on breaking oath

Cop chiefs of America now break their oath to preserve the nation's own Constitution for their standing armies in black fabric clothed destroy Liberty for all – everyone. This foul cheap aggression will not stand for long, for there are vast multitudes, great unarmed throngs, who take to the streets to protest what cops do when they break Amendments I VI VIII and II. Each swine made a pledge to uphold what is Right, to protect the innocent (not cause them fright), to hold themselves to pure and higher standards than worthless effluvia or mere rank turds. Cops kill more Ynki than Arab terrorists; they maim pregnant women teenagers and kids; they think themselves above the established laws; the System protects them, for it's truly flawed. To speak out is deadly to stand up the same, but still we do instead of lying ashamed on beds we all made up when Saudis – those cowards – did fly U.S. airplanes into the Twin Towers. Just after those harrowing terror events did the common citizen quickly relent and give up Protections long granted to him that the Founding Persons did fight for, and win. So take up a banner and march in the streets and record your actions in blogposts and tweets to prove to the generations yet to come that we at least tried to undo damage done.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

a Declarational pledge

In the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence, that legal document that lies at the heart of this American nation, our founding persons – and, by extension, all American citizens living or dead – declare that, “[A]ll Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness[.]” (Since starting this piece, I have read that the federal government does not consider the Declaration an active legal document because it was ratified before the Constitution by merely thirteen states, not after this republic's official establishment by the number of states we have now; so long as even a single American yearns for Liberty and the right to Pursue his Happiness as he sees best fit, however, the Declaration grants him – and us all – the right to alter and abolish our government until it creates Safety and Happiness for all, equally.) Long have our political and social leaders hewn to this pledge, laboring tirelessly to ensure that we are all blessed with freedom and justice; now, however, the Republican Party plans to destroy the essence of the Declaration of Independence by amending its sister-text, the Constitution, with a sentence defining marriage according to the Christian bible, just one of hundreds of different religious texts we turn to in this country, each and every day.

To restrict a person's right to marry whomever he should please is to rob him of his ability to Pursue Happiness; it says to him that he is worth less than others, that he was created less than equal, that his Liberty is less important than the Liberty of persons with a taste for heterosexual liaisons. Anyone with even the slightest shred of intelligence will look at the quote given above and immediately join our ranks as we fight the Republican Party's plans to abolish the rule of law and to supplant it with the rule of the church. (Which church or which faith is irrelevant; organized religion, with its fear-based indoctrination tactics, brainwashing of young people, and rigid, unyielding structure, poses among the greatest of conceivable threats to the Safety and Happiness of free-thinking, Liberty-loving individuals everywhere.)

This author finds it curious that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan prefer lies and hatred to Honor and Truth, and that they care so little for the opinions of the American people that they dare to stand up and say, Fuck everyone who isn't a hardcore Christian, fuck everyone who likes to sleep with persons of the same sex, and fuck everyone poorer than our corporate cronies and slave-masters. More shocking, however, is that roughly half of the American voting population – some seventy million (70,000,000) people – seem to agree with the vile nonsense spewing from the Republican Party, its members and representatives; when tens of millions of people abandon critical thinking and stop doubting the bullshit that is being shoveled down their throats we get things such as the Nazi's Holocaust, the Soviets' gulags, and Bush's Patriot Act; when tens of millions of people sit idly by as their leaders rack up record debts and wage wars of aggression against sovereign foreign nations, we can honestly say that America has fallen from grace, that the pledge of equality once made in the Declaration of Independence is null and void, and that our attempt to create a just and peaceful society comprised of self-reliant and self-respecting individuals who mind their own business has been trampled under the jackboots of mindless, Me-First automatons blindly adhering to poorly-formed notions and vacuous party-lines.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on the society for securing the blessings of Liberty

In the wake of all federal, state, and local government's recent refusal to follow such guidelines as are clearly worded in the Constitution of the United States of America stating that one of the few roles of government is to secure the blessings of Liberty to us, the founding persons' Posterity, by granting us, the American People, full and unconditional rights to do with our bodies and our minds as we see best fit (be it by smoking, drinking, gaining or losing weight, or cutting our hair in strange and unusual ways), the most upstanding and forward-thinking citizens of this economically-ailing and morally-oppressive nation have banded together to form the American Society for Securing the Blessings of Liberty (ASSBL).

Open to any person who swears that he or she has actually studied the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with a sober and open mind and who can prove that he or she is dedicated fully to the cause of keeping the People Safe and Happy (by staying out of everyone else's business until such time as intervention is requested by them in writing), the ASSBL seeks to guide our once-fine nation back onto the course from which it long ago strayed. Said Ebenezer Higgins IX (a direct descendant of one of the original Sons of Liberty), who was himself instrumental in the founding of ASSBL, “For too long have we granted our various governmental bodies the power to control our lives and to punish us for doing with our bodies things that do not directly infringe upon the Life, Liberty, or Property of any other person, or persons. Our brave ancestors fought and died to secure for us total freedom, which we sacrificed in 1970 with the Controlled Substances Act and then again shortly after the 9-11 attacks in order to gain a simulacrum of security against the chaotic and shifting winds of Fortune, against which there is no security that has ever or can ever be devised by humankind.”

The ASSBL was inspired by the short-lived Department for Securing the Blessings of Liberty, a government body founded by President Barack Obama that flourished for, oh, about five whole minutes before the prison, district attorney, and police lobbies had its funding revoked and arranged to have its appointed members lose their lands, to have their mouths sewn shut, and to live in constant fear of being physically and politically disappeared. Dedicated to the idea that the role of government is to protect the People from external and internal threats rather than to nitpick their every action or to put them in jail for consuming drugs other than the drug alcohol, the drug nicotine, or the drug caffeine, the Society requires of its members merely that they risk their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor to protect the Life, Liberty, and Property of their fellow homo sapiens. To sign up for ASSBL, or to donate funds to help ensure its continued existence, please call 1.877.555.GFYS, or go to www.theblessingsoflibertydonotexist.com.

場黑麥 menterefecterem fecit

on the Second Sons of Liberty

Attention, self-respecting Americans searching, perhaps in vain, for an organization attuned specifically to the concept of Liberty and all that It entails: The time has come for the founding of the Second Sons of Liberty. (See here for information on the original Sons of Liberty.) You are very welcome to comment on this article with suggestions for how best to organize a group of like-minded individuals bent on reestablishing the longstanding but now defunct notion that each free-born American citizen has the duty under not only the Declaration of Independence but also the U.S. Constitution to live her life in such a way as to satisfy her own wants and needs while not at any time, or in any way, infringing upon the Life, Liberty, or Property of any other person or persons.

For too long now have we allowed the aptly-named nanny state to dictate our actions and to try to protect us from ourselves; for too long have we called upon the state and federal governments to enforce prohibitions on the consumption of a great number of stimulating and mood-enhancing substances; for too long have we relied on outside forces to tell us what is good, acceptable, or patriotic, rather than heeding the tender inner voice of Liberty and deciding for ourselves how best to lead our own lives. The original Sons of Liberty, who labored a dozen years before their efforts culminated in a Revolutionary War that brought independence to this fine, broad land, these our brave and selfless predecessors risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred Honor to establish a nation conceived in Liberty; this idea of freedom, so harshly infringed upon by the passage of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, was further eroded by the passage of the Patriot Act of 2001; this notion has all but died from the general American consciousness, replaced by rampant consumerism and its close cousin, unnecessary wastefulness, by automobile-induced sloth, fear-of-the-unknown, over-reliance on “convenience,” and hollow proclamations of this county's supposedly inherent exceptionalism.

It is time for us to retake control of our shared, common future by focusing the national dialogue once again on the power of individual responsibility and the need to respect our shared, common virtues such as frugality, self-sufficiency, minding one's own business, and preserving the environment for the following generations. Please, dear friends, brothers and sisters alike, please secure the Safety and Happiness of the American people by joining us in this effort to found and organize the Second Sons of Liberty (which shall of course be renamed so as not to exclude persons not born male). Our struggle will not be easy, nor will it see a swift or bloodless conclusion, but it is a struggle we must undertake. Let us make sure that our children, and our children's children, are raised in a nation dedicated to little else than making us its citizens Safe and Happy.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on constitutional parameters

  The Constitution of the United States of America was established in Order to do just a few things: create a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Therefore, the federal government of the United States exists for no other reason than to enact these six simple standards; the sole purpose for the continued existence of the U.S. federal government is to ensure that these parameters are met. Beyond the fulfillment of these few parameters, the federal government has no Constitutionally justifiable reason for existence.

  To public figures (such as Bachmann, Perry, Paul) demanding reductions in the scope of government (without considering the Constitutional parameters), the following services are essential to the realization of the parameters of our Constitution, and, as such, are secure in their continuing existence (until feasible replacements are developed):

  Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid promote the general Welfare;

  The state and federal judicial networks help to establish Justice;

  The state and federal police forces help to insure domestic Tranquility;

  The Constitution, as the common document that shapes the life of every inhabitant in this nation, helps to create a more perfect Union;

  The armed forces provide for the common defence.

  Excluded from this list, however, are the elusive and hard-to-quantify Blessings of Liberty. From liberty, the citizen crafts Happiness, serenity, and peace. Absent liberty, the citizen is reduced to the level of a dumb beast – she becomes a slave incapable of rational action or independent thought. She is restricted in her liberty when denied the right to abort an unwanted fetus. His liberty is destroyed when he is denied his inalienable right to his body, and to consume drugs of his choosing. She is restricted in her liberty when she is forced to abide by the tenets of a religion not of her choosing. His liberty is under siege when he is discriminated against because of the color of his skin, his religious practices, or because of the type of head-covering he wears.

  The freedom-loving inhabitants of this nation are forced to resort to the black market to obtain the substances they desire (such as cocaine, marijuana, and heroin), substances the American citizen has every right to consume (as drug-use affects his body, which is his property to dispose of as he sees fit). The good people of this land must consort regularly with shady and dangerous people who possess of quantities of drugs unobtainable in the legitimate markets. The upstanding citizens of these shores, they who would gladly buy their marijuana (and pay taxes on it) at their local drug store, must fear for their very Freedom every time they wish to pursue their Happiness by lighting up a joint.

  The individual American has, over the course of his life, proven willing and able to fulfill the parameters of the United States Constitution, regardless of the hurdles that government puts in his way. The American citizen is already living a life of liberty (by doing that which he pleases while not infringing upon the life, liberty, or property of anyone else, which is known as “minding his own business”), although he very often has to break existing laws to do so. Domestic terrorist plots foiled in their execution since September 11, 2001 were uncovered for the most part by average citizens who took upon themselves the responsibility of providing for the common defence. (Love and respect to our brave, heroic soldiers who sacrifice regularly, for the common defence, of their time and lives.) The peaceful people of this nation insure domestic Tranquility and establish Justice by going about their daily business with serene and glowing hearts, righting any wrongs they feel are theirs to right while ignoring other wrongs chronically, wrongs such as poverty and homelessness, wrongs that in their continued existence violate the right of each and every American person to be Safe and Happy.

  At its core, my argument is that every act by any type of government in America must fulfill, in some significant way, the parameters of the Constitution. Any legislation that directly violates these parameters, such as the Patriot Act, or the Controlled Substances Act, is unconstitutional. Once legislation is designed according to these parameters, and once all government action is balanced against this short list, our country will surely revert to the horrible messiness of pure and honest liberty.

場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on safety vs. liberty

  In America today, we face a simple choice: whether to fight for our freedom or to continue on our present course, and sacrifice freedom to the hollow lie of false security. (By false security I mean the efforts by our government to control the lives the American People by restricting what they do to their bodies, and by punishing them for pursuing Happiness or for exercising Liberty, efforts that mock and destroy the tender concept of freedom by trying to make it one-size-fits-all, when it is a messy, individualistic affair too easily ruined through external tampering.)

  We, the People of America, are not a free people. We have allowed our freedom to be taken from us. We have allowed, for forty (40) years, the Controlled Substances Act to destroy our freedom to choose what to do with our own bodies (thankfully, it is not yet illegal to get tattooed, or to undergo elective surgery, two activities that alter the body just as much as recreational drug use). We have allowed the Patriot Act to do violence to the Constitution, and to rob us of our once inalienable protections. We have allowed our police to focus on sidestepping our Constitutional protections (by letting them brow-beat citizens into body and property searches, and by letting the police lie, cheat, and steal in order to bust criminals engaged in non-violent “crimes”), a focus that negates police effectiveness and that forces them daily to violate their most sacred of oaths, as they have all sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. (A police officer actively involved in persuading a citizen to give up his Constitutional protections is actively involved in destroying the U.S. Constitution.)

  We have allowed all these things to happen because we have allowed Fear into our hearts. When, in the early Seventies, we saw our crime rates rise, we blamed it solely on drug-use, and banned the use of certain substances (thereby robbing the American people of the right to dispose of their bodies any way they wanted), while not banning certain other substances – alcohol and cigarettes – substances that have maimed and murdered millions of America's sons and daughters. When faced with the consequences of our failed foreign policies (09SEP2011), we gave up our freedom, preferring to have our liberty violated by persons within our own government rather than to have it violated from without. For these reasons, we are no longer a free People. For these reasons, ours is no longer the land of the free (for Liberty knows few personal restrictions), nor is it the home of the brave (for the pure of heart rejoice always in their impending death: they fear only cowardice).

  In concurrence with the erosion of America's common dream, we have seen the erosion of our most basic and fundamental concepts. Our patriotism has been supplanted by conspicuous flag-waving and banner-hanging (very often in blatant violation of the code governing the treatment of the flag of the United States of America). Our secular morality has been high-jacked by the forces of religious conservatism (to become xenophobic proxy-racism). Gone are the days when we were told to fear nothing but fear itself: now we are told exactly what to fear, and that we have a whole lot more to fear that we ever thought we were capable of being afraid of. Our once-great traditions of story-telling and gung-ho, can-do enthusiasm have been tongue-lashed out of us by our corporate overlords; they have shriveled to almost nothing before the inexorable, terrible beauty of television.

  Brothers. Sisters. Fellow New Guards for our future Security. Now is the time for your voices to be heard. Now is the time to recover for our Posterity the promise of this land, and to free our constitutionally-guaranteed Liberty from the shackles of repression, religion, and fear.

  Freedom, much like democracy, is always messy: its expression will hurt someone else's feelings, every time. But as much sacrifice as freedom demands, it repays tenfold with deep, abiding confidence, with true and tender self-respect. So take a chance, and take your opinions known: it does not matter what you have to say, merely that you are saying it out loud, in full accordance with your Constitutional rights.

  It is easier, far easier, not to fight for the Blessings of Liberty that the Constitution guarantees: all we have to do is continue to do nothing, to let the enemies of freedom take from us the few liberties we have left.

  This cannot come to pass. Stand up. Speak out. Challenge everything.


p.s. congratulations to the United States Marine Corps for two hundred thirty six years of defending the liberty of the American people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Libertatem Defendendam - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on acting like a bitch

  The mentality of the average American voter bears certain resemblance to that of a skittish dog rescued from the pound. No matter her physical size or how well she is treated by her adoptive family, the canine will likely never shake the Fear put into her by her abusive former master(s). If when out walking she is spooked, she at times will shake off her leash and bound away at high speed, her face seeming to express an exuberant anxiety. Gracefully eluding all attempts at capture, one of the few options for bringing her back under control is to trick her into entering a vehicle (an action that normally means a trip to the park or some such thing). Once inside the vehicle, she forgets the potential for freedom unbound that lies but a quick tug of the head away, and allows the leash to be bound around her neck once again.
  So it is often with voters in this nation, especially with those who were so scared by the events whose ten year anniversary we will soon mark that they sat quietly by, cowed by Fear-driven propaganda into allowing the Patriot Act to pass unopposed, believing of the lies spewing forth from the suck-holes of power-hungry politicians desperate to expand their base, cheering as we joined the short-list of nations guilty of initiating a war of aggression, re-electing a president who forever tarnished America's long and honorable traditions by valuing the paltry benefits of enhanced interrogation over the unalienable and immutable Rights of the individual.
  A dog raised to fear is unlikely to shake its burden; an individual provided the opportunity to fear will settle gratefully into the welcoming cocoon that fear provides, forever ignorant of the beautiful savagery inherent to mankind, never doubting the actions or the rhetoric of persons claiming to have all the answers, forever trusting any individual who stokes the fires of that fear and who makes skin-deep promises that evaporate immediately upon re-election.
  When the conditions seem right, the voter is likely to break free and to dash about wildly, demanding changes in the status quo through the implementation of untested strategies championed as the solutions to our economic and societal woes, believing with exuberant anxiety in the clever deceptions of the heads shouting on TV, scrambling madly for the first door that promises even the faintest hint of Happiness only to succumb instantly, wild-eyed and out-of-breath, to fear's soothing grip as the shackles of ignorance and repression are calmly reapplied to the cardinal points of the soul.
  It is without question easier for the People to accept the oppressions to which they have become accustomed than for us to venture forth, without a backward glance or the slightest hesitation, in search of new Guards for our future Security. Unlike a tortured and skittish bitch, however, once we have broken free of the chains that have held us in check, we have the capacity to maintain that newfound freedom by consuming news from various unrelated sources, by being wary always of the power of propaganda, and by not forgetting for an instant that, as Frank Herbert said best in his book Dune, “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.”
  Fear in itself is a sufferable Evil, but fear employed by the highest powers as a tool for controlling the hearts and minds of the People is an Evil that has ceased to be sufferable. Freed from constriction, the mind is capable of feats far-reaching and grand, while a mind hobbled by perpetual paranoia functions similar to that of a broken, groveling beast who understands only the bite of the lash.

Speak freely. Stay vigilant. Spread liberty.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp