A Few Words to Everyone
Yes, I mean everyone. All six billion of us, not just the Americans. As lucky as I am to be American by both birth and choice, I count myself a human being first. The rights and responsibilities I'll be talking about shortly are human, not just for one nation, race or class. America is simply the first country to attempt to codify them into the laws of a nation.
America is great both morally and physically because of individual liberty. It's as simple as that. Those who continually indict America for one reason or another do have an occasional point, but on balance America has the cleanest moral slate of any country on Earth. Of course some say that diversity is our greatness, not liberty. In fact, our justly celebrated diversity is a result of our greatness, not the cause of it. People from all over the world would not have come here in so many waves and numbers if America was just another third world pesthole run by vicious kings or socialist dictatorships. It was freedom that drew them here. People trying to immigrate legally are drawn by freedom still. I say let them come. Those who would be American by choice are more American in spirit than some who are merely born here.
So what is this liberty then, this freedom? It’s an individual quality in which a person is not under threat from other persons acting under law. Very simple. It carries no guarantees of immunity from unlawful harm but it does mean that no law can allow the state or other persons to murder, rob, rape, extort, slander or otherwise molest you against your will. It also means that since there are no natural guarantees against others trying to do those things to you unlawfully, you have the freedom to take reasonable measures to protect yourself from those actions. In short, you can go about your business without hazarding others or accepting undue risk of hazard from others.
Like I said, simple, no subtlety, no nuance, no artificial grey areas for pseudo-intellectuals to nitpick. But there is another side to freedom. It’s called responsibility. If you are entitled to human liberty, you are responsible to stay innocent, not just on paper either. You have to actually not murder, rob, rape etcetera, anyone else.
One might ask how do I prevent myself from being guilty of one or more of these nasty things when I’m stopping someone else from doing them to me? Hmm. Do you remember elementary school when some bully started hitting you and you got in trouble for hitting back? You told the school official truthfully “He started it!” and the official, who wasn’t there to prevent the attack in the first place, said that it didn’t matter who started it and you got some punishment anyway. Well, guess what- the school official was flat wrong. It matters big time. As a buddy of mine says, “If you don’t start no shit, there won’t be no shit.” He’s right. It works every time it’s tried. The problem is there is always somebody else out there eager to start some shit and they usually do it when the official good guys aren’t around.
“He started it-” is also very important when it comes to killing, which I’ll get to later.
America’s Founders put it succinctly. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, those are our rights as individual human beings. It is simply impossible for them to be collective rights only. You can’t have a free country populated by slaves. Yes, I know, there were slaves in America for a long time but more on that later as well.
Here is another important word for this discussion, privilege. I’m not free to do what I want if it involves, say, going into my neighbor’s orchard and eating his oranges. On the other hand, if he tells me I can do that, I have a privilege that others don’t. The word and concept 'privilege' has been abused a lot. In soviet Russia, the concept was abused by the fact that people lost every significant possession to the state but could not even enter some of the state-run stores which were reserved for the party members. In most American states, authorities that issue driver’s licenses abuse the word by calling it a privilege to drive your car on public roads. The hell they say! If you are a citizen of this country and hold a valid, up-to-date license you have the moral right to drive on public streets. You earned the right by going through the licensing process and paying the gasoline taxes that (supposedly) maintain the roads.
Eating my neighbor’s oranges is a privilege because he owns the oranges. Driving America’s public roads is not a privilege because the state does not own them. We the people do. Of course, with that right comes responsibility. We have the responsibility to obtain a valid license as proof to the state, which is responsible for the safety and maintenance of the roads, that we know how to safely drive. We also have the responsibility to actually drive safely by obeying the (mostly) reasonable traffic laws. That way we don’t violate someone else’s rights by killing them in an accident. If I seem to be nitpicking here, forgive me. It’s exactly this kind of parsing of words which the power elite use to gradually alienate us from our human rights- and do it legally.
In these uncertain times another word is important regarding government. Okay, it’s really two words, charity and slavery. Obviously one is a great human virtue and the other an equally great human evil. You, the reader, probably know the difference between them so why the hell doesn’t our government?
Consider charity. A person willingly gives of their own material possessions or time, fully in the knowledge that they'll get nothing material in return. People have many reasons for doing this, from misplaced guilt to a genuine desire to help others in need. As an aside, you might wonder if time is a material possession. You'd better believe it. The one thing we have so damn little of, king and pauper alike, is time.
When I gave one of my kidneys to a friend who's own had failed, the choice was easy. I decided I'd rather lose the kidney than lose the life of someone whose existence contributed to the joy of my own. Sound selfish? Like I said, many reasons. I would not normally have mentioned this to avoid playing on one's sympathies but I want any doubting readers aware that I know the deep nature of giving.
Now, consider slavery. A person is forced to give of their own material possessions or time, fully in the knowledge that they'll get nothing material in return. Wait a minute. Didn't I write something similar about charity? Please go back and check. Sure enough, but there's a difference isn't there? The difference is willingly as opposed to forced. It's a matter of choice.
With charity, the giver gives deliberately, having chosen to accept the material loss for whatever non-material gain he may perceive. With slavery, the giver gives because he has a chained leg and a whip at his back or a law enforced by a gun at his head. The effects of the difference are profound. During the Great Depression poverty was truly widespread. When people offered willingly to help, folks in their pride were reluctant to accept. Now with "charity" enforced by law, the givers find ways to hide and dodge from the requirement and the receivers grow in arrogance, demanding ever more.
Now we have elected a man who promises to take only from the extremely rich and give the rest of us a tax cut. Will he now? Don't any of you know how that works? Suppose he and his very friendly Congress actually stick to his promise and only raise taxes on those making $250,000 or more per year. The people paying the extra tax will want to keep making a profit for what they do so they will add the higher taxes to the cost of what they do. The people who purchase whatever goods or services those nasty rich provided will end up being the ones who really pay the new taxes- just like it is now. The end user always pays the corporation's taxes and that's you and me, buckwheat! If you're not smart enough to understand that, you're not smart enough to vote.
I'm sure Mr. Obama knows how that works and so do the ever increasing numbers of socialists on Capitol Hill. They know damned well what they are doing, even if so many of us don't.
You know what the next step is, don't you? The socialists will scream for their government to not allow the rich to make any profits (so there!). Go read Atlas Shrugged if you want a detailed analysis of what will happen then. Go on, I'll wait.
Too much trouble? Fine, here's the short form. Most of the rich, who provide the goods and services that some of you are so entitled to, will stop. They'll throw up their hands and go live on an island somewhere. A lot of wannabes will try to fill their shoes but will fail because, mentally speaking, their feet aren't big enough. The nation's economy will collapse and the government it supports will change.
Didn't Obama promise change?
When that happens, watch out. In her book, Ayn Rand speculated that all the other countries were themselves in too bad a shape to take advantage of our collapse. Not so in reality. China, a resurging totalitarian Russia, and a whole bunch of really hostile Muslims, not to mention a bakers dozen or so of places like Mexico, Venezuela or the People’s Paradise of North Korea will be happily fighting each other over the remains of our carcass. And most of that fighting will be done right here.
Don’t expect our public officials to do much to prevent it. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al will likely be trying to cut their own deals with the Enlightened Socialist Republics of the world, if they haven’t already.
I do have a lot more to say on slavery but I’m going to save it for another section of For What it’s Worth.
Bear with me please. I have one more discussion about a couple of words. I know Bill Clinton showed us just how annoying it can be discussing words. But words do have meaning and those meanings give form to ideas. Acting on certain ideas can take us to the stars and other ideas can bring Hell itself to Earth.
When I was in college a Hebrew scholar told me that the Sixth Commandment- “Thou Shalt Not Kill” as spoken in English is better translated “Thou Shalt Not Murder”. Kill and Murder are two different words with two different meanings. So what’s the difference? Simply put, a murder is the deliberate but unjustified killing of another human being.
I can hear someone out there shouting, “All killing is unjustified!” Sell it somewhere else, kid. We don’t need any baby food. The killing of serial murderers, serial rapists and child molesters is not only justified, it’s uncivilized not to kill them. Further, home invaders, nation invaders and people who sell narcotics to children are just some of the types whose continued use of our oxygen is, hmm... unjustified.
I did just say nation invaders, didn’t I? Well, doesn’t that mean, like, Iraq. Like, uh, no it doesn’t. Look, any civilized person or country has tremendous respect for national sovereignty. But when Oppenheimer and the gang developed nuclear weapons, it changed the rules a bit. Saddam was building nukes. He said so himself. Wait, that guy out there’s shouting again. He didn’t have nucular weapons? No fooling? What about the labs we found and the centrifuge components we found and the yellow cake uranium we found. Doesn’t that- oh, the establishment media didn’t cover those things much. Well, here’s something they did cover, sonny. In the many months of build up to the invasion even the establishment media noted the numerous large truck convoys leaving Iraq for Syria and Jordan. If you can’t tell us what was on those damn trucks then shut up.
Where was I? Oh, nuclear weapons. What I’m about to say was true even before the advent of nukes but especially so after. A nation, especially a high profile wealthy one, can not get by with only a coastal navy and border deployed army. That’s like trying to be a karate expert in a gun battle. If you can’t project force, you can’t defend yourself. It’s true for nations and lone individuals alike.
So, some of you readers might ask that if it’s ok to kill in personal or national defense, is it okay to do the other things like rape or rob or slander in retaliation? Jeez, why did I listen to this question? Okay. If someone is trying to hit you, you hit him hard till he runs away or falls to the ground and stays there. Slander? Just tell the truth if someone does that. If someone robs you, get your stuff back anyway you can. Make sure it is your stuff and, yes, it’s okay to kill robbers. Keep in mind I’m only talking ethics here, not the law. Unfortunately, the two are not always in sync but I guess that’s why I’m writing all this stuff, isn’t it? You have to decide if your retaliations are worth the risks. Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you. It’s part of life, please keep on living it.
-And no, there is no way in God’s Great Universe that it is ever okay to commit rape. You can shoot a home invader. You can’t rape him. What the heck are some of you people thinking?
While we’re on the subject of killing, I believe it is ethically permissible, even vitally necessary, to kill slavers. Keep in mind that rape, robbery and assault are all aspects of slavery. When people use violence or the threat of it to do these things to others, they are enslaving their victims even if only for a short time. They nullify their own humanity by these actions and thus it is not murder to kill them. Again, this is ethics, if not law.
When the slavers are your own government, however, the responsibilities are greater. One must seek redress through the courts and media first. It takes time, money and extraordinary patience, but it’s what civilized beings do and it’s what they’ve done in America for over two centuries with admittedly less than perfect results. The problem now is that the imperfections are piling up and with socialists in government, courts, media and even Wall Street also piling up, we the people are faced with a serious situation.
So I have a question for you, dear reader. When all civilized means of redress have been tried to exhaustion and failed due to their decay and corruption, when is the best time to physically resist slavery? Is it before or after they get the chains on you? I already know the answer and that’s how the worm has turned.
Whew... Alright, enough about words. On to other stuff.
If your thinking at this point that I’m just another of those fuzzy-headed, old style libertarians who hate any government whatsoever and just wants to get high on pot, you’re mistaken. For one, I don’t even like pot. I tried it back in the eighties and was unimpressed. Give me a nice Honduran torpedo and a shot of Laphroaig about three times a year and I’m good to go.
Oh, and by the way, I do believe that government has a valid and vital place in human life and culture. America’s Founders put it rather nicely, ...to form a more perfect Union (and not be a rabble of quarrelling states), establish Justice (so people have recourse to the Law), ensure domestic Tranquility (so home-grown dictators don’t emerge to destroy the hard won liberty of the new republic), provide for the common defense (so foreign dictators can’t do the above either), promote (not provide, promote!) the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...
Pretty good, huh? It’s uncomplicated, clearly defined and secular. Uh oh, some Christian folks who might otherwise have been with me so far could take offense at that last word. It’s alright, people. Of course the Founders were Christian, for the most part anyway. They had the wisdom to create a government with limited powers, and limited scope. One of those deliberate limits was not being able to enforce or punish religious beliefs or doubts. The job of the government was to handle certain tasks in this world, not in the next. This is a big can of worms. I’ll deal with it more in A Few Words to People of Faith.
I can't seem to stop talking about words, can I? I’ve talked about death a lot so far. Let’s go to the other favored subject, taxes. Oh yeah, so the fuzzy libertarian says no taxes! None! Never! Sure, and how is the shining new republic supposed to last, idiot? Government even at its most civilized state still involves some people spending some time and moving some matter and that costs some money. This is not always widely perceived. During the Revolution, certain members of the Congress felt that Washington’s troops should have enough patriotic fervor to always carry on and not need to actually be paid or supplied or anything. I guess Congressional stupidity has always been with us.
So why am I going on about the evils of state slavery and all that if I believe in taxes? I’m glad I asked. Basically, there are ethical, legitimate or simply good ways to tax and unethical, downright evil ways to tax. Here. We have income tax, inheritance tax, and property tax to name just three. Do you know which categories they each belong in? Here’s a hint -they’re all in the same category.
That’s correct, they are bad. How so? It’s because of their actual, real world effect on the taxpayer. Income taxes penalize you for what you earn and progressive income tax, in which the percentage you pay goes up the more you earn, punishes you for succeeding in life. Inheritance tax punishes your kids for having mere mortals for parents and property tax forces you to pay rent to the state government- for stuff you’ve already paid for. Yes, it is rent. Just try to not pay it and see how long it takes for you to be evicted.
That’s not evil? Stop and think. These kinds of taxes give legislators tremendous, hard, throbbing power to control the behavior of citizens, power our Founders never intended them to have. What? That description was too vivid? Sorry, it’s just that I find the tax system we currently have is akin to sustained rape so the image is there to stay.
Anyway, the nation got along fine without income tax till the Civil War and when the war was over, the tax was abolished within two years. In 1894, William Jennings Bryan, later of Scopes monkey trial fame, helped bring it back but not for long. It was in 1913 that President Wilson signed into law our first progressive income tax. I've always been curious about the use of the word "progressive" in politics and law. Progress? Toward what? Progress isn't always good. Lemmings make fine progress toward the edge of a cliff. Should we?
No, we shouldn't. But if we are to have the necessary elements of government, don't we have to accept a little um, well, slavery to pay for it? No we don't. There is a form of taxation available which is not slavery because you always have a choice of whether or not to pay it. That got your attention, didn't it? It's a form of tax already used in many states. It's called sales tax. Oh, don't look so disappointed, the sales taxes we have would not seem nearly so bad if we didn't have so many other taxes crowding them. Imagine keeping all of your gross earnings every paycheck. How much more would you have to buy with or save? If you have employees of your own, imagine not having to pay forty percent or more over their wages for a host of government squeezes. You could give your deserving employees raises and lower the cost of your product and still make a larger profit. Hey, we can dream, right? Wrong. It doesn't have to be just a dream. Have you heard of the Irish Miracle? Look it up. A number of factors contributed to Ireland's rise from a national poor-house to economic power house, but the biggest reason was their slashing of individual and corporate taxes and seriously cutting government spending. Fact is, it wasn't a miracle at all but simple good sense and human nature. It's an example of what freedom can do.
To be sure, Ireland is having some economic problems now but they're mostly due to the euro rising against the dollar and the pound, the currencies used by Ireland's two biggest customers. That and their government is starting to munch money again.
Anyway, with a sales tax, you can choose whether or not to pay simply by choosing whether or not to buy. The tax becomes part of the purchase price and if you think it's worth it, you pay it- and do your fair share for the community. If you think the cost is too high, you walk away. No harm, no foul, no gun at your head. I know, you don't really need that new four-by-four but the dealer cut the price way down because his corporate income tax was eliminated and he wants to be competitive so with the sales tax, the cost is about the same as it was before. And your paycheck took a big jump up when your income tax was eliminated, didn't it?
Come on, you know you want that truck...
As it turns out, there is such a plan before Congress now. It's called the FairTax. Oh, the socialist control freaks all hate it because it takes control of part of your life out of their hands and puts it where it bloody belongs, back into your hands. The slavers are lying through their teeth to keep that control, too.
The Congressman, the talk show host and the panel of experts they hired to come up with the FairTax legislation are not paying me to say this. They don’t even know me. Gentle readers, of all the things I’ve asked you so far to read or do or to look up, do this one. Type FairTax on your favorite search engine and start reading. Read what the critics say also but get the facts from the source. The authors have a couple of books out explaining the FairTax in plain language. Yeah, the books cost money but not a lot. It’s worth it.
Oh, and another thing, the authors also reported being contacted by other countries’ governments for information on the FairTax. I think one of them was Ireland. Too bad they’re not paying me. I could throw up my hands and live on an island somewhere. I wouldn’t but hey, I can dream, right?
There’s more I’d like to say to everyone but for now, enough. The time has come to chat with some smaller, specific groups of people. Of course, if anyone wants to stay and listen in, that’s okay. Just be polite and don’t interrupt. Some of these folks are going to be mad enough as it is.
John J. LaValley, November, 2008
A Few Words to Children
Who am I kidding? No self respecting youngsters are going to put down their video games just to read this. Well alright, some will. If you've got even reasonably strict parents, a lot of what I've said about freedom and so on could leave you feeling a bit left out, I know. The feeling is natural, but first let me make sure just who I'm talking to.
I remember childhood as having two phases. The first is when you are a new baby till age ten, during which you are thought of as a little kid. Second is eleven through eighteen when you are a big kid. I'm talking here to kids who are mentally big enough at whatever age to start finding the stuff we're talking about here important.
Being a teenager is a bear. You can't act like a little kid and you're not allowed to act like an adult, not in the fun ways anyway, and if you act like a teenager no one wants you around. It sucks. There is a reason for it, though. I don't expect you to understand all this right now but at least give it some thought. I am certain that when you watch your own children grow these matters will hit you as hard as they are hitting me.
First of all, if it seems that all the things I'm saying so far about human rights and liberty are denied to you, it's because they should be. Are you still here? Good, and thanks for being a good sport, I don't mean to be insulting. Point is, you wouldn't allow a four year old the freedom to cross the street by himself, would you? Or have even a big kid or adult the freedom to fly an airplane with no training? That would be hideously cruel. Well, there it is. Being a human adult is hazardous in so many ways that it takes about two decades of training just to be ready to start.
All these ideas I've been talking about are central to human civilization, but if I had to describe the most basic concepts that make for an ethical, stable and long lasting culture, it'd be these two. First, no matter what form or structure a civilization has, it can’t last if it doesn’t protect children. Second, it also can't last if it treats adults as if they are children. That means that children and adults must be treated differently by society. Little children should be protected like the innocent lambs they are. Big kids should be treated like the naive but rebellious adults-in-training that they are.
And here’s where the gloves come off. Adults should be treated like free and responsible individuals, not like children, not like slaves and not like domesticated animals. Any civilization that fails at these vital matters will die in its own filth.
That’s the problem now. Our society, led by media and pop culture, is treating kids like adults, especially in the area of sex. The power freaks desire sexual access to kids and they are getting it. Look at TV shows and music that is aimed at young adults- and teens. Look at the way the establishment media brush off scandalous behavior in the Legislature involving underage interns and pages (unless the offending representative is a Republican). Look at the sympathetic response from the adult-run media when some high school students object to censorship of their school paper. Sorry kids, freedom of the press is for adults only. You’ll be there soon, trust me.
Adults on the other hand are losing freedoms through activist courts and runaway legislature. Our government is treating us ever more like children and more of us adults are acting like children every day. You see, children are entitled to be fed, clothed, housed and educated by someone else, their parents. Adults are obligated to feed, clothe, house and educate themselves. But so many legal adults are putting those responsibilities and more on someone else, the government. And since the power of government tends to attract power hungry people, the government is only too happy to exercise parental authority over all of us adults.
Do any of you kids remember the movie Pinocchio? I know, hey it was already old when I was a kid but I still like it. Anyway, in the movie, lots of kids are rounded up by a smiling, friendly coachman who promises to take them to a place where it’s lots of fun and there’s no responsibilities or limits to what they can have or take for free. Well, the undisciplined kids thrash the place and begin to look like jackasses while the coachman starts rounding them up again. He grins maniacally and cracks his whip shouting, “Alright, you’ve had your fun. Now pay for it!”
That’s far too good a metaphor for what’s happening today. Adults acting and thinking like unsupervised jackasses are thrashing the structure of our civilization. When they’re done the coachman of socialist government will give them all the supervision they can stand and more.
You kids growing up need to take a good look at what’s happening as you cross that legal line into adulthood. See your cultural and Constitutional inheritance being destroyed by people who are supposed to be adults. This is what happens when people don’t grow up in character but still acquire the abilities of adults, like the ability to vote. It is why, in a healthy civilization, children do not have the full pallet of human liberties. You’ve simply got to grow up first.
Here’s a few quick things to know. First, life is war. It’s depressing but true. Even among friends there is constant competition and sabotage. A true friend is an ally indeed but true friends are more rare than diamonds.
Speaking of war, school is also war but not merely social battles among the kids. The school system itself wages war on you. Oh, you know that already, huh? Betcha don’t. Have you noticed that the classes your parents tell you are the most important, like math, science and history, are the hardest and most boring? That’s no accident, kid. It’s by design. The idea is to turn you off to those subjects so you don’t have the tools of intellect and knowledge to compete in the real world. Modern public education is set up to let most kids make jackasses of themselves like that old Disney movie. Let you kids have your fun now, so you can pay for it the rest of your life.
One last thing, don’t you just hate being lied to? Yeah, well get used to it. People out in the world are lining up to tell you lies and they’re not even waiting for you to turn eighteen. They’ll lie to get your money, or to get sex from you. They’ll tell you the sweetest lies to get control of your very feelings. I’m not just talking about the people you know or meet personally. I mean people on radio and TV as well. Of course, some will lie through Hollywood perfect teeth just to get your vote when you’re finally old enough. One of the most dangerous aspects of being young is that often the nicest things you are told are the biggest lies. On the other hand, someone who tells you something that really pisses you off or even hurts just might be that true friend you need.
The best way to deal with it is this. Since people are going to lie to you in one way or another, don’t help them. Do not lie to yourself. So many people lie to themselves that they can hardly tell when someone else lies to them. These people will believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves no matter whether it’s true. Learn the math, the science and the logic. These are your armor, sword and shield against the evils that are out there. Don’t think you need them? Are you telling yourself the truth? Don’t let those ears get too long.
In the Instrument and the preliminary statements to it I will discuss the rights of both children and adults and several other groups of people. Please stick around for that and thanks for listening to a cranky old man.
John J. LaValley, December, 2008
A Few Words to People Who Are Not White
Most of what I’m going to say here is directed to black people, but other folks are mad at us whites too, so please feel free to listen in. I promised myself when I began this project that I was going to be honest before being nice, no matter who it pissed off.
So here goes. I believe the luckiest day of Jesse Jackson’s life was April 4th, 1968. Yes, that day. The day the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. I believe Jackson’s tears were real, sure. Witnessing the sudden loss of someone who must have been a close mentor could only hurt, at first. But Dr. King’s death opened a power vacuum which Jackson was only too eager to fill. After clashing with Dr. King’s actual successor, Ralph Abernathy, Jackson formed another civil rights organization with himself as the leader.
In itself that’s no problem, nothing wrong except that Jackson did a moral about face from Dr. King’s most important philosophy. You see, well, look. Dr. King was not a good economist but he was certainly one of the best humanitarians this country ever produced. His belief that people should not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character is as important a statement as the Golden Rule. Indeed it is the Golden Rule in racial context but Jackson has taken hold of the modern civil rights movement and turned it on its ear. He demands that black people be judged by the color of their skin, only this time judged positively, which is just as bad as the negative. This pre-judging was part of his shaking down of corporations for money. Blacks, according to Jackson, deserve preferential consideration in hiring and if your company doesn’t agree, you’re gonna pay. It’s called extortion.
While I’m at it, Al Sharpton is of the same vein. He claims that his involvement in the Tawana Brawley and Duke University rape cases was simply to bring attention to the relevant issues surrounding them. No sale. It’s one thing to bring needed attention to an issue and quite another to energetically take the wrong side of it.
Since I’m going after black leaders here I might as well mention the third most well known, Louis Farrakhan, for whom I have only two words. Bughouse nuts.
All three of these guys have come out for personal responsibility and atonement but I suspect that comes more from checking the prevailing winds than any wisdom of their own. My deliberate non-use of the titles Reverend and Minister with these men’s names is out of respect for those persons of good character who have earned the titles and lived up to the relevant moral expectations those titles bring. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of them.
I have a question for you, though. If you are a black person reading this, do you have a portrait of Dr. King on your den or living room wall? If so, do you try to live his dream? Do you judge others by their individual character, including whites, even though some may make that difficult? If so, may I respectfully suggest a prayer on April 4th and a flower set near the portrait. On that day, remind your children of the heart and mind, the gentle courage behind the face on the wall.
If however, you teach your kids to hate whitey, that white oppression will keep them down no matter what they do and they must use the power of government to take what is rightfully theirs from the whites who stole it all from them, then I suggest you remove the portrait and simply give it away. The Reverend Dr. King’s image is no banner to march under if only to follow Jesse Jackson’s lead and turn your back on the Dream.
It’s perfectly natural and right to believe that the races of humanity are equal and should be equal under the law. One must remember, though, that equality is a two-edged sword. If a black person can be just as intelligent or as wise, just as hard working, inventive, courageous, loving, devout and virtuous in every way as any white person, which I do believe, then it also stands that a black person can be just as stupid or foolish, just as lazy, unmotivated, cowardly, hateful or downright evil in every way- as any white person. This truth vindicates Dr. King’s words for me. The only way to know what qualities someone has is to get to know them as an individual.
If you must, if you just gotta judge people by race, then fine. Judge them by whether or not they are a member of the human race. If you’re dealing with someone who isn’t human by birth, chances are he just wants a snausage or a scratch behind the ears. Try to be nice to him anyway.
Of course, if you’re dealing with someone who was born human but has dehumanized himself by his actions, then you’d better be ready to judge him damn quick. If you don’t have a gun, run.
Color, or the lack of it, is neither sin nor virtue, which is why racism of any kind is wrong. That includes racism in law. Set asides, privileges, affirmative action, mandated quotas- they’re all out, ethically speaking. I can almost hear some of you yelling at me. “What about the years of slavery in America? We want racial justice!” Racial justice? That’s an awfully convenient demand from individual people who are not and have not been slaves at all in their lives. The people who were entitled to justice and indeed recompensation are all dead. The people who by God owed it to them are all dead, get it? Slavery, in its traditional form at least, was ended in America by nearly four hundred thousand soldiers, mostly white, who ended it with their lives. What is owed to them? By whom?
It’s all like I said, convenient, for the descendents of the slaves to demand payback from the descendents of the masters, especially when not everyone is actually descended from one or the other group. It was after the Civil War that most of the great immigration waves happened in America. Most white people in America today are not descendents of slave owners. It’s true that most blacks in America are descendents of slaves as U.S. immigration policy favored Europeans for decades after the war. But those policies have long been changed. Many Africans looking for escape from poverty, slavery and outright genocide in Africa have come here looking for better opportunities and not only found them but made them as well. From what I gather, most of these immigrants are not interested in American black politics. One couple I knew from Somalia called our race based agitation “…the whining of slaves.” (Take that, Jesse.) Instead, they come here to hit the ground running. They want to earn a good living for themselves and their families. They seek higher education and engage in entrepreneurship more than any other immigrant group, including Asians. Indeed, they prove by their actions Dr. King’s words about character.
I’m not going to pretend that Jim Crow, forced segregation, back-of-the-bus and other unjust crap didn’t happen. It did and in some hidden ways I’m sure it still does. But I can remember hearing a black man’s voice saying that one can run from the past or- learn from it. Speaking for myself, this is what I have learned. All races of humanity have at one time or another been enslaved by someone. White people from Caledonia (Scotland), and Britannia (Britain), Gaul (France, mostly), and Germania (Germany, more or less) were all enslaved by the Romans. I don’t blame the modern Italians for this. They are too busy these days making good food and wine and fast cars while their government makes a bollux of everything else. Ancient history is different, you say? Tell me, is a Georgia plantation owner of the mid-nineteenth century more guilty than a first century Roman Senator simply because his atrocities are more recent? Is the Georgian’s newborn great-great-great-great grandchild less innocent than a new Italian baby? No.
I have also learned a few things about slavery in general. For instance, I’ve learned that racial solidarity is bullshit. When the triangle trade was going on, how do you think the slaves got into the ships along those West African wharves? Did the crews head out into the African bush and gather up the natives with a big net? No, they didn’t have to. The slaves were already there waiting. They had been gathered there- by other Africans. Whether it was some African chief or tribal leader kidnapping a neighboring tribe’s people or defeating them in battle or even his own kin who might have been contenders for his throne, he’d sell them to another African or Arab trader or a European or American ship owner and off they’d go, roped or chained together to await the horrible cramped journey across the sea.
In modern times it is no different. According to law-enforcement statistics, the majority of violent crimes committed against black people are done by other black people. When Bill Cosby, himself no great fan of white people, spoke out to black youth telling them to be accountable and responsible for their actions and obligations, it seemed as if the whole black community came down on him. Of course there were black voices who agreed with him like Walter E. Williams and others but, like my own voice in that theater so long ago, they were drowned out. What do some of you folks think? That if you don’t acknowledge a problem in front of whites, then whites won’t know there’s a problem? Look, I guess we’re not the hippest people on the planet but we’re not that stupid. Of course there’s a big problem and race baiters like Jackson and Sharpton only make it worse by giving bad and irresponsible young blacks the illusion of an excuse.
Genuine solidarity would have sounded very different. Cosby would have had much more vocal support than he got. At this point, I need to mention something. While doing research for this section of For What It’s Worth, I found quite a few black people and others who agreed with Cosby but I had to search for them. It was largely the establishment media which trumpeted Cosby’s critics and ignored his supporters. It’s things like this that should give blacks and other minorities pause to consider just who their friends and enemies really are.
Still, the Cosby situation illustrates just how screwed up the notion of racial solidarity is. Cosby left the plantation. He spoke out and said something off the Official Script. He was like the little boy in the story who, while watching the parade with his parents said, “Look everyone. The Emperor is naked!” Did everybody praise him for his honesty and courage like they did for the boy in the story? Uh, no actually. Cosby endured a media lynching and many of the hands on the rope were black. Denying the truth and insisting that everyone in the group do the same in order to support entrenched leaders is not solidarity. It’s a very insidious aspect of slavery.
Slavery has a number of dirty little secrets. The forced group-think described above is just one of them. Another is the fact that many people of all races are perfectly willing to be a slave to someone, if they can have others be slave to themselves. In America’s slave period, owners who had many slaves would grant certain privileges to one or more to keep control over the rest. Some of the privileges included better lodging, better food and the choice of women slaves for sex. Naturally, the women had no choice… The worst obstacle faced by many who wanted to escape was not the infamous overseers. It wasn’t even the dogs or the near certainty of torture if captured. It was the complicity of the other slaves. Quite often it was a slave seeking reward who turned in another slave who had confided his plan to escape. That’s not just old history. It goes right on through the history of the Marxism our electorate has just warmly embraced.
Another dirty little secret is simply a word. That’s right, one word. The word is nigger. No, I’m not saying “the n-word”. That idiotic phrase is what guilt-ridden white people use to try and hold a turd without getting it on their hands. Oh sure, it’s easy for a cracker like me to safely sit behind my locked door with my gun and type nasty words and giggle privately while I do it, right?
Not so. But before I go on about this little piece of verbal venom, I have a confession to make. In my misspent youth, I never harbored any dislike or disregard for black people but I did hold the notion that one could use the word to safely describe a black person who was in fact doing something wrong. Kind of like Chris Rock talking about using the ATM at night and looking over his shoulder for “niggas”.
Again, not so. I later realized that no matter how badly a black person might behave at a given moment (no, I did not put klan robes on to write this. Occasionally, a black person will do something bad and I think a white person can acknowledge that without burning a cross), to call him or her a nigger is to use a six-lettered shotgun blast when a verbal rifle should be used. Call him an asshole or a jerk or shithead, if that’s what he’s being. Those words are for individuals who fit them, but nigger is an indictment of an entire group of people who are not all assholes, jerks, etcetera.
But that’s not the dirty little secret of this dirty little word, is it? Anybody getting nervous? Are you starting to squirm? Good. Because what I’m about to say is an indictment. The word nigger in the mouth of the most hateful klansman with a cheap bullhorn is not nearly so evil as when it’s used by blacks to other blacks or even to themselves. “S’up, nigga?” Sounds like a greeting between two friends and that might be how they mean it. But there’s more to it than that. It’s a signal sent to make sure a fellow slave is not trying to escape. I’m making a stretch? I don’t think so. Be honest. When you see some other black person hitting the books, doing their best on the job or taking the ebonics out of their speech once in a while, what goes through your mind? Oreo? Tom? House nigger? If you don’t have thoughts like those for blacks who try to legitimately excel, then my next remark here isn’t for you because you already know what I’m talking about.
But if you do think that way or worse about blacks who work hard or study to make life better for themselves and their families, then listen up. It isn’t they who are drinking the Kool-Aid. It’s you, asshole. You, who complain about not getting your share of the goodies regardless of whether you actually earned any of them, are guzzling the red juice like crazy. But you’ve been ripped off and denied opportunities? So have we all, so get over it. Do you actually think there’s some kind of Good Old White Boy’s Network where all you have to do is be white and your table is waiting for you? I’ve never found the place. I was born poor and my pale skin and blue eyes did nothing but deny me access to some college aid programs. It was my own combination of abilities and effort that got me out of poverty.
There’s plenty of black people born even worse off than I who have done far better and without bullshit crutches like affirmative action. Their existence and success proves that blacks can achieve the humanly possible as much as anyone else. The fact is, genuine success is damn hard. If it wasn’t, everybody would be doing it. But if all you can do is call these people sellouts then you had better open your eyes.
When the Civil War ended, the formerly rich, white, Southern aristocracy and their many sympathizers in the North did not simply accept the defeat and suddenly believe that blacks were equal human beings after all. Resentment, fear and hate simmered long. After a while the smarter ones realized that the Ku Klux Klan was not the way to go. The Klan’s hatred was too naked, too honest. It made good hearted white people sympathetic to the suffering of blacks. No, these racist elites had to find a way to subjugate the black man and woman without revealing what they were doing. The way to do it was right before their eyes.
As the Indian Wars progressed and one native group after another was forced onto reservations, once proud and independent people became domesticated. Women became sullen and bitter, understandably so, while many of the men became slothful and drunk. By giving the Indians just enough to survive the elite whites kept them under control. By giving blacks just enough to survive, modern liberal elites have blacks not only under their control but are actually ruining them as a group. Just look up the disproportionate crime, welfare, drop-out and other stats to see the effects.
What hurts to watch is to see Jackson and Sharpton and others securing their own position at the elite table by stirring the pot with the establishment media’s help and keeping the anger and hate alive. I think it would be no different to see one of the African traders of old stuffing his fellow Africans into those fetid ships for his own reward. The one significant difference is the chains. Instead of being locked around chaffed and bleeding ankles, the chains are in the slaves’ heads, where they are apparently much more comfortable. When you accept being called nigga, you accept the chains and indulge in the excuses.
Speaking for myself, if I was black and a friend called me nigga, I’d let him know why that’s no way to address me. If he insisted, I guess I’d be minus one friend. But then I define the word friend differently than some. Nigger is an ugly word no matter who uses it toward whom and the only way to eliminate the power that word has is to eliminate the idea behind it. If whites, and people of other races for that matter, see blacks as having no self respect or respect for each other, how can they be expected to show blacks the respect they’d otherwise deserve?
I’ve heard Whoopi Goldberg on The View criticize the Constitution because it originally permitted the owning of slaves. I won’t deny that slavery was the single greatest hypocrisy of the American Revolution. Most of the Founders knew that as well and knew that the issue could tear the new republic apart. Goldberg seems to deliberately ignore the fact that the Founders tried, through the early drafts of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, to outlaw slavery but could not get it past the unanimous votes required for ratifying those documents. She only points out the admittedly painful truth that many of the Founders were slave owners themselves. But what about the fact that the Constitution was made with a built-in mechanism for needed additions? Goldberg ignores that along with the blood of those thousands who died bringing slavery to an end. Oh well, she’s probably got her own agenda in which freedom, equality and their attendant responsibilities are not enough. Pity, I kinda liked her, otherwise.
One last thing. You may have noticed in all that I’m saying here that I use the word “black” instead of “African-American”. Don’t feel insulted. It’s just that when I was a kid I remember blacks saying “Don’t call me negro. Call me black.” Fine, that’s what I’ve done. I know that many blacks today don’t want to be called black. The walking-on-eggshells correct thing to say is now African-American. I don’t care. I don’t play the make Whitey dance game. I also don’t like the hyphenated Attitude-American descriptions like Hispanic-American, Asian-American and the curiously unused European-American. This country has its own cultural identity, independent of race. We are Americans. Period. No hyphen. Anyone who doesn’t agree with that can just go to Hell, no matter what color they are. That’s my attitude.
Thank you for your kind attention.
John LaValley, December, 2008
P.S. It is now January 2009, and I realize that I’ve left something out of this chapter. Racial solidarity may not be bullshit in every way. It seems that people will tolerate all manner of abuses if the persons committing them are of the same race as themselves. In Hawaii, many descendants of the natives strongly resent the way they were treated by the invading whites, first the English, then the Americans. To be sure, imported diseases were certainly the biggest problem but at the time the nature of viruses and immunity were unknown.
But there were certainly serious abuses, mostly from well meaning but foolish American missionaries and their not so well meaning kids. Surfing, hula and other benign aspects of Hawaiian culture were banned outright for many years while the native Hawaiians, utterly unfamiliar with American concepts of real estate and related law, lost the islands to the missionaries’ descendants who somehow failed to inherit their parents’ piety. But the pre-contact way of life in Hawaii included some utterly inhuman treatment. Under the Kapu system of religious law, if a common person, or Maka’ainana, even accidentally touched an elite ali’i’s shadow, he or she could be immediately put to death. Women could not eat certain foods or even eat with their husbands. Even worse off were the Kaua, whose sole purpose in Hawaiian society was to serve as human sacrifices for religious ceremonies.
As many lament the loss of the ancient Hawaiian way, these aspects of it are conveniently overlooked. The Hawaiian ruler Kamehameha I is fondly remembered as Kamehameha the Great because he united the islands just as Europeans were making first contact. Overlooked is the fact that Kamehameha united the islands by violent conquest. He drove the defenders of Oahu and their families off a cliff, for example. I should point out here that Kamehameha I’s descendants did away with the abuses of the Kapu system only to have other abuses visit themselves upon the Hawaiian people.
In much more recent times a native Hawaiian woman named Lokelani Lindsey acquired a trusteeship of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, a charitable trust charged with financing and administering the Kamehameha School. Lindsey and her cronies treated the Trust as a bottomless personal piggybank and she used her authority as a trustee to interfere with the previously successful administration of the school. Many in Hawaii, including whites, were critical of Lindsey’s actions and organized to bring her under investigation but many others, including some native Hawaiians, rallied to her defense against “haole” attempts to interfere with the Trust.
See what I mean? You can take my stuff, rape me over a barrel and kill me. Just don’t look too different from me when you do it. Come to think of it, I was right. That is bullshit.
A Few Words to People Who Are White
Anyone read the previous chapter? Good, because that stuff applies to us too. I’m sure we all have our horror stories about how we were denied scholarships or jobs and promotions because we were just too light a shade of pale. Hell, I was even kicked out of a soul food restaurant back in the nineties in L.A.
But it doesn’t matter. If the blacks have no excuses, then neither do we. Ethics is one of the few things in which one size does fit all. And I don’t need any of you Ku Klux or Aryan Nation types telling me I sound like one of you. I’ve read your material and made my choice. Besides, National Socialism or rather Nazism, is not an individualist philosophy. What’s the point of racial pride if you only live to serve state masters anyway? Kinda silly isn’t it? The only race I favor is the human one.
Those of you who are Jewish or Christian will understand this already. The Old Testament tells of God’s willingness to spare the city of Sodom if Abraham could find even a few righteous people in it. The lesson this holds for me is that if God can check his wrath, I can check my hatred.
In fact, I’ll go even further. Abraham only found one decent person in that city so God torched the place, according to the Book. When I was in junior high school, there weren’t many black kids but there were a hole lot of Hispanics. I was a bit of a loner back then so I was an easy mark for bullying, especially from the Hispanics. I didn’t even know the names of some of those who targeted me. Predictably, the school officials did nothing to stop it and only became annoyed the one time I complained. At length, I began to hate Hispanics. The school seemed to cater to them and ignore the excesses of the worst of the Hispanic boys.
One day, a very simple thing happened. An Hispanic girl walking down the hall said “Good morning,” to me. It was no come-on of course, just a plain greeting as she walked past. Just as there was nothing suggestive about it, there was nothing hateful either. As I thought about it later, I realized that this girl who didn’t know me and had never before encountered me showed no hatred. I resolved then to not hate Hispanics as a group, just the individuals who enjoyed tormenting me. I began to return their torments on a one-to-one basis but I’ll never forget the girl who showed ordinary kindness to someone from a different group. She spared my city so easily that I learned to spare hers.
This leads us to a problem in these modern times, however. I have begun to suspect that a bloody revolution of sorts is going to happen in this country. In some ways I think it actually should but in the chaos much evil can and will happen. It’s no stretch that much of the violence will be race based and here’s the problem. What is a person of good character to do when encountering someone of another race whom they don’t know when all hell is breaking loose? Survival instinct says to shoot first. Ethics say do no harm to the innocent. The line may be razor thin and judgment needed fast.
It’s at a time like that that content of character will matter greatly but color of skin, light or dark, could get you killed. I don’t really have an answer for this one. It’s just something to think about before the time comes. Oh, and that soul food restaurant? Funny thing is that as I was sternly told to leave, another soul food place just down the street had no problem with me. They were clearly surprised to see me but they took my order with a smile and the food was very good.
That’s all for now. Thanks.
John J. LaValley, January, 2009
But it doesn’t matter. If the blacks have no excuses, then neither do we. Ethics is one of the few things in which one size does fit all. And I don’t need any of you Ku Klux or Aryan Nation types telling me I sound like one of you. I’ve read your material and made my choice. Besides, National Socialism or rather Nazism, is not an individualist philosophy. What’s the point of racial pride if you only live to serve state masters anyway? Kinda silly isn’t it? The only race I favor is the human one.
Those of you who are Jewish or Christian will understand this already. The Old Testament tells of God’s willingness to spare the city of Sodom if Abraham could find even a few righteous people in it. The lesson this holds for me is that if God can check his wrath, I can check my hatred.
In fact, I’ll go even further. Abraham only found one decent person in that city so God torched the place, according to the Book. When I was in junior high school, there weren’t many black kids but there were a hole lot of Hispanics. I was a bit of a loner back then so I was an easy mark for bullying, especially from the Hispanics. I didn’t even know the names of some of those who targeted me. Predictably, the school officials did nothing to stop it and only became annoyed the one time I complained. At length, I began to hate Hispanics. The school seemed to cater to them and ignore the excesses of the worst of the Hispanic boys.
One day, a very simple thing happened. An Hispanic girl walking down the hall said “Good morning,” to me. It was no come-on of course, just a plain greeting as she walked past. Just as there was nothing suggestive about it, there was nothing hateful either. As I thought about it later, I realized that this girl who didn’t know me and had never before encountered me showed no hatred. I resolved then to not hate Hispanics as a group, just the individuals who enjoyed tormenting me. I began to return their torments on a one-to-one basis but I’ll never forget the girl who showed ordinary kindness to someone from a different group. She spared my city so easily that I learned to spare hers.
This leads us to a problem in these modern times, however. I have begun to suspect that a bloody revolution of sorts is going to happen in this country. In some ways I think it actually should but in the chaos much evil can and will happen. It’s no stretch that much of the violence will be race based and here’s the problem. What is a person of good character to do when encountering someone of another race whom they don’t know when all hell is breaking loose? Survival instinct says to shoot first. Ethics say do no harm to the innocent. The line may be razor thin and judgment needed fast.
It’s at a time like that that content of character will matter greatly but color of skin, light or dark, could get you killed. I don’t really have an answer for this one. It’s just something to think about before the time comes. Oh, and that soul food restaurant? Funny thing is that as I was sternly told to leave, another soul food place just down the street had no problem with me. They were clearly surprised to see me but they took my order with a smile and the food was very good.
That’s all for now. Thanks.
John J. LaValley, January, 2009
A Few Words to Members of The U.S. Armed Forces
I’m a veteran. Back in the early eighties I was what the Navy used to call a Torpedoman on a nuclear submarine. I had planned to make a career of it but as time went by and I began to grow up and look past the end of my own nose at the world around me, I didn’t really like what I saw. It was the beginning of the Reagan years and I liked many of the things the man said and did but I could sense that our culture was becoming very collectivist.
I thought about the Oath of Service we take, to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the lawful orders of our superiors. It occurred to me that someday I’d have to choose which part of that oath was more important as to obey one might be to violate the other. I knew which side I would take and determined that the best way for someone like me to defend the Constitution would be on the inside, simply living by it. I also had this idea of getting into the film industry but that’s a story for another time.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve given thought to those who stay in the military for life. Not just my service branch but all services. Let me say up front that I have no respect for interservice rivalry that goes beyond a few funny jokes or friendly bar room bravado. When the shit starts everyone has to face forward. If you can’t do that, don’t join. I know that some services have it harder or more dangerous than others but that can change in a heartbeat when the unexpected happens. Disregard for other service branches can infect minds as high as flag rank and it has lost more than one war for more than one country.
For my own part as a submarine sailor, I have very high regard for the other services. I think the U.S. Marines’ standards and philosophy of marksmanship should apply to all our service branches. But I also think that no service works harder on a daily basis than the U.S. Coast Guard and on a pocket-change budget to boot.
Anyway, I can’t help but think how frustrating it must be these days for mature, intelligent, active duty personnel to see what is happening in the country today. It’s one thing to see editorials in the establishment media that question our involvement or motives in a military action and quite another to see media organs deliberately support our enemies’ causes and ignore the good accomplishments of our troops.
Watching our pop culture, media and government ignore and abuse the Constitution must enrage those souls who have sworn their lives to defend it. But what goes through your mind, soldier, sailor, airman or marine, when you see more and more of our general population voting for those very abusers of the Constitution? I hope your resolve is not shaken. There are still many of us who love liberty and cherish its defenders. If the unrest brewing here at home breaks out into open violence, your vigilance to your post and duties will be more important than ever. You and your chain of command must trust the loyal and worthy people of America who still respect the Constitution to set things right here at home while you keep your eyes on the outward horizon. Never forget that there are rulers and governments out there who would love to take advantage of a U.S. in turmoil.
In the meantime, I want to acknowledge the fact that by joining the military and defending our Constitutional rights, you must sacrifice many of those rights yourself. You can’t exercise free speech, for instance, in the way we civilians can. You can’t travel or come and go as you please. You might even be disciplined for getting a sunburn. Of course this is all necessary. Even the most enlightened military, like ours, must have structure and extraordinary discipline to keep its mandate. Anyone considering military service must keep in mind the rights one loses to gain the honor of service before signing their name and raising their right hand.
But there is more. Since we have such a courageous and willing group of people to defend us, we the defended have some serious obligations to keep. First, we must support and defend them in our culture and media. We must hold our political leaders to task and not let them impugn or sabotage the troops or their mission the way that Senator Reid and others have recently done. That we the people have collectively rewarded such treasonous behavior by keeping them in office is contemptible beyond my ability to describe.
Second, and even more important, is that we have to preserve our Constitution from decay within our nation as our service men and women protect it from without and we are failing to do this. The human gains bought with human blood since the Revolution are being pissed away through ignorance, avarice and apathy. And it is we the people who are doing it. The caliber of person who voluntarily joins the service today can’t be kept as high as it is if we civilians don’t keep up our end of this very spiritual pact.
-And don’t even think of making involuntary service mandatory. A lot of people who consider themselves conservatives still favor a draft for the military. A draft in countries run by dictators or socialist regimes is understandable, if still immoral. But in a country founded on individual liberty, how do you justify a draft? It is impossible to fight for freedom with an army of slaves and yes, a draftee is a slave. No parsing of words here. Things are only what they are.
The problem with modern liberalism is that the government trusts the people less and less to, let’s see, own guns, keep our money, raise our children, run our businesses, and decide a whole bunch of other things in our own lives. We conservative individualists bitch and complain about it and rightly so. So why do some of us abandon our principles to accept or even demand a military draft? Those who want to make abortion illegal should really oppose the draft. If a freshly fertilized ovum is already in moral possession of its own life, isn’t a young adult, as well? We object to Imminent Domain of private property. Should we not oppose Imminent Domain of our very lives?
Robert Heinlein wrote that no nation has survived, in the long run, through the use of conscript troops. If my government can’t trust me with the choice to serve in time of need, then I can’t trust the government enough to fight in its wars. Of course the attacking government may still be worse, but in that case, every man who is a man- not to mention some stout-hearted women- will volunteer without having to be asked. If we individualists are to be morally consistent in our assertions, we must reject the draft.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that without the draft, our military will weaken. On the contrary, if you start with an all volunteer service, give them proper training and equipment and good pay, then make sure they have motivated and informed leadership, you’ll have the best possible military and no one will want to mess with you.
Oh, and uh, speaking of leadership. Congress needs to have the courage to use the word WAR in its actions authorizing the President to use force when we are attacked. It need not be a recognized nation we are fighting. In the early nineteenth century the U.S. declared WAR on the Barbary pirates twice. We can declare WAR on Islamic terrorists now. The President is supposed to ask Congress for a declaration of WAR. Congress votes, then the Senate, on the declaration of WAR. If the vote is yes, then the President and the Joint Chiefs prosecute the WAR to victory with unconditional surrender as rapidly as possible, while the Congress and the Senate sit down to a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up. Do you hear that Reid? Pelosi? Durban? Schumer? Murtha? You all should have been hanged for the crap you said while our guys were hip deep in it in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The threat of Islamic terrorism is real. I’m not the first to say this but it’s true so I don’t mind repeating it here. These people have proven that they hate religious freedom and Western civilization more than they love their children. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so eager to use their own kids as walking bombs. This psychotic menace can’t be fought delicately with only a scalpel and white gloves. You do it with a chainsaw and a hockey mask. We need to use the full range from the subtle to the extreme. Exit strategies, timetables and other feel good entertainment can wait till the enemy has both formally surrendered and quit fighting.
Further, we need to give up this stupid notion of not engaging in nation building. That brilliant humanitarian idea worked fine in Afghanistan when we abandoned the place to the wolves after helping them drive the Russians out, didn’t it? No. Instead we need to install a government like ours used to be with the Constitution and Bill of Rights translated into the local language. Then, yeah, we have to stick around a bit while at least one generation grows up with all the human liberties we know and love. When we finally do leave and turn over the watch to them, they’ll be less likely to want to go back to living in dirt and dying for some rat-faced mullah.
I guess I’ve gotten off topic here but I got sick of hearing all the libs say they support the troops but not the war. Bullshit. If you don’t support the mission, you don’t support the men. It’s not complicated. You just need the stones to deal with it honestly.
Anyway yes, I’m concerned that if the excrement hits the rotor here in America, the socialists in charge will try to use the military to force it down. All I can ask is that you think of the Oath of Service and choose which part matters the most. Thank you.
John J. LaValley, January, 2009
A Few Words to The Members of American Law Enforcement
I think most of the things I said to the military folks will apply to peace officers as well but perhaps in some different ways. There’s no doubt that dealing with the scum of the earth is hard work that never ends. When I first moved to Las Vegas, I was temped to try to join the Metro PD so I could hand out citations to the many drivers who thought no traffic law applied to them. Funny thing is, Vegas is the only city I’ve lived in where people seem to observe the school zone limits. Go figure.
At any rate, the reason I thought I should say something to you guys is that as our government gets more and more socialist, we will get more and more bad laws. We already have a bunch of unconstitutional stuff and it will only get worse. This can only hurt the character of law enforcement. As many good people left the military because of the abuses of the Clinton administration (as I’m sure will happen again, now the Clinton people are pretty much back in charge), so I imagine good people will begin to leave law enforcement as more and more unconscionable laws come down upon us. Not just at the federal level either, but state and local as well.
Conservative individualism is no longer popular. It must not be as fun as the prospect of receiving stolen goods with the stamp of law. Not that most liberal voters will actually be getting much by way of stolen booty but that’s irrelevant. The booty will be stolen anyway and this creates at least two serious problems for law enforcement. One is that good, law-abiding citizens will increasingly lose respect for the law as laws become more disrespectable to them. Second, as good people leave law enforcement what kind of person will be brought in to replace them? If history is any indication, as a country’s laws go from good to bad to worse, so goes the character of the enforcement personnel. In Nazi Germany and Communist Russia and China, many of the kinds of person who would normally be behind bars ended up behind the badge.
That such could happen here in America breaks my heart as I imagine it would yours. The question this brings is what will you do? What lines will you not cross? I know this isn’t easy to consider. You have kids to feed. So do I. One left, anyway. The others are grown. But it’s because of those kids, both mine and yours, that I’m engaged in these writings and the actions that will follow them.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen of law enforcement, it does break my heart and increase my anger that the full brunt and force of my resistance will most likely be felt by yourselves and not the political thugs who should receive it. But resist I must. I humbly ask that you consider resisting with me. Do it not for the sake of lawlessness but for the virtue of law in a free country.
Thank you for reading.
John J. LaValley, January, 2009
A Few Words to Members of The Judiciary
As I just explained to law enforcement readers, respect for the law and the respectability of the law have to be on an even par or things break down. The 1992 Rodney King riots were a clear example of good laws not being respected. One does not have to search far to find examples of the reverse, when it’s the law that is the problem. Prohibition was a well-intended but otherwise stupid idea made into law by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In its thirteen years of enforcement it failed utterly to reduce the problem of alcoholism in the country but it did enable the rise of organized crime to a new level.
I realize that so far, these words seem better directed toward legislators rather than members of the bench. Please bear with me because there is another cause of disrespect for the law and it’s you folks. It is not that you don’t do your best to adjudicate a given case within the constraints of the law. You do and, for the most part, justice is indeed served. But so many judges do not simply read the law, they interpret it. Usually, these interpretations are not far from the literal meaning and again, justice is served. But when interpretations stray far from the letter, the danger of legislating from the bench becomes real, especially at higher court levels. When enough people believe that law is being invented in the courtroom instead of the legislature, they will increasingly evade, ignore and violate it.
The Founders wrote the Constitution and in particular the Bill of Rights in as plain and clear a language as possible precisely to avoid broad and contradictory interpretations. They knew that potential tyranny lurked in stretched interpretations. It is ever more vital, the higher up you go in the American courts, that the Constitution is simply read rather than interpreted. This can be difficult I’m sure, as many situations can arise in court cases which the Founders may not have envisioned. But the temptation to interpret broadly can lead to the outright creation of law and must be resisted. If I seem to be lecturing you, I guess I am but as a judge, you have powers beyond those of a normal citizen. You simply must show both judgment and restraint beyond the normal as well.
In the Instrument, I’ll attempt to define the limits of interpretation. In the meantime, thank you for reading.
John LaValley, February, 2009
A Few Words to Attorneys
There are some of you, a few it seems, who are fine human beings. Against increasing odds, you fight the good fight and you know who you are.
As for the rest of you- and you know who you are- I think Dick the butcher could be right. You see (listen up, non-lawyer folks, not a lot of people seem to know this), in his play Henry VI, Shakespeare was actually paying tribute to attorneys as defenders of law, freedom and virtue and it was a villain, Dick the butcher who said, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” He said this so that he and the rest of Jack Cade’s band could rape and plunder the countryside.
The point is that lawyers usually do provide those above stated benefits- while the laws themselves are virtuous. But in these fast changing times, much of law is losing its virtue and for you attorney/legislators, a curse of your own making is descending on your house. Kindly stop it.
John J. LaValley, February, 2009
A Few Words to Teachers
My parents are both retired public school teachers. They are also very left of center in their philosophies so I’m a bit of a disappointment to them although they are both nice about it.
Teachers are something of a conundrum for me. On the one hand, they are probably the most underpaid professional group in America. Any culture that pays trash collectors more than it pays teachers must clearly value the one group over the other. The results of this preference are all around us but, on the other hand, teachers as a group are the most incompetent professionals as well. We’re surrounded by those results too. If you think maybe both results are the same thing, you’re catching on.
It may be a bit unfair to call them incompetent as some teachers are indeed outstanding. Examples of teachers getting otherwise hopeless kids to turn themselves around and excel in subjects as difficult as higher math abound and their stories sometimes get made into movies. It’s also true that it takes extraordinary teachers to get anything out of kids whose parents don’t give a damn. But by and large, poor pay and poor performance define the profession today. I’m sure there’s a cause and effect relationship in there somewhere but which is the cart and which is the horse I can’t say.
I’ll start with pay. My folks provided a great example to observe. I’m not going to say what they were paid but here’s the basics. They went to the trouble to acquire masters degrees and then taught high school English. Both were reasonably frugal and limited their extravagances to the occasional dinner out, movie or camping trip. There were few serious expenses besides the house, utilities and car. My dad (stepfather actually, but he raised me so he gets the title) had to pay child support for five kids from his previous marriage while my mom got no help from her first husband for my sister and me. A little out of balance there but hey, my father was a deadbeat and my stepdad wasn’t. His child support payments were reasonable given the circumstances. The point to all this is that my folks had less than average expenses- and were barely able to meet them while both worked full time as educated professionals. Not only did they put in the time at the high school, but spent time at home doing lesson plans and a host of other stuff that added to their work load. After talking around I found that this is fairly typical for a public school teacher.
What I’m going to say next might be taken as an indictment of my parents but it’s not intended that way as some folks can have a passion for doing something that might not involve rich rewards. That being said, the pay situation for teachers is not exactly going to attract the most capable achievers. Most rational people want some material benefit appropriate for their work. Since we as a society can’t be bothered to bring teacher salaries up to something reasonable in the average high school, it stands to reason that we are only getting what we have paid for. Maybe it’s because we seem to value high school athletic programs more than academic ones that we have well paid trash collectors and poorly paid teachers.
Here’s where I do indict my parents along with the rest. Sorry folks, but I have to be honest here. With brighter, more motivated people generally going to more rewarding professions, what remains is a group whose thinking is often more, well, collectivist than individualist. One of the most powerful unions in the country and certainly one of the most corrupt is the National Education Association, a teachers union. Like so many others, my parents paid their dues and were members for years. The NEA has lavishly spent millions in support of liberal-progressive-socialist causes. Their efforts to improve the pay and working conditions of their members, as a good union is supposed to do, have uh… well gee, I guess they got what they paid for too.
But wait! There’s more. What about the stuff they’ve been teaching our kids? Different school districts have different curriculum but the general effect is collectivism is good, individualism is bad. My wife and I considered private school but couldn’t afford a good one. We considered home schooling but instead we decided upon something else. We actually let our kids go to public school. Those in the Las Vegas area are actually better than most by our reckoning. We held our kid’s feet to the fire, not letting them slide by with C’s and D’s. We also encouraged them to doubt and question what they were taught in some classes while still pursuing A’s in those classes. What has resulted so far is that our kids engage in critical thinking and are generally better informed and more independent than most others their age. Of course they practiced that critical thinking on us but we all managed to survive that process. Now our oldest is in college, our son is in the army and our youngest is- God help me- considering a career in law.
Point is, the socialist crap they spoon feed kids in school can be overcome. But why do we have to do that? Why is it more important for kids under twelve to know how to use a condom than for high school graduates to read above the fourth grade level? Why is Islam “introduced” to students in public school during class time in some states while kids are prohibited from having a private, voluntary, Christian prayer meeting during lunch hour, which is their own time, in many of those same schools? Why are vital subjects like arithmetic, science and history taught in such a manner as to bore all but the most well disciplined kids?
It seems now that as I review what I’ve written here so far, it’s been more about teachers than to them, so try this. Teachers, you want better pay? Be more professional and less political. While you’re at it, ditch those damned unions. They’re not helping you. School district administrators, you want better teachers? Pay them! Oh, you don’t have the money after your own salaries are met? Well how about getting rid of those expensive athletic programs and their associated real estate? Since when were our public schools chartered to develop talent for the NFL? Football and baseball are great things even for kids but that’s why God invented Pop Warner and Little League. I know, they’re too private sector. Look. Local businesses sponsor Pop Warner and Little League teams. Just get your city or county officials to require kids in those teams keep a good GPA and then get on with the stuff your schools are actually supposed to be doing. Like teaching.
Oh, just one more thing (I miss Peter Falk), you parents need to quit treating school as if it’s just some kind of babysitter for your little angel. If your kids think you don’t give a rat’s ass what grades they get, they won’t care either. Take the time to push them. Take away privileges and nice stuff they take for granted if they don’t perform. Yeah, it’s annoying and it can even hurt. So what? Man up about it. What’s the point of having kids in the first place if you’re not going to raise them right?
John J. LaValley, February, 2009
A Few Words to Homosexuals
So you want to get married, huh? Be careful what you wish for.
Seriously though, designating insurance, hospital visitation, power-of-attorney and stuff like that aren’t enough? You just gotta have the legal word marriage to go with it? Well, let’s think about that- um, no.
No?, I hear you cry. But John, you seemed so libertarian, so tolerant. Do you have some kind of issue with homosexuality?
Actually yes, I do have an issue with it. First off, I don’t agree with those who claim that homosexuality is purely or even mostly a choice. Homosexual behavior has been observed in animals, mostly mammals, usually in overcrowded conditions. It is natural, but it’s not healthy and that’s the issue. Other people have genetic crossed wires, like Down Syndrome, but you don’t see them parading their condition in the main street of the city. That is a choice.
Robert Heinlein was perhaps the dean of American science-fiction authors. He said that consenting adults should be free to do whatever they wish behind closed doors. He only asked that they wash their hands when they’re finished and don’t spook the horses. I agree with that but let me cut through the BS.
Parents, put the kids to bed now, before they read any more.
Homosexuality is about anal sex. It has other aspects, maybe, but I’m not dealing with the side dishes, only the main course. It’s about anal sex. Anal sex is about shit. Let’s get clinical for a minute. The colon and anus have a purpose in nature and that purpose is to conduct shit out of the digestive system and away from the body. In anal intercourse, organs and tissues come into rubbing contact with traces of shit, which is slightly abrasive. This is not what these organs and tissues were evolved or designed to deal with. It can produce surface hemorrhaging and the transfer of blood borne pathogens- like the AIDS virus.
How a mind can be aware of this and still find it romantic, sublime and desirable is something I don’t want to understand. But that’s okay. I have a couple of vices of my own, good booze and good cigars, but I don’t advocate their use to kids. I keep my indulgences to times when the little ones aren’t around. You shouldn’t promote your vice to kids either and that’s what demanding legal marriage is all about. Your use of the word marriage would tell children in our society that anal sex is as healthy as vaginal sex. And that would be a dangerous lie.
I don’t want persecution, bashing, mandatory reconditioning or other such fascist crap, but if we smokers and fast food eaters are to be driven into the closet, as so many liberals want, then you homosexuals need to go back in there as well. And if we are going to have to share a closet with you people, I’m telling you right now, the dart board’s going up and those salmon curtains are coming down.
Oh, one more thing. You may have noticed that I don’t use the word gay for homosexual even though it’s much easier to say or type. Thing is, I don’t care to have you taking over the language or the culture. Gay is supposed to mean happy, cheerful, or carefree, not sexually dysfunctional. We shouldn’t have to snicker or blush because we had a gay old time with the Flintstones.
John LaValley, March, 2009
A Few Words to People of Faith
Christians in America don’t need me to tell them that they are having a rough go of it in our popular culture (and Christians in Africa have it far worse). If you let it be known that you are Christian or believe in God, you are assumed by many to be a drooling Bible thumper with no relevant knowledge of the real world. I know better. In fact, I know many Christians who are very technically, culturally and scientifically literate.
I am writing here to address two of three hot-button issues that concern modern Christians. One is abortion, which I’ll approach in another chapter, to People of Doubt.
The second is evolution. It is here where I have one of my great partings of ways with many of my Christian friends, for it is here that in the arena of public debate they shoot themselves in the foot. To be sure, not all Christians are creationists (and vice-versa, of course). Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist who recently discovered soft tissue deep in the fossil thighbone of a tyrannosaur, is an evangelical Christian who has no trouble reconciling her faith with her scientific knowledge. She sees evolution as the shaping tool God used in creating the diversity of life. Her opinion of Noah and the Flood? I don’t know. She might still be reached at the University of North Carolina at Raleigh. If you ask politely, she might tell you.
The problem, as I see it, is how to reconcile the idea that the Bible is the actual word of God with the modern sciences of Astronomy, Geology, Biology and Paleontology. More exactly, how is a perfectly intelligent and rational person, who’s familiar with modern science, able to keep the traditional belief about Genesis without going nuts? I think I figured out a way and I mention it in these papers because the issue divides many of us and hits strongly on our national identity and heritage.
The theory of evolution is not going to go away any faster than will the theory of gravitation. Too many sciences and industries that work and have not failed are based on it. At the same time, America is a culturally Christian nation and many prefer to take the Bible as the literal word of God and He wouldn’t lie, would He?
No, I don’t think so, but the full truth may have been too much for us to take in the Bronze Age. Let me say here that the idea of our somehow being related to chimpanzees and orangutans is not so much offensive to me as it is humbling. Chimps in particular have been observed displaying just about the full range of human behavior from murder, rape, kidnapping, infanticide and warfare to the use of tools, adoption of orphans, sharing of food, defense of the weak and courage against predators. Oh, and yes, they do engage in their own brand of politics.
I’ll admit the comparison is hardly perfect. Chimps can’t solve differential calculus equations but then neither can most humans. I can’t. Like I said, humbling. …But I can learn differential calculus. Hmm…
Anyway, let’s all suppose that the Creator God exists more or less as described in the Bible. Any scientific atheist or agnostic types listening in just play along, okay? God has been watching humanity develop through its stages up until the mid to late Bronze Age. He sees us occasionally putting down our spears or wooden plowshares, looking up at the night sky and performing some arcane ritual. He might even hear some of our more philosophical and inquisitive prayers and decides it’s time to answer some of our questions.
Just what the heck is He supposed to say? How does He tell people who haven’t needed to figure out how to count past a few hundred that the Universe is billions of years old? How does He describe its size? What words does He use to describe plate tectonics to people who don’t yet widely know that the Earth is round? How does He tell about the evolutionary mechanism of mutation to folks who’ve only begun to domesticate and breed plants and animals? He doesn’t. Even if He gave some scribe the vocabulary for a detailed description it would be gibberish to everyone else and that scribe would probably be stoned to death, burned alive or eaten or something.
I think maybe the Big Guy would only have told us what we could hear and understand. He might then have decided that any species that would eventually figure out differential calculus could figure out most everything else and left us to it.
See, if the Book is anything to go by, God doesn’t just give us stuff. He makes us work for it. Bread doesn’t simply fall from the sky- well alright, maybe it did during the Exodus but it doesn’t now. We have to grow, harvest and grind wheat then mix and bake bread. Edible flesh doesn’t fall out of the sky either, except during duck season. Anyway, to get the things God provides we must bend our backs and our minds to the task. I think the same applies to the Given Word. We can’t just memorize it and say we’ve got it. We have to work it again and again to separate the wheat from the chaff and to do that it helps to know the difference between wheat and chaff. A lot of hard core atheists are unable to do that so they discard the whole thing, cover and page. Hard core fundamentalists have the same issue but instead they swallow the whole thing, cover and page. Neither side does the hard work the Bible truly requires but that certainly is just my opinion.
The important thing about this discussion is not whether the Cosmos is six thousand or fourteen billion years old. What’s important is that neither side can have the other tried, jailed or otherwise badgered, which both sides have endured in the past. The freedom to believe and the freedom to doubt are the same thing. They are a part of our common ground which we have to defend for each other, not just ourselves. If we don’t, we’ll lose that ground along with everything else the modern fascists are trying to take away.
The second issue I’ll discuss, I saved for last because it’s far more important than whether or not we’re related to apes. In my experience there are two kinds of Christians and no, it’s not Catholics and Protestants. If you’d say it’s real Christians and fakers, I’d concede that point but it’s not where I’m headed. I’m talking ideology and the two groups seem to be what I call Golden Rule Christians and Damnation Christians.
Golden Rule types tend to be somewhat relaxed in their opinion of how literally one should take the Scriptures. They may or may not believe that Jesus is the one and only Son of God. For them, Jesus’ most important teaching is the Golden Rule. As you may have guessed, I am in this category. Damnation Christians are commonly called Fundamentalists. I sometimes call them Experts. They’re convinced that the most important aspect of Christ is not the Golden Rule or his detailed instructions on keeping one’s house in order. Rather, they believe that no matter how ethical your life has been or how helpful you have been to others in need, you are damned to Hell for Eternity if you go to your grave without believing that Jesus is the Son of God.
I do not share this belief. I think that crossing T’s and dotting I’s misses the point. Wheat and chaff again. Of course, I may find that I’ve been wrong. If I die and it suddenly gets a whole lot warmer, I’ll know. That’s okay, it’s my risk. The reason I make a point of it here is that I know that not all who hold this belief are mean spirited people. The problem is that expressing this belief alienates those who might have an ear for the other things you have to say. Even if the belief turns out to be true, it is still insulting and people will respond in kind. Hence, the unending and usually unfair scorn that Christians suffer from the usual suspects in pop culture.
By the way, it is this very insult that radical Islam hurls at those who disagree with them. They only add death and injury to the insult.
Let me end with this brief note. As I write this now, it is the third of April, 2009. I have not made nearly the progress in these writings to date that I’ve wanted. Between my work at a private aerospace company and school where I’m a rocket-scientist-in-training and family where I’m an outspoken, pigheaded conservative, I haven’t put in the keyboard time that I need to get this out fast. Well that’s changing. I’m taking a week’s vacation time so the datelines at the end of these essay chapters will increase in frequency.
It was my original plan to write these Individualist Papers, then post the completed work online with the new website that my wife and I are starting soon, while simultaneously sending printed copies to Washington. But with our shining new President and his very cooperative old Congress seizing power and ignoring the Constitution hourly, it’s tempting to just cut to the chase and write the Declaration of Resolve now and post it on the site when we go online in a few days.
But no, I’m not going to do that. The Declaration is going to piss people off. Even some who might have agreed with everything else I’ve written could be seriously put out. It’s important to explain what has brought me to this point so there’s no misunderstanding or mischaracterization. If I want to be understood, then I have to do this right. Religious arguments may not seem too relevant right now, while suited barbarians are sacking the treasury, but religion is part of our culture and national heritage. It is also among the problems we face in the world today.
For now I only ask my friends who do have religious faith to be cautious of those who, perhaps a bit too loudly, profess to believe. According to widely published reports, some ninety to ninety-five percent of people in America and around the world claim to believe in at least some Higher Being. Do you honestly think that same percentage of people conduct their business and live their lives as if they believe? Neither do I. There’s far too many who are religious for an hour on Sunday and something else for the rest of the week.
I will try to finish the For What It’s Worth section of the Papers before going back to work. What will follow then is the true meat of the matter. Kindly bear with me.
John LaValley, April, 2009
A Few Words to People of Islamic Faith
I won’t claim to know much about Islam except to say that it’s culturally and doctrinally related to Judaism and Christianity. An engineering student from Afghanistan I once knew translated passages of the Qur’an which struck me as poetic and benign. I’ve also read that while most of Europe was in the Dark Ages, Islam was indeed a light of civilization. All manner of science, medicine, art, literature and mathematics were developed in Islamic centers that were at least somewhat tolerant of other faiths and cultures.
Then along came the Crusaders from Europe. Way to go, guys. In your attempt to grab land, power and gold you drove Islam into the gutter where it remains today. It’s chief exports seem to be poverty, ignorance, cruelty and death. It’s as if Islam is today where Christianity was before the Renaissance. But as long as Islam is going to follow the pattern of Christianity’s history, let me offer a friendly suggestion. Fast-forward from the Inquisition and Crusades to what we call the Reformation and the Enlightenment. It’s what you folks need and how.
For starters, women are not property. I know some of them can be annoying as hell but look, they are the bearers and nurturers of our children and by some examples I’ve known, they can have minds every bit as deep and broad as any man’s. They don’t need to be kept illiterate, hidden from sight and beaten like dogs for letting an ankle show.
Oh, here’s a biggie. Freedom of religion is not the right to kill infidels. It is the right to be an infidel without being killed or harassed for it. America first founding principle is the freedom to have and practice the faith you want and not have to profess and support the faith or faiths that you don’t. I for one don’t like Christian ideas being given the force of law so I sure as hell don’t want to have Islamic religion enforced. Human freedom means, among other things, that religion is voluntary. Of course, that’s for adults only. Kids, you still have to go to church/synagogue/mosque/temple if your parents say so.
What? Some of you’re wondering what’s wrong with morality being made law? I didn’t say morality, I said religion. Look, murder is universally considered wrong, right? So it’s fine to make murder illegal, but eating meat on Friday is not universally thought wrong. It’s peculiar to the more traditional of Christian faiths and does not deserve to be made the law of the land. But John, I hear you cry, I’ve never been prosecuted for eating a Big Mac on Friday. Sure, have you seen the actual beef content of a Big Mac lately? Seriously though, you’re right. Fish on Friday isn’t mandatory but something else is. It’s called Blue Laws. They have been around in parts of America for the longest time and they are every bit as unconstitutional and plain WRONG as anything else.
Retailers in most Blue Law areas are forced by law to close their shops on Sunday. Suppose, for instance that say, a hobby store owner is Jewish. His rest-on-the-seventh-day tradition is Saturday, but market forces compel him to go to work then because he must close shop on Sunday or face fines and even arrest. Sorry folks but that’s just plain wrong by any objective measure, especially when that measure is the First Amendment. I’ll say it again, freedom of religion means religion is voluntary. Everybody needs to get over that, not just Islamic people.
But to people of Islamic faith, I urge you to rescue your religion from the trap that snared the Catholic Church for so many years. It was internal corruption and a host of other evils that compelled Martin Luther to write his protest and nail it to the Castle Church doors in Wittenberg. I know, Luther was no saint, just ask the Jewish hobby store owner. The thing is, Luther had a point to make and took action to make it.
Now Islam is in desperate need of just such a reformation and it must come from within. Too many of us on the outside will take a “Kill them all. Let God sort them out” mentality and wipe Islam from the face of the Earth. If you believe that Islam has value to offer the world and should be preserved, then you must examine your Holy Books as I have asked the Christians to do, and separate the wheat from the chaff. You must also reign in those who seek to kill or enslave infidels.
Here’s another suggestion. Take the explosives off the poor, illiterate young men and boys and strap them onto the old men who make those fiery speeches. We’ll see how many of them can even remember what a virgin looks like. Let us know that you love your children more than you hate us. I know that what I’m suggesting is difficult, to say the least. Things worth doing usually are.
Thanks for listening to me. Insha’Allah.
John LaValley, April, 2009
A Few Words to People of Doubt
I’ve said that some people of faith shoot themselves in the foot on an issue or two. Well guess what? Some of you atheists do a fine job of putting .45 caliber holes in your feet too. To begin with, there’s abortion. No, I don’t think a zygote, fertilized a few minutes ago is a human being- yet, but to say a fetus is not human or “alive” till its fully born is much further out of line. When exactly does humanity begin? I don’t claim to know but it must be well before the moment of birth, otherwise premature babies would never survive. Does that mean that when Obama supported allowing babies to die from neglect, after they survived a botched abortion, he supported infanticide?
Yes it does and yes he did but I’m not going after Obama here per se. I’m suggesting that religious folks have a ethical advantage here. They may not have actual knowledge of what they believe about when human life begins but by adhering to the notion that it’s a full human being at conception, they eliminate the possibility of engaging in baby killing. The idea that “it’s my body” is valid but only up to a point and no one can scientifically say exactly when that point is. The old rules still apply. If you don’t want to be pregnant or make someone pregnant, don’t fuck. That, or get your tubes tied. All other birth control methods are less than a hundred percent.
Having said all that, I do have a caveat. I could not bring myself to force, by law, a genuine rape victim to bear her attacker’s offspring. To do so would make me party to the rape. Now having said that, I believe that those rape victims who have carried the baby to term are heroes of the highest order and a woman who would chose not to carry must make that choice immediately as hard as that might be. I just don’t think I would force someone else to do what I’m not sure I could do myself in the same situation. It’s also a woman’s responsibility to not be an easy victim but more about that later.
All this parsing that I’ve just done on the subject should still make it clear that having abortion-on-demand, as birth control or at taxpayer’s expense, for minors without their parents consent or even knowledge, is simply wrong. Take a look sometime at a video of a partial birth abortion. Sorry folks, that’s murder. Taking the morning-after pill and arresting the development of a cluster of dividing cells is one thing. Sucking a developed baby apart with a vacuum hose is something else.
On to the second bullet hole. Separation of church and state doesn’t mean suppression of the church by the state. It means government and church stay out of each other’s pocket. The First Clause of the First Amendment was not intended to deny Christianity or any religion their place in American culture but rather to keep the corrupting influence of legal power out of religious life. The Founders wanted religion in the culture, believing that to be religion at its best. Religion in the legislature was the thing they avoided, knowing that to be religion at its worst.
So what does that mean today? It means that courts have no place telling citizens what gods to believe in and nonbelievers have no place telling citizens they can’t have a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn or that the artful display can be forcibly cluttered up with atheist messages. It means that while ethics can be legislated to prevent say, killing babies, sectarian rules can’t be used to force someone to close his business on a certain day. It also means that law can’t be used to force or hinder religious belief. John Scopes should never have been tried for teaching science in his science class and Christian kids in public school should not be barred from gathering to pray during recess or lunch.
Prior to writing this essay, I spent several hours researching the matter to update what I already knew. Partisans on either side have extensive websites devoted to analysis of the Founders and their words on this issue. What emerges is a complex picture of the Founders as real human beings, not marble statues. They were participants in a Christian culture and many were devout in their faith but they were hardly uniform in their beliefs nor were they mere shallow adherents of orthodoxy. They were certainly participating in the Enlightenment and founded a nation strongly influenced by Enlightenment principles. They saw by the historical example of European history that religion can have a civilizing effect on the behavior of the common man but also that it can be used by the powerful to wreak horror on people and nations alike.
By erecting what Thomas Jefferson called a “wall of separation between church and state”, the Founders actually protected the integrity of both. So we have a healthy Christian culture and a healthy secular government- that is until recently. It was also Jefferson who recommended we have a revolution every fifty years or so. We haven’t done that and look where we are.
I use the word secular to mean simply non-religious. Actual anti-religiousness is a zealotry of its own and I have no use or care for it. For my own part, I confess to lack belief in any specifically named Creator or god. Further, I hold that if there is a God who had a son here on Earth, He has three billion sons and three billion daughters. It’s all of us or none of us, no favorites.
Yet, despite all that, I do celebrate the birth of Jesus. Why, you might well ask. Am I engaging in some schizophrenic game? No. For one, Christmas is one of the most benign times in our cultural year. I like the traditions, the music, everything. But far more important is something about Jesus himself. Some scholars may dispute this for scholarly reasons but Jesus is most widely credited with giving Western culture the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. It’s the perfect blueprint for a good civilization. It applies to all people, except masochists and its messenger requires no divine pedigree for the message to be valid. I think the Golden Rule alone justifies the celebration of Jesus’ birth no matter what other faith or doubts one might have about the man.
So, my well educated and scientific friends, can we agree to defend this common ground of freedom we all stand on? Can we reach across philosophical divides to that love of liberty which philosophically unites us? I certainly hope so because the chains of tyranny are coming for believer and doubter alike.
Thanks and let me wish you all, well in advance of the Season, a Merry Christmas!
John LaValley, April, 2009
A Few Words to Talk Radio Hosts and Their Listeners
Man, am I glad you guys exist! You have proven one of my favorite maxims of science, that nature abhors a vacuum. When it became apparent that the traditional news and commentary sources had lost all journalistic objectivity, you ladies and gentlemen emerged big time to fill the gap. I have a few things to say to you but it’s difficult to get through on your shows, mostly because you’re broadcasting when I’m at work, but also because of the sheer volume of people who want to call in. I’ll start with Rush.
One can only admire the man who not only restored the commercial viability of an entire band of radio frequencies and created a new listener marketplace but also gave public voice to the concerns of millions of rational Americans. As with so many other listeners, the first conservative talk radio voice I heard was yours, Rush. In 1993 I was doing visual effects work in Hollywood and occasionally I’d hear someone mention some horrible fascist Nazi named Rush who’d say horrible fascist Nazi things on the radio. When I’d ask what station carried such a horrible fascist Nazi message the person couldn’t say, indicating they had not in fact heard your broadcast for themselves. I found you on KFI, AM 640 Los Angeles and began to listen and waited to be outraged.
It took six weeks for you to say something I disagreed with and I’m no fascist or Nazi, although some people do think I’m horrible. I’d check up on your citing of facts like CBO numbers and so on and you were always correct and in context. One morning I was taking a newly built model to a soundstage for shooting when I heard a young black woman call in and try to chew you out for not reaching out to blacks and have them in the audience of your TV show. I had to pull off to the side of the road and listen. She wouldn’t let you respond and got ever more hysterical till you did what you otherwise rarely do. You cut her off. The few seconds of silence which followed I know are usually a broadcaster’s nightmare- dead air. Let me tell you, lo these years later, that silence was anything but dead. I could only have been one of millions who stopped what he was doing and listened. What we heard you say came straight from our own hearts and minds. You took a breath and calmed down to articulate the exact nature of the race problem in America. You told how race is used by some to claim victim status and create excuses for problems in their own lives. You spoke with passion of how we should be human beings and Americans first and foremost in our identities. I could have written those words myself and, in these Papers, I suppose I have.
These days, now and then I’ll stop listening, just to take a break, or listen to another show but I always come back. Please keep doing what you’re doing. You have to. Not everyone agrees with you yet.
Mr. Hannity, I like your Fox News shows and your polite Irish kid persona but I especially appreciate something in particular you have done. I understand that many conservative talk show hosts don’t support the Fairtax because of marketplace competition- it was co-conceived by another host, Neal Boortz. You, however, have given it your full support which shows both intellect and an ability to see beyond your own professional interests. Bravo, sir, and please carry on.
Neal, you don’t pull punches, do you? Good. Don’t ever start. I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for yourself and John Linder and everyone else who has worked to conceive the Fairtax and present it to the American people. Like some, I think the percentage seems a little high but I know that the current tax code and government spending levels (especially now) are a tree that can’t be felled with one blow of the axe. We’ll get the Fairtax passed and then hack away at spending.
Whenever I hear someone speak out in favor of a flat income tax, I always join the conversation, with varying degrees of politeness, saying that a flat tax is like adjusting a thermostat. It always gets turned up again. We need to rip the thermostat off the wall and put in a better, more efficient way to heat the house. My copies of the Fairtax books are always out on loan to someone. I do what I can.
Sometimes people object, saying that the Fairtax would turn every retail merchant into a federal tax collector or that merchants would scam the system and not turn in the revenue. I offer the following to you as solutions to both problems. It’s the carrot and stick solution. First of all, most merchants are already tax collectors of their state’s sales tax. With the Fairtax, merchants could be permitted to keep a percentage of what they collect, a carrying charge of say, eight percent, surely enough to be more than worth the trouble. That’s the carrot. If one did try to hide more, well there’s always rooming with Otis and Bubba in some prison cell. That’s the stick. Such a rich carrying charge might cause many people to want to be retail merchants, thus enriching the market with merry competition.
As I write this I realize that you and the rest of the Fairtax gang may well have dealt with this little concern already. My fault for not keeping up to date. Good luck and thanks again. Oh, and would you please find a way to get your voice back on the air in Vegas again?
Mark Levin! “Get off the phone, you big dope!” is one of my favorite quotes. I think I’ll make it a ring tone.
The G man. Wish I could get your show here in Vegas.
Savage! Never boring and I love it when you go off point and talk about food and music and stuff. Borders, language, culture, Amen.
Laura Schlessinger. I can’t say I always agree with you but you still have a good show. I marvel at some of your callers, though. How can they be unable to solve the issues they call in with, yet be able to operate a telephone? Amazing.
Tammy Bruce? I came to work one day about a year ago and a buddy was listening to a hearty conservative rant in familiar female voice. “Who’s that?” I asked. When he told me I had to pick my jaw of the floor. Tammy Bruce?! The same arrogant, snotty, liberal feminazi I sometimes heard on the air in L.A.? The very one. Well, hell, if P.J. O’Rourke can grow up and mature, why not Tammy Bruce? Good on ya, Tammy, glad your on our side.
Jerry Doyle, it’s nice to have national host broadcasting from where I live. Last I heard, you weren’t too keen on the Fairtax. Too bad because it beats all the other proposals I’ve heard. Bruce Bartlett’s criticism was way off base. I hope you come around on it, if you haven’t already.
Larry Elder, you were the first thing I missed when I left L.A. for Las Vegas. I’m sad that you are no longer broadcasting. The couple of times I spoke with you on the air you were a gentleman and listened, something not all other hosts do. I hear that you may seek public office. I do think that way too many lawyers become politicians but I’d make an exception for you. The Sage from South Central should have been America’s first black President. Maybe he can be the second.
Glen, I really don’t mean to insult you but you’re the talk show host who’s most like me. My wife and I are into the 9-12 Project and we’ll be there at the Vegas Tea Party on the Ides of April.
There. That was fun, bypassing the call screeners and talking to some of you guys directly. Of course there’s a whole host of hosts that I didn’t mention but those above are the ones I remember the most. There’s a couple of things I’d like to say to you all as a group, if you care to listen.
For all that I have offered as praise, I do have a couple of complaints. I won’t name names but I shouldn’t have to. Your listeners know. You folks are not just professional broadcasters, commentators and entertainers. You are the front line in a war for our culture, our liberty and, I believe, our very lives. It is a war we are losing. Yes, I know your audiences are growing but have you seen the patterns of the election cycles in the last twelve years? Or the greater cycles of the last hundred? The pendulum swings a lot to the left, then a little to the right, then a lot to the left, a little to the right- we are losing. At some point the grandfather clock will fall over and the new Administration is shoving as hard as it can.
I wish that some among you could face forward a little better. The sniping and bickering and I-said-it-first is a serious turn off. Since when is conservatism proprietary? Yeah sure, if you borrow a phrase from someone else, acknowledge it but if acknowledgment is not forthcoming, get over it. Again, your listeners know.
My second complaint is the way some of you handle callers. Rush let some of the cats out of the bag when he described the requisites for a successful show, among which is that the host has to look good. I understand that I’m not a professional broadcaster, but I am an astute and discerning listener. Clever and well timed use of the fade slide or cut off switch do not a good looking host make. Neither does convenient use of the hard break. If disagreeing callers get to the head of the line, why not listen to their full argument and then shoot them down? Of course, I’m assuming here that your screener has done their job and eliminated the inarticulate callers. The call’s got to be good radio, sure. I guess I just figure that if your going to take a call and put it on the air, give the caller a real hearing. Otherwise, why take calls at all?
If you folks don’t mind I’d like to say something to my fellow talk show listeners. It’s cheating, I know, but thanks. People, we love talk radio for a lot of reasons. We like hearing our own beliefs well and humorously spoken. For some it’s catharsis and for others, it’s the most dependable way to get news or perspective we otherwise would never get from the establishment media. I think we run a risk, though, of letting talk radio become an opiate of the masses.
Here’s what I mean. After discovering talk radio in ’93, I was overjoyed. I thought finally conservative and individualist ideas were getting out. The ’94 elections seemed to verify this. The shrill reporting by the media about Newt Gingrich and the new Republican majorities on the Hill seemed to be mere complaining by the losers. I thought at last seventy years of encroaching oppression would be reversed, so I went about my own business and even turned off the radio, quite often preferring to hear music at work. The years went by and not a damn thing changed. The Republicans spent money like drunk Democrats. We finally got rid of Clinton and got a President who spent like a drunk Republican trying to impress a Democrat girlfriend. The fact that he was still better than either of the other choices was not good enough. We needed genuine conservative leadership and got damned little of it. In the last two election cycles we have lost our majority and can’t even put up a strong filibuster. There is no one and nothing to stop the fascist juggernaut in Washington now, at least nothing legal.
We have slept too long and I’m just as guilty as the rest of you for letting these talk show hosts do our work for us. The choices we have left are grim ones. We can resign our fates and those of our children to a grim future. We can grit our teeth with grim determination and wait for the next election cycle, grimly hoping that there will still be something left of the republic to save by voting. Or we can undertake the very grim work of unseating these entrenched tyrants by force.
In the mean time, we do as civil conscience requires. We speak. We write such of our leaders as will still listen. We form groups and join organizations like the 9-12 Project and engage in tax-day tea parties in the hope that the suddenly increased volume of our displeasure will reach the ears of the people causing it. I am jumping with both feet into these activities as are so many others but my fears are not abated. Instead they are increased by my knowledge of history and of the psychology of tyrants. Our loud outrage can only give pleasure to the criminals in Washington as the struggles and cries of his victim give pleasure to the rapist.
For my own part, I am resolved to do something other than cry. Allow me please to tell you this. I thought I knew freedom isn’t free but the full depth of the obligation of vigilance is greater than we commonly know. I understand why some people actually prefer the yoke of state tyranny for its relief of individual responsibilities, but I am not an ox. I’m a human being with human responsibilities which don’t stop when my favorite hosts sign off for the day.
Thank you and good night, wherever you are.
John LaValley, April, 2009
A Few Words to People Outside of America
In recent years we have had two of America’s worst Presidents spend a lot of time apologizing for some of the good things America has done. I’d like to apologize for their apologies.
I apologize for Bill Clinton’s apologizing to the Japanese for the U.S.’ use of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII. Apparently Mr. Clinton feels that it would have been better if far more Japanese people had been killed which certainly would have happened had the Operation Olympic landings taken place. On the other hand, the enormous projected loss of U.S. soldier’s and marine’s lives in those same operations could have been the President’s preference which is logical, given his documented contempt of the U.S. military.
I could have fun like this for a long time with Clinton and Obama but I’ll get to the point. We do have something to apologize for, big time. At the end of WWII, we were the only giant left standing. A weary world looked to us to spread our ideals as we offered to help nations rebuild. Ideals of political and economic liberty for the individual which had served America so well could now rid the world of the despotic predators by which humanity had been hag-ridden since history began.
We didn’t just drop that ball. We spiked it into the deepest hole we could find. We gave Italy to the Mob. We got chummy and supportive of any parasitic tin pot who said he “hated communism” while turning a blind eye to that same tin pot’s treatment of his own people. A policy of “He’s a bastard but he our bastard” still produces grief for us in Latin America. Vietnam offered to be our ally and model their government as a republic in 1945 after we liberated them from Japan. President Truman said “Nahh. Give ‘em back to the French.” That buck sure didn’t stop. Thanks Harry.
And the beat goes on. Even when we try to help some good guys, we have to do it on the sly. Our foreign policy is far too dependent on the personality of the Chief Executive which can and does change radically every four to eight years. The U.S. can’t be trusted to stay on course.
I have some ideas to change that which I’ll detail in the Instrument. For now, I apologize.
John LaValley, April, 2009
Coming soon: A Few Words to The Founding Fathers
2 comments:
I strongly disagree with your comparing homosexuality and genetic crossed wires and down syndrome.
Also it seems (based on your comments) that your real problem is with anal sex ... I'd wager just about anything that more hetero couples (in total numbers) engage in that than homosexual men.
Also your assertion that "Homosexuality is about anal sex" does not hold up with me either ... I am a celibate homosexual, for me homosexuality is all about love and companionship. I do not have any sex, anal or otherwise.
In spite of our disagreements on some issues I have to say that your site is very well written and shows a lot of thought and passion for the issues. Keep it up.
I'm not so much into law anymore (no need for God to help ya).
I'm starting to look into... politics. (Well you may need His help, after all).
I love you, Dad!
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