pretty much fucked

For the average citizen, ignorance of the law does not excuse him from punishment. Consider that taken together federal, state, and local laws number in the tens of thousands, and change, constantly. Without focused effort, however, most Americans commit 3 felonies a day, as Mr. Harvey Silverglate of Boston writes in his book. When looked at critically, this system seems to exist not to protect or better lives but to extort cash from or transfer into prison-slavery people who get caught breaking said myriad laws. (Please note: according to the U.S. Constitution, slavery is still legal in America, but only as a form of punishment, i.e. prison.) For the citizen working as a police officer, however, ignorance of the law - ignorance even of the fundamental tenets of the Constitution - is met not with reprimand but reward. Following Heien v. North Carolina, citizens working in the police forces can violate the rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens, first performing warrant-less searches then claiming ignorance of the Constitution’s 4th amendment protections against same. What sort of nation allows a heavily armed police force - a standing army beholden to neither established law nor the opinions of mankind - to operate free of the constraints of the very document upon which it was founded? What sort of country sends the armed agents it has chosen to enforce its laws out into the street without first making sure they understand the contents of the very document they at some point swore to protect and uphold? When a terrorist attacks, the various churches of the religion he claims adherence to come forward and denounce his violent ways. Where, however, are the voices of the various police departments around America coming forward to denounce extrajudicial executions committed by their brothers in blue? Are police unions in large numbers urging their members to stop escalating roadside encounters and stating publicly that they do not condone violent acts against unarmed civilians regardless of creed, hue, or race? The police unions are not, and great numbers of police officers are not, because citizens who work as police officers exist not to protect the rest of us but to distrust, fine, follow, track, stalk, and - if startled - shoot those of us who do not work as police officers. Now, more than perhaps ever before, the age-old concerns about watchers (and who watches them) lick hot at the forefront of the mind.

Video recordings abound of police officers shooting unarmed or legally armed average civilians out of at best fearful aggression and at worst hateful convenience. When investigated, most of the shootings are deemed justified - by an attorney general or equivalent legal party who works frequently with the trigger-happy police officer and his colleagues, who must depend on the man’s good favor to efficiently perform his daily duties, and who is thus inclined to find the man’s behavior in accordance with whatever police-specific or special laws that he and his ilk conspire to uphold and protect. (The American people have given police officers leave to break the law - to lie, cheat, and steal - in order to secure a criminal conviction. Ought we be surprised that they’ve decided to include in their list of permitted crimes that of shooting first and asking the questions later?) The lawless savagery of absolute Despotism that occurs when those supposed to keep the peace are given leave to break it - at will and without fear of punishment - runs counter to the letter of our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence. (In reality, It offers the People no protections, however, as in the opinion of the U.S. federal government the Declaration has no legal weight or legislative significance.) Among the causes that compelled the Founding Persons to declare their separation from the British empire was as follows - For Quartering large bodies of troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States(.) When reading the Declaration immediately after you finish this piece, I challenge you to substitute ‘the King of Great Britain’ with ‘the U.S. federal government.’ How similar to the conditions we face today were those which drove the Founding Persons to call bullshit and ouster their plutocratic overlords? (In a widely-circulated official Pentagon training manual, the Founding Persons - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, &c. are referred to as criminal extremists one rung below outright terrorists who would today be barred from military service). Are the conditions we currently face but another example of sic semper tyrannis, proof that a political force of sufficient size and longevity will naturally evolve into the very oppressive and dastardly power it once sought to overthrow - even a political force conceived for and supposedly dedicated to the purpose of bringing betterment and liberty to a large mass of people?

Unless we average citizens do something very soon, the million tentacles of the teenage police-state throbbing in our midst will seek out and suffocate what few freedoms we have left. Since 2001 C.E., civilians working as police officers have killed more unarmed and innocent civilians than the terrorists did on 11 September, albeit one or two and not hundreds or thousands at a time. How does one root out a beast as firmly latched to the fear-teat of modern America as a police force that slays our youth and hounds the defenseless whilst demanding knee-jerk and blind obedience to its every whim and fancy? A beast whose appetite for blood and gore never lingers, whose cruel heart pumps blood black and blue? Not quickly, efficiently, or thoroughly. To start, however, please know your rights, and record every interaction with the police. Beyond that, though, put on some lipstick and rouge, because we the People are pretty much fucked.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on naming conventions

Every state in America's South has destroyed the concept that “All men are created equal” by adding to its state constitution portions of the Christian bible's old testament. Proving themselves wholly ignorant of the fact that none of the persons who founded this American Republic saw fit to restrict the rights of free-thinking Americans of legal age who happen to be homosexuals to enter into contractual agreements with other free-thinking Americans of legal age who happen to be homosexuals, tens of millions of freedom-hating voters in Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virgina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Kentucky decided to embed the hateful opinions of their god Jehovah, or YHWH, into their states' constitutions (for an example of these dastardly and cruel opinions, read Leviticus 20, specifically verse 13). Instead of actually coming out of their hate-closets and confessing their disdain for the notion that democracy can flourish amongst the peoples of the earth only when church is kept separate from state, these misguided voters casually forgot to mention which religious text they drew upon when drafting their laws, laws that ended hundreds of years of equality amongst the various peoples of America.

In keeping with this new tradition of doing crazy things without calling them crazy things and actually getting away with it, we Lovers of Liberty shall no longer refer to smoking weed as smoking weed, but as grimble-dinks (or something similar), and our spraying of graffiti and applying of street-art will henceforth be called huddel-fugg (or something similar). Since neither grimble-dinks nor huddel-fugg have been classified as crimes by any judge known to mankind, we shall do them to our hearts' content and without even the slightest effort to hide these our preferred methods for Pursuing our Happiness as we see best fit.

The accused war-criminal former President George Walker Bush authorized the use of torture by referring to it as “enhanced interrogation techniques,”and the accused war-criminal President Barack Hussein Obama continues to violate the right of individuals not to be transported across vast distances in order to be imprisoned without trial or access to legal counsel by referring to it as “renditioning.” By committing these crimes against humanity, our highest officers have proven to mankind that we Americans are but loathsome jackasses who long ago sacrificed our sacred Honor by violating a half-dozen national and international laws in order to end the lives of persons merely suspected of having done us harm (see the slaying of the Saudi Arabian citizen known as Usama bin Laden and the killing of the American citizen known as Anwar al-Awliki). These our accused war-criminal Presidents have shown us Lovers of Liberty a way, however, of doing whatever we please without fear of punishment, retribution, or the application of clearly-worded federal, state, local, national, and international laws and statutes – we have but to do what we wish to do when we decide is best to do it and to ignore the cries and condemnation of any and all persons who demand that we stop. Unlike our accused war-criminal presidents, however, we just want to Pursue our Happiness in accordance with the Declaration of Independence and the XIV Amendment to the Constitution when, where, and how we as individuals decide is best; we shall continue to respect the Liberty of others even as we are imprisoned and abused by the various layers of American government for living lives full of Liberty and devoid of harm to other persons. What a fucking crock of bullshit we have allowed this country to become. Hrm, though, and mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on the lack of a bogeyman

For a good portion of the second half of the 20th century, the United States had a clearly defined bogeyman, fall-guy, and nemesis: the pinkies, reds, and commies of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (CCCP). Then, in the early 1990s, the CCCP crumbled, unable to keep underwriting the avarice and greed of its ruling class, unable to enforce its will upon an oppression-weary populace, and unable to keep up with the sheer might of consumption-centered capitalism coupled with the rapid mechanization and robotization as was taking place in such nations as chose to oppose it. All of a sudden, after decades of silent struggle against a highly demonized foe (see the inclusion of the phrase Under God in the pledge of allegiance that was added to show what godless heathens were the commies), America found herself without a clearly defined enemy.

Into this gap came the 9-11-2001 attacks, after which the branches of the U.S. government that were charged with defense and intelligence focused their various highly-sophisticated and well-tuned apparatuses for covert surveillance, espionage, murder, and sneak-thievery not onto an external foe but onto the very individuals whose Safety and Happiness they were supposed to bring about: the American people. We, the People, are now the enemy. We, the People, are now spied upon, listened to, and watched more closely than any terrorist or friend of terrorist who might yet be foolish enough to use means of electronic communication such as radio, cellphone, or Internet. Worst of all, however, we, the People, as a whole, do not seem to mind this oppression, preferring rather to walk the walk we have always walked it, dutifully participating in presidential elections (over which, because of the electoral college, we have little power and less influence), dutifully watching five hours of television a day, dutifully reporting to work and then, as if we were mindless automatons hardwired to strict obedience, spending our hard-earned cash on such superfluous bullshit as we were told – in multiple, exquisitely-crafted television commercials the previous evening – to buy.

There is a balance that the federal government must strike between keeping us, the People, Safe and Happy; but that balance has tilted (and not just during the Obama presidency, but also during the Bush2 and Clinton presidencies) drastically to the side of Safety at the cost of most of our Happiness. We, the People, must find a way to regain the balance that our nation seems to have lost; but, since we are rotting our minds by watching TV, and racking up consumer debt because we cannot control our own impulsive materialism, there is, I think, little hope that we might accomplish much of anything beyond become more fat and more lazy. So, with Osama Bin Laden dead, the regime of those pinkie-commie bastards long since withered away, and our worth as a people plummeting daily, perhaps we truly deserve our bogeyman status. Hrm.

場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit

gasoline: keeping the FUN in Funding Terrorism since 1938

We, the gasoline, kerosene, and crude oil sellers operating in the United States of America, would like to thank the consumers of this land for helping us to fund terrorism. A good portion of the gasoline and other crude-oil-based products we sell is pumped out of the ground by the government of Saudi Arabia, which uses the proceeds from the sale of this flammable black goo to finance terrorist training camps and to purchase weapons and matériel for terrorists cells all over the world. Ever since we first started doing business with the Saudis back in 1938, a hefty portion of every dollar given to us by good, honest, upstanding American citizens in exchange for the gasoline they use to move themselves around in automobiles we in turn have given to a state that sponsors or supports terrorism; therefore, each American who purchases gasoline in any form – be it diesel, jet-fuel, lamp oil, or regular old 87 octane – each of these supposedly patriotic Yankees is a ground-level, small-time fund-raiser for jihad-waging, freedom-hating, tower-toppling terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida and Al-Shabaab.

We here at Shell, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Amoco, Citgo, and Texaco are proud to assist the average American in perpetuating and funding terrorism around the world by continuing to do business with states that support the activities of cowardly, baby-killing mass murderers. So, dear American consumers, keep driving your cars – as much as you can and as far as you are able – and keep those dollars flowing, because the next Nine-Eleven attacks are not going to fucking fund themselves.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on our common Nazi heritage

(I had begun to write a piece lambasting Americans for our shameless and widespread use of technologies developed and perfected by the Nazis, until I realized that every person living in today's industrialized societies benefits from the murder, chaos, fear, and hatred perpetuated by those horrible people; this article has changed significantly since its inception.)

As persons living in this modern world, we benefit from and use a variety of methods and technologies that were discovered by persons known as Nazis. Many of the advances we so readily use and accept today would be impossible without the wars fought during the 20th century, wars fought specifically to counter the threat posed by the Nazis and their allies. Therefore, any individual using and otherwise benefiting from such things as highly mechanized production, the use of electric-hybrid batteries, the interstate highway system, and air-conditioning (without which neither jet-flight nor high-rise buildings would be feasible), such persons are accomplice to every atrocity and horrendous action (including the genocidal bombings at Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Dresden) that made that technology possible. Those people who jettison from their lives all vestiges of this modern world, who live, wear, and eat only such things as grow in Nature, or those who kill themselves outright, these people are free of the shameful burden of Nazism; the rest of us live with the blood of thousands of innocent people on our hands. I, the author, am just as guilty as the rest of mankind.

Without the Nazis, our modern world would not amount to much. (I applaud the efforts put forth by the brave and industrious women and men in America and her allied countries who worked on and mastered the methods and ideas – rocketry, the use of mass media in propaganda, diesel engines – pioneered by Germans during the 1930s and 40s; a spade, however, shall be called a spade.) American astronauts traveled to the moon on rockets designed and built by Werner Von Braun, who was a card-carrying member of the NSDAP, and a slave-master at Peenemünde. Without Nazis, the citizens of the world would not enjoy the privilege of traveling rapidly, and comfortably, in jet-powered aircraft, nor would we likely have developed radar or sonar technologies, without which air and naval travel become frightening and inefficient. If not for the Nazis, Albert Einstein's course in life would have been slightly altered, resulting in unknowable changes to the space-time-continuum (if, of course, one believes in such nonsense as the space-time-continuum), and he and his ideas may have benefited some country other than this, our own. And, to conclude this stress-inducing and poorly-argued piece, without the Nazis we would not likely have allowed nationalistic, fear-mongering, borderline-racist politicians such as Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, or Sarah Palin to gain such prominence on the national stage, and we would likely have found it far harder to neglect and to ignore our shared, common virtues of generosity, humility, and kindness, virtues that counter-act feelings of self-loathing, hatred, contempt, and dissatisfaction.

There is nothing more evil than hatred, and there are few dangers as great as to rely solely on mass media for one's daily news. Therefore, please turn off your TV, switch off your radio, burn your morning paper, and spend some time enjoying life's simple pleasures, such as breathing. If we are not careful, however, that too may soon join the growing list of Things Only Terrorists Do.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on lacrosse – America's native game

Long have we Yankees watched, celebrated, and played non-native, imported sports. Baseball and ice hockey come originally from Canada; American football derives from British rugby; and tennis, let alone soccer, are European sports dreamed up by tards in the Old Country. (Basketball, as a makeshift sport created in America during the middle of the 20^th century, may well have been invented here, but, compared to lacrosse, too recently to be truly and exclusively American – it is a game for the modern world.) With invasive sports taking over our airways and poisoning our hearts, we ask, Where does it stop? What native-born game shall henceforth entertainment us? To the amateur patriot seeking to wring from his republic every last drop of terrible beauty; to the action lover yearning for the speed of soccer mixed with the crash of football; to the sadist lusting after the sight of blood spurting from well-bruised, moving flesh; to all these people, the game of choice is the game that thrived here long before the white man arrived to rape, to pillage, and to defile the good dark soil with his asphalt and concrete.

Lacrosse – brutal, quick, stunning lacrosse – was played on this continent well before the first paleface made landfall. For centuries prior to the arrival of European settlers, for generations before the white man lied and cheated and murdered his shameful way into the country's vast interior, this harsh sport blossomed amongst the democratic, resource-conscious First People nations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed area, and beyond. What better way to celebrate life than to try to bash one's opponent to death?! What better way to display one's vigor and fortitude than to take one's licks and to charge at the enemy with gentle, heedless rage?! Lacrosse requires hand-eye coordination and upper-body strength similar to that of tennis or baseball, stamina and agility similar to that of soccer, and bodily contact such as that felt in football, with an wholly unusual element: net-topped poles with which a player bashes and strikes at his opposing (ball-handling) player, hitting him anywhere about the upper body (excepting the neck and head area) even when he has fallen and is lying on the ground. (Lacrosse is played by both males and females, from the middle-school level onward.) Lacrosse is not a sport for persons with weak bones, inferior blood-clotting facilities, or a penchant for weeping – it is a sport for hardened operators for whom injury, pain, and deprivation are a way of life.

To the extent that each is a honorable, rugged, unflinching, team-oriented, and hard-hitting individual, the lacrosse player resembles the self-sufficient, resource-conscious American patriot. Watching lacrosse is akin to peering back in time to the days when our problems were solved quickly and according to clearly defined rules, to a time in which decision-makers hashed things out by bashing each other nicely over the head while attempting to pluck from the sky a small, rock-hard, fast-moving round object. Oh, if only the long-silent war-whoops would once again sound from the throats of proud and self-less warriors.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on b.i.b.l.e – 2

A month ago, I wrote a piece ridiculing a bumper-sticker that read: B.I.B.L.E. – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Upon further consideration, the Christian bible does in fact contain a few passages in which the god of the Christian sect, a god called YHWH, spells out in fairly simple tones exactly how people are to comport themselves (if one actually believes that this god dictated to the members of a long-since-vanished desert tribe his outlines for living a good and a virtuous life, which I do not believe). The primary passage is found in a chapter called Leviticus, in what the Christians refers to as their old testament, under heading number 20.

In Leviticus 20, god YHWH (who is supposedly also his own son as well as a spirit known as holy) is said to demand of his followers that they murder homosexuals, people who engage sexually with animals, and those claiming to be mystics or spirit-mediums. The teachings of this bloodthirsty god furthermore demand that his followers slay in public young girls who are found not to be virgins on their wedding night, and that they put to death persons guilty of worshiping idols other than those of the Christian's own triumvirate. YHWH commands this in no uncertain language; this god makes these demands using clear and simple words; these are basic instructions by which the true Christian might prove to the member of his sect that he should survive the forthcoming progroms; they pose a way by which he might prove to his god that he is worthy of going to the sect's Happy Place In The Sky.

Please, believers in YHWH, carry out the clearly worded mandates of your god, and stop standing around bitching and moaning about abortion and the separation of church and state. If you do come at us, however, we rational, open-minded, freedom-loving people shall defend ourselves, our bodies, and our property with terrible purpose, with righteous fury, with passionate rage, and with any and all weapons at our disposal, including yours.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on B.I.B.L.E

  Last night, in Hollywood, I saw a bumper sticker that read: B.I.B.L.E – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Next to this statement was the NOTW gang sign of those loosely affiliated neo-Christians who do not consider themselves to be part of this world. A book more than a thousand pages long, a work so self-contradictory that within the first few paragraphs it makes two separate and conflicting claims of how this world was made, the Christian bible is not simple, basic, or easy – it is a confusing monstrosity too easily used to keep the weak and the spineless in line, too easily manipulated by incorrigible and vile televangelists. (Furthermore, if the supposedly faithful were to follow the orders of their Yahweh, they would be killing homosexuals and sodomist in the streets, as they are told to do in subheading 20 of a chapter called Leviticus.) I despise the NOTW crowd primarily because they lack the courage to just kill themselves and get to their Other Place already. If you can read these words, you poor born-again fools, you are of this world, and not song nor prayer shall change that.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on Our forsaken Rights

  Citizens of America: We, the People of this land are at a crossroads, pausing now to decide whether to abandon our constitutional protections or to speak out against their destruction. Not long ago, an American named Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by his government without being first sentenced in a court of the United States. This latest action should not take us by surprise - the federal government (fed) has taken away our liberty by passing the Controlled Substances Act, legislation that robs us of the inalienable Right to live however we might decide to live; it has already violated our privacy and our properties via the Patriot Act, legislation that allows for unwarranted intrusions into previously protected domains.
  Now the fed has proven willing to take also our lives without so much as a by your leave. Life, liberty, and property are supposedly immutable rights supposedly protected under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; they cannot be taken from the person individually, let alone from the People as a whole, without each individual facing the due and deliberate process of law, so that her liberty might be taken from her. (It can take years to revoke a man's right to life, with that man fighting every step to retain his sacred prize; the same process must take place, on an individual level, to revoke a person's liberty or property.) Now that the fed has proven a willingness to take freely our lives, let us honestly acknowledge that we no longer live in the country designed by the Constitution, that we can no longer expect reason from our overlords, that we sat back in quiet resignation and watched as our country was gutted from within.
  In truth, however, the American People have no protection from the overreaches of their federal government: while the 14th Amendment protects us from violations performed by the States, the Constitution does not protect our lives, our liberty, or our property, from violations done by federal hand.

  We witness with the death of al-Awlaki the unwarranted termination of American life. We witness with the Controlled Substances Act the unwarranted termination of American liberty. We witness with the Patriot Act the unwarranted termination of American privacy, and the unwarranted invasion of American property. Our inalienable Rights are being casually tossed out the window, and we sit here, helpless, smiling to hide the despair.
  Look not to Hope, for she has left these lands - with her she took Happiness, both laughing at our plans.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on paying the price

  During a recent conversation with a middle-aged woman of the conservative mind-set, she said, “The Europeans are paying the price for tolerating Islam.” When I pressed the issue, my counterpart explained that Europeans have been exposed to bombings (see here), murders (Theo van Gogh murder, see here), and extremist rhetoric (see here) emanating from the Muslim communities that have been allowed to flourish in their midst. I tried to explain to her that it was foolish to vilify an entire religion based on the actions of a few of its radical members, but she stood fast, her mind soon locked up in obvious Fear of an impending Worldwide Caliphate.
  She was reluctant to offer any kind of solution to this supposed problem, beyond the solutions I deduced by reading between the lines of her general outlook, those being either the forced emigration of any and all Muslims to places outside of Europe, or the sequestering thereof into controlled and separated communities (otherwise known as concentration camps).
  In response, I stated that America has suffered also from the decision to tolerate any and all religions, foremost among them Christianity, a religion that has spawned its fair share of murderous and extremists individuals. When pressed, I gave the examples of the 2009 abortion clinic murders perpetrated by a Christian extremist (Dr. Tiller murder, see here), the Oklahoma city bombings (see here), and the marked increase in religiously conservative and extremist rhetoric, including the widespread disillusionment that has lead many Americans (see here) to believe that this country was founded as a Christian nation (it was not – read my blog series No American Theocracy).
  I am not saying that Christianity is solely responsible for our country's woes, or that those who believe in it are necessarily bad or dangerous people, although it is true that much of the fear-based and xenophobic rhetoric heard today (see here) and a considerable number of attacks against innocent civilians (see here) emanate from the greater envelope of the Christian religion. What I am saying is that religion requires of the individual a relinquishment of his ties to clear thinking and to reason, and, with its frequent reliance on the belief that it alone is the road to the salvation of the soul and that all others are false roads that lead to eternal death and endless suffering, one can easily get carried away and do something foolish in the belief that one's actions are somehow providing pleasure or satisfaction for That Force Which Cannot Be Named.

  In these times of increasingly frequent political and economic crises, we have seen the rise of supposedly Christian politicos who loudly express their often extremist political views. When we read or hear the rantings of Islamic extremists, we are alarmed; the rational and clear-thinking American should be just as alarmed hearing some of the more radical Islamic rhetoric as he would be hearing the fundamentalist Christian views being expressed by prominent individuals such as Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin (see here). Any extremist religious opinion is a danger to society as a whole: weak-minded individuals are easily swayed by those they think are speaking to them the words of some unseen god, and the gullible will gladly participate in violence against innocents so long as they believe it might secure their place, after they die, in some fictitious realm of edible joy and eternal conga lines.
  If Europeans are paying the price for their tolerance of Islam, Americans are paying the price for our tolerance of Christianity. But to outlaw one religious practice or the other would be to destroy the fabric of our democracy and to trammel the most sacred rights granted by the Constitution, among them being freedom of religion and, more importantly, liberty of thought and deed.
  Pay the price we must, for violent acts by religious extremists will not end until religion itself has ended. To tolerate one religion is to tolerate them all; we are stuck with our extremists, Christian or Muslim, Jewish or Mormon. So if you are worried about Muslim extremists wreaking havoc over in Europe, remember that there are Christian extremists here in America who are wreaking havoc too.

  The next time some religious zealot starts screaming at you on the street corner, tell her to take a nap, and to practice her crazy beliefs at home, by herself.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp