haiku 15 Feb 2019

They pervert Justice

Who sidestep sensible laws

Using one blue line

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 5 Jul 2018

Jesus’s short creed: be kind to one another; follow Yahweh’s law?

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

a standard response

Whilst waging war bodily against the false but deeply entrenched Baltimorean idea that pedestrians do not enjoy the right-of-way while crossing a road using a crosswalk, I have had this standard response hurled frequently my way:

“Get the fuck out of the road, dumbass.”

Regardless of his apparent social or economic class, these tend to be the first words from a driver’s lips when forced (by nothing but my raised hand) to abide by the laws of the state of Maryland and bring his gasoline-powered steel battering-ram to a halt using slight pressure applied to a hinged pedal by one of his feet so as to avoid running headlong into a foot-mobile fellow citizen who is seeking to gain lawfully the other side of a roadway. To protect myself in the event of someone violently violating my pedestrian rights in a premeditated fashion, I have taken to using my cellphone to capture video of oncoming vehicles while negotiating a crosswalk, which seems to have the desired effect of forcing drivers to stop. Otherwise, few people operating automobiles appear to find anything wrong with driving in such a manner as to barely miss hitting me as they race toward the next group of cars stopped at the next red light.

Among the worst offenders are Baltimore city police officers, who as a whole don’t seem to mind breaking state law §21-502, which is but one among many of the laws they swore a sacred oath to uphold.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

car v. ped

Among the duties of citizens working for police departments is to set the example for how their neighbors ought to behave. With this in mind, here are some modified rules for operating a motor vehicle in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. (The author has personally witnessed Baltimore police officers break these laws operate according to these modified rules.)


Ignore crosswalks. It doesn’t matter if children are trying to cross the road or there’s traffic stopped at a red light ahead - if you’re in a car, you have the power to crush any living human being. Use that power to intimidate pedestrians into leaping backward out of your way. Both Maryland and Baltimore laws require drivers to yield to pedestrians who are trying to walk across a road in marked or unmarked crosswalks. Fuck those laws.

Ignore road markings. If you’re in a car, feel free to use any lane, including bicycle-only lanes. Also, feel free to cross double yellow lines and veer into oncoming traffic to avoid slowing down - even for a fraction of a second.

Ignore stop signs. As long as you’re marginally confident that no one else is coming and you’re the only person driving that day, don’t come to a full stop at a stop sign. Coasting through a stop sign is as good as fully stopping. The cops do it - why shouldn’t you?!

Don’t use turn signals. If other people can’t read your mind or accurately guess what you’re about to do before you do it, they shouldn’t be out on the road. Also, don’t put on your hazard lights when double-parked - cause a traffic jam by just sitting there.

Turn your headlights on only at night. Using daytime running lights reduces the risk of getting in an accident significantly. Fuck those statistics. Flicking one knob, once, with your left hand, is simply too much work.

Park wherever you like. If this means blocking a marked crosswalk or the entrance to a shopping plaza so you can go and get a soda on a hot day, do it. Pedestrians have legs and can walk around your illegally parked vehicle, and other drivers can hurry up and wait while you do your business.


Fit in by following these modified rules. Drive it like you stole it, and don’t slow down for nothing.

(This is a work of satire. Please educate yourself about your state’s laws regarding the rights of pedestrians in a crosswalk. Follow those and other pertinent traffic laws. The author is a defender of the rights of pedestrians; he regularly puts his healthy and safety on the line assisting others to cross roads safely.)

