine the behavior or other highly evolved animals, they tend to display altruism or empathy more frequently than simpler creatures. Examples of the human species tend to display such behavior more frequently. Mankind has even attempted to design elaborate systems to the nurturing of altruism, empathy, sympathy and related virtues, though all too often objectification rears its ugly head in such institutions such that the virtuous are subjugated or alienated from such systems entirely.

Other institutions which seek profit not in stealth of virtue, but as the substitution of it, tend also to nurture the objectification of the species, and again in such institutions those who cling to virtue over the instinct for survival become subjugated or alienated as well.

Though the species as a whole tends toward what is rightly called humanity, it is inhumanity that prevail in those principalities that we call "human institutions." What can be done to combat the evil? To limit the power of humanity before it's institutions? Or isn't it the way of progress and virtue to limit the power of institutions by humanity? I should think the latter...

The War on Individuals

"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad" -- James Madison

What are we to deduce when we find striking inconsistencies between the way that laws fall upon individuals and upon corporations? Take for instance "the small cost" that individuals pay--through invasive searches at airports (and perhaps soon that shall have to be endured to use any public transportation) --compared to the standards that the FAA holds for the companies that operate the aircraft. As Ralph Nader points out in his 1999 essay Unsafe At Any Altitude, the FAA criteria for measures to protect human safety is as follows:

"The FAA values a human life at $2.7 million, so if a safety improvement costs more than the projected value of lives lost, the agency often refuses to order the necessary improvements. For example, the FAA recommended against requiring technology that would mitigate against center fuel tank explosions because the ten- year cost to the industry of fixing this hazard, believed responsible for the 1996 TWA 800 disaster, would exceed the cost in human lives."

In 2008, the statistical value of a human life was raised to $5.8 Million. Nonetheless the budget for the Transportation Safety Administration would seem to assume (were the same criteria employed) that its actions saved 1344 lives this year and would save 1413 lives in 2011. Yet this would appear to be next to impossible, as the improvements in cockpit doors since the 2001 attacks would prevent that sort of outright takeover and use of a plane as a weapon from occurring again. The $7.8 billion TSA budget needed for the extravagant purchase of x-ray scanners and labor-intensive fondling of passengers fails to justify itself by FAA cost benefit criteria. Yet at the same time, regulations for the rest-periods for pilots (an issue that has cost more lives since 2001 than airline terrorism) only increased that rest-time by a single hour.

When it comes to the suggestion of invasive searches for rail passengers, the absurdity is magnified. From 1999 through 2009 there were 84 rail-passenger fatalities and 9241 injuries. When crashes occur because of the poorly maintained corporately owned track that passenger rail runs upon, Amtrak has to pick up the tab, meaning that corporate rail has little interest in keeping passengers safe. With a Federal Railroad Administration that employs only 400 rail inspectors and which has a "Safety and Operations" budget that is only $157 million annually, it is obvious that our representatives in congress have little interest as well. So, WHY the increased interest in safety from terrorists? Is it perhaps because stoking this exaggerated fear has proven to be so effective in negotiating the surrender of civil liberties?

Perhaps it is paranoid to draw the conclusion that "enhanced security" is intended for any purpose other than passenger safety, but the body of evidence suggests emphatically otherwise!


http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/5311-janet-napolitano-considers-advanced-screenings-for-mass-transit

http://www.dot.gov/bib2009/htm/FRA.html

http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/3.shtml

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_38.html

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/benefit_cost/media/Revised%20Value%20Of%20Life%20Guidance%20Feburary%202008.pdf

Nineteen Eighty-Two

Note to reader: The following satirical parable is a shameless rip-off of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four, except that rather than being set in a fictional distopian state, it is set in the year 1982, in Chile.

WARNING: The following satirical parable contains adult themes, suggestive depictions of violence, and graphic depictions of hierarchist sexual degeneracy.

Nineteen Eighty-Two: A Satirical Parable

Vincente descended the back steps of the hospital operated by the Ministry of Justice. His job as a medical sampler had been described to him as that of ascertaining a the health of a cross-section of Chilean society, and indeed he encountered a range of individuals as diverse as hovel-squatters and middle class students. Though the clientele of the el Hospital de Justicia seemed unusually frightened for people who were being paid a small pittance for their medical information, perhaps it was the situation of needing such an offering that seemed to have them ill at ease when Vincente took their vital signs or in their needing to be restrained to a gurney in order to assure the safety of the medical workers in case the patient were rendered mad by any of the diseases of the streets. Then when his work was done, they were wheeled away, and he proceeded to his next patient.

Regardless, their unease left Vincente unsettled at the end of his shift. His youthful idealism left him wishing that he could do more for them on behalf of the government, so a week before, he had decided to help at a local soup kitchens to provide a greater sense of purpose. It was a significant walking distance from el Hospital to the soup kitchen, but Vincente looked forward to the grateful faces there through the whole trek. The anticipation blotted out the looks of dread that he encountered all day at work.

Vincente entered the kitchen, took his apron and greeted Julia who was in charge of the preparation line. "Hola Vincente" she said cheerfully. She was an attractive girl, who was always very friendly, though she had a great seriousness about her too. Julia often talked with Vincente, but never descended into the frivolity of outright flirtation. This evening though was somewhat different, as he caught her glancing in his direction a few times. After the shift was over, Julia caught hold of arm as he was leaving and pulled him aside. Her lovely brown eyes penetrated his as she asked, "will you come to my apartment"

Vincente wasn't sure what to expect as they made the half-block scurry toward her building. She stopped him in her doorway and her eyes looked around the alleyway, and then into his eyes again. "You seem like someone I can trust," she said, her eyes searching his "are you?"
"Yes. You can" he said more confidently than he felt. She opened the door and entered. The apartment was spartan but tidy. Between the cracked plaster walls there lay three small mattresses with shabby blankets on top. Julia tugged his hand toward one of them and sat down. Vincente nervously sat as well.

"My roommates are out for the evening" she said. "we can be alone for a couple of hours. she leaned in toward him, and they kissed. This continued for several minutes, then she pulled back the coarse wool top blanket and the thin flannel one beneath, and they nestled under the covers in the smell of her having slept in them.

Two hours later, Vincente hurried along the streets to his own apartment, eager to arrive before curfew came. But as he passed a few blocks from the city square, he heard the chants and racket of a crowd. His mind altered from its normal meekness by the days events, he hesitated long enough to glimpse the scene from some distance around the corner of a building. Gaunt silhouettes pushing one way or another against stocky armored police. Had he been at home and listening to his radio, he would have heard of the civic unrest, and would have known to remain safely indoors.

Vincente was distracted from the scene by the telltale sound of metal treads approaching behind him. Turning, he spotted a convoy of some sort rumbling closer. He scurried a few feet down the alley, and hid himself behind a pile of garbage. He peered out as a line of armored personnel carriers moved past. After they disappeared from sight and the rumble of their treads grew fainter and then stopped, the pitch of the crowd changed. Curiousity overcame self-preservation as he ventured gingerly to the corner that he had peered around before. Water from some of the armored vehicles was spraying the crowd. Vincente quickly surveyed the street behind him for soldiers or police or any other witnesses, but there were none. He turned back to the crowd, as the water stopped suddenly. Then a mist was sprayed forth from other armored vehicles and settled onto the remaining protesters. Suddenly Vincente's good sense returned, and he resumed again the hurried retreat to his home, as screams of agony echoed from the city square.

The next day, Vincente's mind was on the happenings of the previous night, as he went through the motions of work even more mechanically than normal. At the soup kitchen Julia didn't greet him. He spotted her though as she directed the volunteers on the preparation line. Her hair was much shorter and crudely cut, and her face was not merely serious but sullen. She caught his gaze, but glanced away quickly. About halfway through the shift, she touched his forearm and handed him a note. He found time to open it a bit later. It began:

"My roommates have not returned. I am afraid to return home. I am staying at the shelter that the Sisters run..."

The voice of another volunteer interrupted his reading; "I need that bread!" Vincente quickly half-folded the note, and thrust it into his pocket. He didn't know who he could trust. When he had his next spare moment, he decided to forgo reading the remainder and instead used the time to conceal the note in the top of his sock. When he arrived home, he finally dared to read the remainder of the note:

"There isn't room for my personal items at the shelter. I have left them in a duffel bag beside the bread flour. There are some books in English that my American father left me. If you can hold them for me, I will be very grateful, but if you feel that you cannot keep them safely, please dispose of them."

Vincente was immensely regretful that he had waited to read the note, but resolved to return to the soup kitchen the moment that curfew lifted in the morning. When he arrived at the soup kitchen, he found the back door unlocked much to his relief. He entered quietly and made his way to the store-room. At last he clutched the denim straps of the duffel, and lifted it, turning toward the door only to find a nun standing in his path. Her facial features muted and innocent looking--The rest of her form was concealed beneath her habit. "Are you here to work young man?" She asked, though she was about the same age as he.

"I'm sorry, no..." replied Vincente "I just left this here last night. I'm off to work my day-job at this moment."

"And, where would that be?" inquired the nun.

"I'm a nurse at le Hospital de Justicia" he replied

"What do you suppose the Ministry of Justice requires of nurses... or a hospital for that matter?"

"Um... I suppose for insuring social justice..." Vincente stammered. The nun flashed an ironic smirk that changed immediately to a sorrowful look.

"Social Justice?" she shook her head "Pinochet has no concept of SOCIAL justice!"

"I'm running late... I'd better go then." said Vincente shakenly, as he made his was toward the door. The nun didn't step aside, but allowed him to slither past.

Indeed Vincente had taken more time than he had anticipated. He wouldn't be able to return to his apartment before reporting to work, but would instead have to take the bag to work with him and deposit it in his storage locker. He fought with himself about whether he should discard the bag en route, but he reasoned that he might be spotted and that would draw even more suspicion than merely arriving with it and acting as if it were the most natural thing. Of course stronger still, was his curiosity--his need to know what secrets to Julia's behavior might be found inside that bag. He had no problem entering the premises without suspicion and though he nervously fumbled the lock to his locker, he was able to deposit it unnoticed.

The day proceeded relatively routinely, but Vincente still couldn't quite blot the images of the civil unrest from the other night from his mind... or the fearful and disguised appearance of Julia... or the words of the stern nun; "What do you suppose the Ministry of Justice requires of nurses... or a hospital for that matter... Pinochet has no concept of SOCIAL justice!" Vincente pondered that question at some length, especially in the context of the riot police, and Julia's friends disappearing. Then, that afternoon, he would be startled out of his mental wrestling by the events of his work itself. There, waiting for her blood pressure and blood sugar, and heart rate to be tested was Julia, restrained to the gurney.

"Jul--?" he began to inquire, but she clenched her lips together and shook her head. Another technician looked up from his station, but didn't seem to take much interest in the muted exchange. Vincente went about his task, and then Julia was wheeled away like all the rest. He felt sickened by fear now, as if pieces of a puzzle were coming together in his mind. His heart beat faster than normal. He was sweating. Though the day was nearly complete, he couldn't bear the though of standing for the next hour and a quarter. He toughed it out through the next patient, and then excused himself for a bathroom break. He ran cold water and splashed it on his face. He dried himself and returned to work his final hour.

Work concluded, he changed his scrubs, and made his way the back door with duffel in hand. "Off to your charity work, Vincent?" interrupted the voice of a tall, bald, pale-skinned man in a long lab-coat. Vincent had seen the doctor before, but didn't know his name, or for that matter how the doctor knew his. "There is an opportunity for promotion available. I am looking for an assistant," The doctor said, "why don't you come this way with me." Vincent peered toward the back door. There was an armed guard there, which was out of the ordinary. If indeed they were on to him, there would be no getting past him. Vincent's best hope was to comply with the doctor for now.

"It's an honor, Doctor...?" Vincent charmingly inquired. Doing his best to stomach the fear that was wracking his nerves.

"Randborn," said the doctor cracking a brief half smile, "right this way" Vincent was lead through the doctors' entrance hallway. What appeared to be a wall of mirrors from the technicians lab where Vincente worked was actually smoked glass, and he could now see all that was occurring in the lab. They then proceeded to a set of doors adjacent to those on the other side of the smoked glass through which all the patients were wheeled.

"Do leave your bag here, and take a coat," Vincent nervously left the bag by a rack of lab coats and followed Randborn through the double-doors. Randborn continued, "Back here is where the really important work takes place, so I'm sure that an enterprising fellow such as yourself will wind up here eventually. No?"

"What sort of work is that?" asked Vincente with a genuine mixture of curiosity and apprehension. They approached a row of windows. Each of the windows had a curtain on the outside. the first few were empty and the curtain was open revealing a gray concrete room with a metal examination chair.

"As the name would suggest, we are here employed in the ministry of executing justice." Randborn passed two closed curtains, and opened the third. "Observe here. This young lady was involved in the insurrection the other night. Did you hear about that on the radio" There was the lith nude figure of a woman of about twenty restrained in the lithotomy position. Vincente felt a chemical surge within his body in spite of himself. He did his best to quell it with a scarcely-existent guilt. Randborn continued his oratory, "She was raised middle class it seems. Despite their obvious superiority to the lower classes in every other regard the middle class individual doesn't have much of a stomach for suffering the mildest unpleasantness. Though almost anybody can stomach inflicting it either directly or through their social order. Through some rather mild coercion, she gave up the name of her roommate here" he pulled the next curtain aside revealing Julia, Who was similarly bound up.

Vincente felt no surge but indignation, for he cared for this girl and had felt her tenderness. She saw him there in his lab coat, but he could not reveal himself to Randborn by hiding his face from her or reacting in any way. A look of confused anguish crossed her face and tears ran from her eyes, as Randborn closed the curtain "Now we think this young lady is completely innocent, but we will leave her in suspense for a bit longer, in case she is made useful again, but then she will be free to go. After all, she confessed immediately to having subversive materials written in English. But then, we think she is covering for someone... perhaps a lover...?" Randborn pulled back another curtain. Inside was a lovely creamy skinned blond woman, trussed up in the same fashion as the rest. "...or," Randborn continued, "perhaps she is covering for a foreign friend. We are still sorting this out." Vincente saw the face of this latest young woman, and realized she was the nun he had met that morning. Her innocent features became twisted in anger as she recognized him.

"Do you read English, Vincente?" Randborn asked as he moved away from the window, leaving it open. Vincente was sure that Randborn knew the answer. He knew them all.

"Yes, a bit" he replied, nodding.

"Right, of course you do. You, WERE raised in the middle class after all, no?" Randborn said almost as if an accusation.

"That's right" Replied Vincente. Randborn produce a small book from the pocket of his lab coat.

"Then perhaps you'd like to read this passage from..." reading the cover, "...The writings of Thomas Jefferson... the passage is marked there," Randborn then opened it to a marked page.

"Um... sure... 'The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation.'"

"And is that what you believe?" Randborn interrupted, cocking an eyebrow inquisitively.

"I haven't read that before. I haven't read anything in English since university..." began Vincente as Randborn pulled the book from his grasp, and turned to another marked page.

"Does this passage ring a bell; 'The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all'?"

"Sir, I haven't read it! I don't even know who Thomas Jefferson is!"

"Then why own the book?!"

"I don't own it!"

"It was found in your locker this morning, and it has been examined for subversive content. There are several more passages..."

"I was looking after the bag for a friend! This girl in the middle. She works in the soup kitchen with me."

"Hasn't anyone warned you about the soup kitchens?! That they are dens of leftist subversion?! They try to thwart the natural order by preserving the weak. The try to cheat the grave of it's due. The help to dilute the gene pool with simpering wretches who waste the oxygen that the fit could be breathing instead--dragging them down like so many crabs in a bucket. The strong teem with virile energy to conquer and to possess and to domineer and to ravage. Our cause is to improve our nation! To improve the human race, by purifying fire, by winnowing the chaff! By letting evolution take its natural course!"

"The nurturing instinct will be eliminated. Procreation will be reduced to a market function; a mere exchange of commodities. We shall abolish intimacy. Our economists are at work upon it now. There will be no love except for the love of acquisition. There will be no laughter except the laugh of domination. There will be no devotion except the excitement of fetish. Mankind will return to the divine simplicity of Eden; the exchange of bone for flesh. The symbol of the future shall be an invisible hand holding down a human neck forever"

"You know what I believe happened" Randborn said as calm returned to his reddened face "I think that the American subversive set you up. Why do you suppose a pretty thing like that became a nun? Why, because she hates men of course, and all things of a manly nature. Isn't that the way she treated you this morning. Made you stammer?! Humiliated you?! Of course that is why... why she passed that note for you to pretty Julia. Why she used the duffel to take the trail off of her and her do-gooding subversive lot. See her face?! She hates you without knowing you. Because you did the natural thing all along. Worked here. Helped subject others to untold unpleasantness, so that you could enjoy your relative comfort of respectable employment. Did penitence for the guilt you thought you should feel. She could see through you. So could Julia. She could sense your virility straining for its liberation. How could she resist the force of nature?!"

"Be glad that we are judicious and understand this situation. Weaker stock might have been fooled by such a cheap charade. You may have been misled at university. They may have tried to suppress your virility, but your stock does not lie. You felt it when you saw our first firm young prisoner here, did you not? Free yourself and help me expose the twisted plot of our soup kitchen matron, here. Lets give her a reason to hate you, yes?!" Vincente nodded after Randborn had finished, and he obediently followed him down the hall and through the entrance to the cell block.


The End

The End of Truth

"The only point that needs to be stressed is that neither propaganda in itself nor the techniques employed are particular to totalitarianism" -- F.A. Hayek

It has been my observation that those who tend to attach the most importance to the ideas of our nation's founding are also those who take the most outrageous licence in interpreting those same ideas. Take for instance the idea of Liberty. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen lays out the republican notion of liberty. Not the liberties one may take upon one's fellows, but rather their constraint:

"Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man or woman has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights."

The Author of our Declaration of Independence--Thomas Jefferson--echoes the same sentiment:

"Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with effusion of so much blood"

The Father of our Constitution--James Madison--echoes similar sentiments while defining of property:

"In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage"

These values derived from the theory of Social Compact which were echoed in the texts of the 1776 state constitutions of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, and were stated most eloquently in the 1780 Constitution of Massachusettes:

"Government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men"

And yet, so many of those individuals who claim allegiance to original intent are the very individuals who claim that government IS instituted for the exclusive privelege of one class at the expense of the rest. They may candy-coat it as being "jobs-creation" or some other thin guise implying that it is for the good of the people that they lavish bounties upon their oppressors.

Worse yet, these same eagerly engage in intrigues and wars that not only invade the soveriegnty of other nations, but saddle our population with ominous debts. It is no small wonder that Jefferson said of such in an 1816 letter to George Logan:

"It is a great consolation to me that our government, as it cherishes most it’s duties to its own citizens, so is it the most exact in it’s moral conduct towards other nations. I do not believe that in the four administrations which have taken place, there has been a single instance of departure from good faith towards other nations. We may sometimes have mistaken our rights, or made an erroneous estimate of the actions of others, but no voluntary wrong can be imputed to us. In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phaenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of it’s government and the probity of it’s citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it’s people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Oh, if only those who wish to perpetuate the errors still present during our founding, could instead embrace its revolutionary aspirations toward human progress