I warned during Desert Storm that it was only the “opening gun” to a permanent U.S. “presence” in the Middle East. I also pointed out the “need” for the U.S. to establish itself in Africa. Seems Somalia is the staging area for this “need.” In spite of congress being Israeli Occupied Territory, the need for a gateway to the Arab oil fields has always been a given. Somehow, I don’t think it takes that much perspicaciousness or suprasensibility to figure all this out- certainly I didn’t think Arab nations were having any difficulty doing so.
Americans used to be able to face elemental realities; they no longer do so. We have been cheated of the inalienable rights to do so. For example, why shouldn’t a man be able to have a couple of acres and build a cabin on it for his family at a total cost of about $10,000? Get rid of the unconstitutional “building codes” and a family, once more, could actually own their own home rather than renting from the bank! Common sense alone dictates that a family would far rather reap the benefits of their own labor than be slaves to the state and its banks. And, again, common sense dictates that children are far better off being raised in an environment of family and family labor for family benefit than the drug and crime infested cities. Who stole this natural right and personal liberty from families?
The “Land” is still there. But who stole the opportunity for men to be men, women to be women and children to be children? By all means, read Cooper, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe and a host of others to get at the bitter root of the problem. Of America Theodore Parker wrote: “There is always a conservative element in society...which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs...Here I think it is represented by the merchants.... Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands.... It takes the place in great measure of science, art and literature.... All is the reflection of this most powerful class. The truths that are told are for them, and the lies.”
We do not lack for Savonarola's in our own history. But where are they now? Were it not for my being the beneficiary of Hawthorne’s “cursed habits of solitude,” I would have been far more outspoken in time past. Since I have long agreed with Brownson that “...no reforming leadership could come from ‘priests and pedagogues’ ...They always league with the people’s masters,” I have found myself the recipient of a far deeper orthodoxy, that of Truth, Fact and Reason.
I admit to the “frailty” of hearkening more to the cricket’s song and the call of the quail than to the staccato yammering of commerce but: “Let men, true to their natures...lead manly and independent lives; let them make riches the means and not the end of existence.... This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.” And, please, don’t mistake either Thoreau or myself for those that would abuse men at the cost of saving an owl or tree! If Truth, Fact and Reason held sway, such a “choice” would be neither “convenient nor necessary” because of the truth of the fact that: “I would rather suffer evil the natural way.... The only good one can do another is to give him an example of a true life.... and to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.”
In Thoreau’s attack on the laws and Governor of Massachusetts in which he correctly, and prophetically, labeled such laws as enslaving by keen and subtle masters worse than Southern overseers, he called to the higher law of God as evidence of the chicanery of politics. “What signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? ... Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.”
Without ignoring the fact that “getting a living” and caring for a family is of the greatest importance, acknowledging that Plato might have found the society of philosophers “comfortable” because his aunt remembered him in her will, there is still the essential need for the philosopher and poet. I could wish that the necessary poetry and prose for our time could be read with such purity by men and women that they could do so without harm and still understand. But such is not the case. Fact, Reason and Truth dictate that the issues have become such that nothing but a candid ruthlessness offers a way out of the present chaos.
One such truth is the fact that the opportunity for necessary, menial tasks that provide learning and independence are denied our young people. Just what “learning” and “opportunity” are there in “flipping hamburgers?” There is far more of building character in digging holes, weeding gardens, caring for livestock and making the earth yield her increase, of framing your own cabin on your own land, than anything our young people presently learn in our schools.
If young people could learn these tasks, and they would, given a wiser and more responsible and caring, elder generation, in the hope of maintaining their own independence and liberty, we would restore their hope of a future. Given the proper parameters of responsibility and liberty, given the proper role of the schools to advance technology by relying on aptitude and propensity rather than a dilution of the lowest, common denominator, the future could be restored to our children. Reading, writing and ciphering to the extent of necessity is learnable by the end of the fourth grade. The complexities of literature and history, of higher mathematics and science, are the purview of a society that both cherishes its young and, at the same time, acknowledges the necessity of providing those practical skills that enable young people to “do for themselves.”
Obviously having lost our moral moorings and being without a moral compass, the young bear the brunt of a careless generation that has betrayed their hope of a future, and without moral absolutes how could it be otherwise? If I’m to be labeled “Intolerant” of the agenda of sodomites, of that kind of “cultural diversity” which is engendering racial strife, destroying any hope of reclaiming the birthright of my children, if I am to be called “bigoted and prejudiced” by the enemies of my America, so be it! Let the battle lines be unmistakably drawn and take a careful look at who is doing the name-calling!
If there is to be abuse heaped, let it come on my generation that betrayed our children! Would young people be drawn to rock stars and pornography, drugs and violence if we hadn’t countenanced the evil, from the beginning, rather than taken a stand against it? Maybe it will have to come to the point that good men and women must serve their time in prison as a testimony against such an evil system that is destroying and enslaving our children. If such is the case, it would be ignoble for us to be outside of prison!
Maybe the time has come to trade the Caesar-created class of “drug criminals” for those, like myself, who harbor Thoreau’s brand of “murder of the State” in our hearts! I will take my stand with Patrick Henry who, under better circumstances than those patriots face today said: “If this be treason, make the most of it!” Far better to be adjudged of such “treason” than supporting and enabling, especially by silent acquiescence, the real treason that is presently cloaked by the infamous laws and distortions of reasonable laws, that have stolen our liberty and promises to enslave our children!
As for the churches, may God do what is necessary to bring them to their knees; this is the only position from which they have any righteous appeal to Heaven! But God has given fair warning of His judgment beginning with His Own House!