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

in dire straits

A lone American football player exercises his right to free speech using the public platform at his disposal. In response, an entire police department threatens to not do its job. By merely sitting quietly while others stood, this man sparked a national debate about free speech, respect, and honor. This conversation addresses questions swirling at the core of the American experiment. May citizens of this nation express themselves freely or should they be forced to stand at attention and display mindless devotion to a rectangular piece of cloth? The American flag represents a living nation. As such, it is a living thing that may not be glued or otherwise affixed to any article of clothing. Who enforces these federal flag laws that make it a crime to wear an American flag t-shirt? Will the police department in question start issuing citations to the tens of thousands of citizens who attend baseball games using the flag as wearing apparel - hats and shirts with a living thing illegally glued to them? A person walking down the street with a labrador retriever stapled to the front of his sweatshirt would be soon arrested for animal cruelty, but millions of Americans commit flag cruelty every day, and get away scott free. When a police department is allowed to choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore, when it publicly threatens to walk away from its duties and only a few citizens find that troubling, the republic for which the flag stands is in dire straits. To parrot the words of a current presidential candidate - people who don’t like free speech should leave America and find another country that works for them, a place where obedience is strictly enforced and any lack of respect for arbitrary symbolism is met with harsh and rapid sanction. That may sound like paradise to some, but it sure as syphilis doesn’t sound like one to me.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

on losing a single vote

I shall not vote during this presidential election cycle. Normally, in the past, I made sure to cast my ballot one way or the other, even if I resided in a state in which, due to my being in the clear political minority, my vote did not count. (Why are there instances in which votes do not count, and why are there only two parties to represent the political interests of over one hundred and fifty millions of individual voters? America's system of representative politics is strange, corrupted, and unjust, indeed.)

Being in a battleground state (Pennsylvania), and living as I do in a predominantly politically and socially conservative area (York County), I know that I should vote this November, but our sitting president, Mr. Barack Obama, has lost my support, and his opponent – a fabulously-rich 1%er named Mitt Romney – embodies so many of the things that I see as wrong with this nation that I would sooner put out my own eyes with a melon-baller than cast a ballot in his favor. Up until recently, Mr. Obama had my support, but he signed NDAA 1540 into law, a defense bill which allows the government of the United States of America in instances of martial law to imprison her own citizens indefinitely, and without trial. (To be fair, NDAA 1540 was ratified unanimously by both the House and Senate, thus implicating all sitting Congresspersons and Senators in this, their most recent crime against Liberty.)

The Constitution of the United States of America contains provisions designed specifically to guard us – the people – against just such tyrannical overreaches. In the first Amendment, the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting[…] the right of the people[…] to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," and in its fifth Amendment the document states that, “No person shall be[…] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” NDAA 1540 makes it so that the American citizen is viewed as a criminal, as a worthless lout, as no better than those dirty Taliban fellows we have spent so much time, blood, and treasure trying to kill over the last ten years; it rescinds the citizen's right to redress grievances; and while federal, state, and local governments have violated the fifth Amendment for decades now by enforcing blanket restrictions on the liberty of the people to smoke or snort or shoot any such drugs they should wish to consume, NDAA 1540 deprives them of their liberty for nothing more than speaking out, or, merely, for being outside of their homes at the wrong time.

This defense bill sounds the death-knell for our country's 224-year-long experiment in individual freedom, granting our government such fantastic power as to make it the most clear and present danger to the rights of mankind that the world has ever seen. Welcome to the police-state, ladies and gentlemen, and get ready for a good, hard rear-ending, because I have the feeling that our leaders in the White House and Congress are only beginning to flex such increasingly awesome might as we have allowed them to give themselves lately. Fellow Children of Liberty, weep with me in shame as we bask in the afterglow of our nation's abject failure, kneeling as we do among the shredded gowns of our goddesses Liberty, and Justice. This November, I shall choose not one of these two evils but none of them, preferring rather to sacrifice my sacred franchise upon the forgotten altar of silent disobedience, since neither of these men is worthy of the post of President. America delenda est.

場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit

on fliers and vandalism

America's cities are waging war against those of their citizens who beautify with graffiti the visually sterile urban environment. Deemed a nuisance and incarcerated frequently on charges of vandalism, today's street artist is treated with revulsion and disdain and badgered incessantly by city councils and police forces alike. These brave and selfless individuals venture forth constantly in their efforts to bring color and joy to the bland and unadorned phaltscape. Yet beyond these fearless individuals, there are others who do much as graffiti artists do, but who act without fear of repercussion or punishment – those people who put up fliers for lost and missing cats or dogs, to offer home cleaning or grooming services, and to guerrilla-advertise goods and services somewhere other than in a penny publication.

The self-advertising city dweller will tape her message to her neighborhood telephone pole with many turns from a roll of clear packaging tape, or she will staple it to her local tree enough times to keep it affixed even in gale-force winds. But unlike the graffiti artist, this city dweller will go about her business in full daylight without being talked to, approached by, or otherwise harassed by John Law. To harness this new and liberating reality, and to prove to the world that they are not ashamed of their actions, SDUBS (self-directed urban beautification specialists) in major metropolitan areas across America are setting up websites that parallel the messages they apply to physical sites in order to justify their beautification efforts as those of self-promotion (should such justification be necessary, which it rarely is, as SDUBS go about their business with cat-like stealth and formidable deliberation).

Beyond the positive effect of making bland cities more colorful, these newest, cross-genre efforts by America's SDUBS increase the number of people visiting their respective cities by showcasing the artwork they have labored so hard to produce, artwork which they apply freely and without demanding recompense. And unlike his self-promoting, guerrilla-advertising, house-cleaning-while-hair-cutting neighbor, the street artist is not trying to sell anything – he wishes only to pursue his Happiness without restriction, and to beautify his drab surroundings in peace.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

American theocracy - 2

  In my writing, I am often more critical of Christianity than of the hundreds of other religions practiced every day in these United States. America is not a Christian nation, nor is it Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or Taoist. This nation was not founded upon the principles of any one belief system. Therefore, we as a nation cannot allow one religious group, under any circumstance, to incorporate their beliefs into the laws of our land; we can ill afford to take sitting down the intractable religious rhetoric spewing from the orifices of our public figures.

  Someone asked me recently: "Why are you so critical of Christianity? No one will defend Christianity, so you are better off taking Islam to task – that will drum up more controversy, boosting readership numbers on your blog in the process."

  I am loathe to attack Muslims because: they are not attempting to define legally the parameters of marriage according to their own religious texts; they are not attempting to restrict legally, again according to their religious texts, a woman's inalienable right to do to her property, her body, whatever she pleases (such as aborting a fetus), a right granted to all women under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; they are not attempting to claim for their own the reference in the Declaration of Independence to Nature's God, a moniker broad enough to encompass, in the spirit of true egalitarianism, the deities of all systems of belief, not a direct reference to one god in particular. (If, instead of Nature's God the Declaration read Yahweh, I would concede the field to the Christians, but it does not, so I will stand my ground.)

  In comparison, Christians are laboring to define marriage according to the books they consider holy (see here); they are trying to take from the women of this land the right to their bodies, their property, by making abortions illegal (see here); they claim that Nature's God refers to Yahweh, the god of the Christians, the father of Jesus (see here), when Nature's God could refer to anything from the Universe, to Chaos, to the Great Spirit once known to the Indian tribes.

  We hear in the news about the dangers of an Islamic caliphate arising in the Middle East. (For one example of this, see here.) Here in America, we face the dangers of an impending Christianity-based theocracy. Any system of government that rules according to the code of a specific religion will, invariably, subjugate those people living under it to its own laws; it will stifle freedom of expression by striking fear in the hearts of honest but non-believing citizens; it will, when challenged, resort to barbaric and unreasonable action to silence dissent; and, most crucially, it will render unattainable to ourselves and to our Posterity the Blessings of Liberty by coercing us into recognizing and worshiping a suicidal zombie who, being “one with god,” as the “holy spirit” impregnated his own mother.

  For an example of the horrors inherent to religious rule, look into life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. We, as a nation, must fight the efforts currently under way to further codify into law one religious doctrine in particular, no matter how long that religion has been practiced here or what percentage of the population holds it to be true. We cannot allow our fundamental principles to be made subservient to the beliefs of one specific religion: our republic, our rights, our liberty, and our lives are at risk. American flexibility and inventiveness will suffer under religious rule – these characteristics that we hold so highly will wither and die if confined in a closed and unchanging framework based on the writings of a desert people who lived in the Iron Age many thousands of years ago. To do any of these things would be to shatter fully our frail democracy, our tenuous republic.

  Future generations will cheer our efforts at maintaining a republic dedicated to the principles upon which it was founded, those being the general Welfare, a more perfect Union, the establishment of Justice, the domestic Tranquility, the common defence, and the Blessings of Liberty. If our nation were to fall under the sway of the religious zealot, even a supposedly pious zealot possessing of convincing fear-mongery, these founding principles would fall prey to the demands of righteous necessity.

  The Christians of America have not been subjected to a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations – thus, they have no Right, no Duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security: their communities are not under siege, their places of worship are being built regardless of location, they are not being attacked in taxi cabs, or in the streets. I believe in freedom of religion. I envy the faithful for their unfaltering belief. I support fully the right to pray to the god of your choosing in public or in private. I will not, however, stand idly by as born-again, my-way-or-the-highway, ultra-conservative types vie for this country's highest office with dreams of dominionism dancing in their eyes.

Fight theocracy in the U.S.A. Act now, for the forces of oppression seldom rest.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

American theocracy - 1

  A dangerous effort is under way in these United States of America – the effort to define the concept of marriage, and its societal and legal ramifications, according to the code of a specific religion. If allowed to progress unopposed, this effort will abolish the concept of the separation of church and state as set forth in the U.S. Constitution. This effort is an assault on the liberty of the American people, and we can ill afford to further bind our nation to the tenets of one religion among the many that here persist. Just as we would not incorporate into our most hallowed documents the parameters of Shari'a law, or the teachings of Lord Krishna, we must not shackle ourselves to the strictures of the Christian religion, even though that religion is practiced by a relatively large portion of the U.S. population.

  For if these efforts were to succeed in binding the concept of marriage to the code of one specific religion, we would be forced to abide by all of Yahweh's clearly-stated mandates, including the one regarding the murder, in front of the father's house, of new wives found deflowered (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB), mandates that would result in the abolition of Justice, the loss of the domestic Tranquility, and the nullification of the Blessings of Liberty – our code of laws would become subject to the whims of a blood-thirsty and destructive god with a long and well-documented history of genocide and mass murder (see the Midianites, and the denizens of Jericho, Sodom, and Gomorrah).

  George Washington and John Adams said, and the contemporary Congress agreed unanimously, “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” (see the Treaty of Tripoli). These were more than idle words spoken in private, more than a backroom speech made to moneyed sycophants: these words were part of an official declaration made to a foreign government in hope of a future free of strife; they were written to placate the heated ire of another people by stating that we as a nation will not, under any circumstance, abandon rationality or assume to pass legislation based on the ethical code put forth by a god that demands loyalty above all, a god that ignores the balance of our needs and our desires, a god that seeks to rid us of the knowledge of a unifying and perpetual energy that lurks among the passions of our lives, a god that demands strict adherence to the myriad rules contained within the Christian bible, but one religious book among many.

  We are not a nation established on the concepts of one particular religion. We are a nation founded to establish Justice and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. We do this by guiding our country, through legislative act, executive lunge, and judicial rule, via rational and lively debate, toward the emancipation of Happiness and Security among the People, not through rule of fear or codex, but through the application of our vast collective potential in service to all peoples of this land, not simply to a diminishing minority of the fabulously rich.

  Fight this impending American theocracy. If your governor prays to Jesus for an end to the woes facing your state, vote him out of office as soon as you can. If your Congresswoman claims to be guided by voices in her head that she thinks are her god, if she boasts of blind fealty to god and husband, write to her and demand she relinquish her post. There is room for faith in the hearts of the American people, but it must remain there and not pollute the halls of government – in those halls is room only for rational and measured debate focused on securing to ourselves and our Posterity the Blessings of Liberty.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp