haiku 25 Apr 2018

Tales of ancient lands
Heroes who face villains dire
And fight for freedom

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

mountains to meet

Give a man a task, and tell him when it’s due, and he’ll move mountains to meet that goal.
Give him freedom without teaching him responsibility, however, as well as a slender magic slab to distract him, and he’ll wile away his days in pursuit of hollow, fleeting pleasures.

With the People so well engaged yet so poorly parametered, it’s no wonder that American society slides into ruin.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

where freedom reigns

Hope simmers today in America - hope for Liberty! During a recent trip to Washington State, this author experienced a brief taste of the true power simmering behind the unalienable (but heretofore aliened) rights set forth by the Constitution and Declaration. Rather than having to arrange shady dealings, persons in that State who desire to pursue their Happiness with the help of marijuana are free to do just that; rather than being forced into the shadows or hounded by cops, people who enjoy weed can in that State consume their stimulant of choice anywhere cigarette smokers also can, be it in public or private. Oh how the police in that State must be fuming now that the spigot of funds has closed that once flowed from the federal government into their coffers in support of the war on drugs (and against freedom). In a State where the people are free to smoke the chronic bubonic without fear of brutal nanny-state intervention, 40 years of anti-American policing actions have come to a grinding halt.

This author salutes the brave Washingtonians who are standing up to oppression by sparking up their joints; his heart is buoyed by the levels of freedom regained by valiant acts of righteous disobedience in pursuit of personal Liberties. The body of each citizen is the ultimate repository of life, liberty, and property as set forth in the Fifth Amendment; because his body is his life and his liberty and his property, anything he does to his body without infringing upon anyone else’s body is a protected act. Once all Americans call for the end of the war against Constitutionally protected activities (i.e. the war on drugs), this nation will shudder with vibrant energy as hundreds of millions finally breathe freely. Huzzah.

JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

dark & discreet

To fascist drumbeaters like Trump and Le Pen: we’re not at all surprised to see you again. Not more than a century back in the past was when we encountered and beat you at last but you showed up here in our calm midst again with confidence saying who’s foe and who’s friend. The masses you fool with a message of hate and promises to make brown folks emigrate but once wed with power corrupted you’ll be will drench in blood these shores from sea back to sea. Now fear stokes a fire that only is fed by listening to voices up in the head that champion anger and champion spite corrupting the ego both morning and night. This will not end pretty this will not end well and soon we’ll be swept into a right-wing hell where anyone who dares to strike or speak up will quick taste the heel of a jack-booted thug. With basic rhetoric and too-simple terms these wax-paper leaders the principles spurn upon which their nations long functioned and turned aloof to the lessons that history learns. So up now in unison we can defeat most any opponent or foe we might meet with methods bold brash brazen dark & discreet be it through the wires or out in the street. All antifa red-shirts anarchists and such who value their freedoms and value them much: let’s shake off the shackles of madness and hate and that without dally lest we be too late.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

prayer and guns

No matter their flavor or doctrine or creed, religious extremists clearly feel the need to tell other people how to lead their lives, how to raise their children, how to dress their wives. This happens not only in the Fertile Crescent but also among American Protestants who claim that their nation is a Christian one then try to enforce it with prayer and guns. To us who've kept thinking it is hard to see the forces of ISIS, of Christianity, parading and boasting and spreading by might the teachings and habits that they see as Right. To live life in freedom by my chosen rules to me is worth more than a mountain of jewels; to live life in constant, perpetual fear that there maybe could be an extremist near just takes the wind out of my billowing sails and makes me weep buckets and flagons and pails. So stand up and fight for your right to choose to wear pretty dresses or to drink some booze, to worship in this house or nowhere at all, to stay down or get up right after a fall. This here call to action may not be too loud, it may not much rile up the masses and crowds, it is though a call for more pure anarchy and for less of religious insanity.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

fuck the state

The Red Son costume is finally complete – authentic ushanka hat with Soviet emblem, hand-drawn Commie Superman t-shirt, weathered gray worker's cape, hammer & sickle belt buckle, and gray pants tucked into high leather work boots. The party is for D.C. political types, mostly Libertarians. I am Red Son, Proletarian Superhuman, and I fear nothing. “Stalin?” people ask incredulously, gawking at me as Obama Robbin' Hood or Spiderman, American Revolutionary or Roaring Twenties flapper. A doe-eyed woman in tight dress and fake-fur coonskin cap says she will go home with me if I make good on my threat to PETA her ass with a gallon of blood. Later, I watch her reluctantly let a man kiss her on the mouth. I am a Proletarian Superhuman; my heart is pure. The inside of the house on the quiet residential street is lit by black-light, and someone has used black-light sensitive tape to write Fuck The State over a prominently-placed Gadsden flag. We chant this slogan while dancing to techno beats, our bodies gyrating wildly as our hearts swell with thoughts of Freedom. I find a flashlight in the grass out back and return it to the mercenary types guarding the front gate, who assure me that their semi-automatic rifles are fakes spray-painted black to look real. I am faster than a speeding bullet; I fear nothing. Next to the backyard bar, near the fire-circle, someone has placed a pumpkin engraved with a hyper-accurate likeness of Lindsey Graham. Our ardor is high, our spirits flicker, aroused. “Have you heard about the revolution?” a man dressed as Trotsky keeps yelling from his post by the kegs of beer. For a spell, he and I harangue all passersby, speaking vehemently of revolution and demanding that our voices be heard. I am a Proletarian Superhuman, and I would like to speak to you about something important. I make a game of pretending to mistake both guys dressed as Where's Waldo for lighthouses – they are gracious and laugh with me; they refuse to be offended. A sexy border patrol agent and I briefly suck face, with me grabbing her mammoth breasts through her shirt, but she is a smoker and I am repulsed by the taste of her mouth. The night deepens; a neighbor calls the cops. “I wish we could smoke some more weed,” a man in a strap-on Amish chin-beard says while inhaling candy from a table over by the kegs. I a Kal-L, chocoholic. Tell me: Do you have a moment to speak about the revolution?

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

freedom to choose

Some time ago, NPR aired a debate about whether or not Pennsylvania should sell off the liquor stores it owns and operates. During this debate, a woman advocated for the rights of consumers to have access to the best possible selection of booze, saying that choice is freedom and that freedom is the American way. (The author is paraphrasing here). Since 1971, the federal government of the United States of America has waged war on the right of every person under its jurisdiction to choose for himself which drugs to introduce to his body; since passage of the Controlled Substances Act of 1971 (CSA), Liberty has been under constant and incessant attack from local, state, and federal government, the very agents who should have been protecting her, all along.

When the state makes some drugs illegal (weed, coke) while profiting from and promoting the sale of other drugs (alcohol, nicotine), it chooses sides, sending millions of non-violent persons to jail for wanting to do with their bodies as they saw best fit. The XIV amendment to the Constitution was designed to protect against just such governmental overreach, stating: “[no] State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law[.]” If a person should demonstrate an inability to handle certain drugs without posing a threat to himself or others, he should be banned from consuming those drugs. Individuals, however, who have not been banned by a judge from smoking weed should feel free to do so as often as they wish; no aspect of the Constitution gives any branch of our government the right to infringe upon the common freedom of all individuals living in America by passing a law as destructive to our inalienable and immutable rights as is the tyrannical Controlled Substances Act of 1971.

In the 42 years since adoption of the CSA, the business of punishing and incarcerating non-violent Americans for consuming and possessing their drugs of choice has become big business. Lawyers, judges, parole and police officers, wardens, jail builders, and drug warlords all continue to profit from the ban on certain drugs. We the People must make the right to choose inalienable once more and strike down the prohibitions currently in place; then, the individuals just mentioned would have to go out and get jobs of actual usefulness instead of being allowed to game a system that punishes freedom-loving Americans for pursuing their Happiness as they see best fit. A person's body is the only piece of property he cannot live without; he may do with it as he pleases so long as he is not infringing demonstrably upon the right of any other person to life, liberty, or property. To lock someone up for changing his brain chemistry by smoking weed is no different from locking him up for changing his brain chemistry by eating a large bowl of sugary breakfast cereal. Let us realign ourselves with this nation's founding principles and legalize the freedom to choose by ending the madness that has brutalized Liberty every day for the past 15,330 days. Fight tyranny; act freely; defend Liberty. Mahalo. 

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

no se permite

We are fortunate that the author Jack Kerouac lived when he did; if he were alive today, he would be in jail for vagrancy. His was a subtle and unique culture, one we lost when the era of the tramp came to a close, when we Americans came to see people who are perpetually on the move as threatening and dangerous, when we passed laws to outlaw their existence, effectively destroying a unique culture, language, and way of life. Kerouac wrote his book On The Road in the heyday of the vagabond, in that glorious period when hitch-hiking was not illegal, when strangers and transients were looked upon as humans rather than scum, when it was still possible for the auto-less to make their way across our fine continent on conveyances other than corporate-run buses, trains, or airliners. If the author would have attempted to live such a life in our current era, he'd have been marginalized, spat upon, and despised by uncaring people who gladly pay five dollars for an cup of coffee.

The life of the tramp had its inconveniences (bad weather, hunger) and its perils (dogs, floods, robbers), but it was also a deeply American condition, a restless embodiment of the notion that a new life awaits on the other side of this ridge, on the far bank of that river, on the shores of some distant ocean. The tramp trusted in the chalk marks left by of his fellow vagrants, ciphers that alerted him to a hostile town or to one with generous inhabitants, that told him where labor was available for the eager but wanderlustig. It is unlikely that we will ever have another author such as Kerouac, another person able to perambulate across the land in the manner of Herodotus and Pliny before him, absorbing and retelling the stories he heard, a person who has made the way his goal. In this country, we see greed and egocentricity as virtues, when, in my opinion, they are the beginning of folly, cul-de-sacs that nearly always end in mid-life-crises during which the individual lays down his lust for money to pursue something he knew would make himself and the people around him intrinsically Happy.

Today, we are a nation of clones, a people resigned to rigid conformity. We were founded, however, as a nation of Many who shared a common binding purpose: to make of ourselves One, to pursue a common Happiness in a thousand different ways. I fear, however, that we have over-legislated, that we have made so many things illegal in an effort to protect ourselves from potential harm that we may never again know the destructive but necessary process of upheaval. We have made it difficult to wander the land in search of an undefined yet important goal, a goal found neither in the cubicle farms of the corporation nor in the halls of our supermarkets, a goal that eschews materialism for spiritual tranquility. There is no going back – the child-like wonder and inherent purity exhibited by the characters in On The Road have been drowned out by the white noise of the television, supplanted by the ferocity of religious extremism, and paved over by the hatred that hides in an Us Versus Them mentality. Woe be unto us, for we have strayed from the Path and calcified in our ways, blinded to subtlety and humor, convinced that turban-wearing bogeymen lurk in every shadow, and wary of things we do not understand. If more of us cared less, if some of us could but wander for a spell in search of nothing in particular, we might all be better off.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on freedom's price

Ask most any motorcyclist sporting a leather vest, jacket, or chaps, and he'll say that “The freedom of it” is one of the primary reasons that he rides. Ah yes, seductive and elusive Liberty, she who beckons from near and far, always around us but forever just out of reach, always tantalizingly close yet frustratingly far away, how we love her! We think about freedom, yearn for it, love it, enjoy it, abuse it, and harp on it, speaking of it in hushed tones and genuflecting before that giant copper-clad statue of goddess Liberty standing in New York's harbor to welcome the poor and the huddled masses to these our bountiful shores. Some people among us – the aforementioned bikers first and foremost – seem to be trying to actively execute their right to freedom by riding around on big, motorized machines that pollute the air we all breathe and shatter the quiet we all enjoy.

Everything comes at a price, even Liberty, and the price we citizens pay for the bikers' freedom is higher than most: we arm our young men and women and fly them to sovereign nations in the Middle East and Central Asia where they kill and maim and bomb in order to secure a steady supply of gasoline for all of those in-line flathead v-twin noisemakers; we give Arabian oil sheiks American dollars to pay for gasoline to run all those hogs, perfectly content in the knowledge that some of our money will be used to fund terrorist organizations such as Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and Hamas; we maintain diplomatic missions, puzzle over foreign trade policy, and arrange trade treaties so that bikers might wear t-shirts and vests made by foreign manufacturers emblazoned with the symbols of these United States, Old Glory printed on Bangladeshi cotton, the Stars and Stripes stitched into Vietnamese cowhide; we inhale the fumes of their idling engines and wince with every revving of their obnoxiously-loud tailpipes while wishing they would just all go home, read a book, and think about how downright lame their little scooters are.

Motorcyclists actively decrease their own amount of personal Liberty by relying on complicated machines to move them around; to maintain their little slices of freedom they are beholden to mechanics, parts manufacturers, tassel twisters, carburetors, regulators, and tow truck drivers. If motorcyclists would take a moment to examine the roots of the craze for two-wheelers, they would find the lowly wire donkey, the velocipede, the muscle-powered bicycle. Oh, if only these fools would throw off the chains of slavery to oil-pumping Arabs and wrench-chucking mechanics and return en mass to the device that grants its user nearly unbridled freedom, the crank-powered bicycle. Just think how quiet our world would be, how greatly motorcyclists could improved their health and fitness, and how much less gasoline we would have to kill and maim and bomb for if we could but free Liberty from the demands of endless warfare and disassociate her from mundane pettiness and wasteful sloth. When someone wears a vest upon which is printed a picture of a bald eagle wrapped in the American flag floating above a chopper-style motorbike while riding on a chopper-style motorbike, that person proves only his disrespect for the stars and stripes and his love for redundancy; when he relies on a combustion engine to move him across the face of the earth rather than letting his thigh and calf muscles drag him across that selfsame phaltscape, he puts nothing on display but his laziness and lack of vigor. Please, dear reader, if you love Liberty, value human health, and respect the lungs and eardrums of other people, sell your hog, buy a velocipede, and be free. Mahalo.

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)

laws to obey

Roughly a hundred and forty years ago, the persons who founded this American republic staked their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor on a simple yet profound document. Calling it the Declaration of Independence, these people wrote a text that is as powerful today as it was then, shaping our minds, our hearts, our common desires and destinies. The Declaration defines not just the rights of the entirety of humankind to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, but also the expectations we have for government, in clear and unequivocal language, cementing in the minds of millions of downtrodden persons across the globe the notion that they have the right to be ruled as they see best fit by an entity whose sole purpose it is to make them Safe and Happy.

And, yet, the federal government of the United States of America considers the Declaration to be a dead and useless document, one that We the people of this land cannot use to correct our systems' failures or to turn to for protection from our leaders' overreaches. The federal government justifies this position by claiming that the Declaration only applied to the thirteen original signatory States, and, since we have more than thirteen States today, it no longer grants us the right to shake off the stifling grip of corrupt rule or to free ourselves from the smothering grasp of tyranny. Such an opinion is indeed estimable to tyrants only, not to the democratically-elected leadership of a free and honest people. Not only would such a stance – if applied equally to all legislation passed to date by our houses of Congress – negate all laws but those issuing anew from our legislature each and every year, it would require lawmakers to continuously redefine, on a regular basis, this nation's entire legal framework. Let us take the feds at their word, though, and look at the world for a moment through their cruel and twisted eyes.

The Declaration was ratified unanimously by the Congress of the United States of America; it has been passed down from mother to son and from father to daughter, inspiring countless acts of courageous defiance and helping to lift entire generations out of the stifling sewer of poverty and oppression. In line with federal contempt for the Declaration of Independence, however, let us commonly ignore the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 – which was passed by a Congress other than the one sitting currently – and take any drugs we wish to take. Let us also ignore the provisions of the Patriot Act – which was passed by a Congress other than the one sitting currently – and regain the rights and freedoms that it took from us. Let us ignore the cruel and unusual provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act – which was passed by a Congress other than the one sitting currently – and marry whom we please, be that person man, woman, or something in-between. Is it lunacy to assume that laws only apply while the legislature that passed them is in session, and that they fall by the wayside once it convenes? If this were so, our police forces might actually serve and protect the citizenry rather than abuse us and seek to revoke our personal, human freedoms; if this were so, persons among us – such as Mitt Romney – who exploit loopholes in the tax code for personal financial gain and to the detriment of our nation's treasuries, damaging the welfare of those of us who cannot afford to hire the best tax attorneys money can buy, such persons would be punished for their evil and un-American ways and forced to play nice like everyone else. Even trying to think in such a way chaps my buns to no end; even trying to rewire my brain to see the Declaration of Independence as anything but mankind's ultimate living document drives me to the brink of tears. But, dear friend, this is the land in which we live; our federal and state overlords treat us how we allow them to treat us, in the manner of docile livestock. Perhaps we deserve not Life nor Liberty nor to Pursue our Happiness, only to live as corporate wage-slaves desperately clinging to dim memories of justice and equality for all. There is another way, however, a way for us to live in complete Liberty while looking out for each others' Lives and Fortunes, but we shall never live such a life unless we stand as one, right now, and create for ourselves the type of country that the Declaration of Independence once envisioned, wresting freedom from the corrupt individuals who make up our tyrannical and oppressive government. So stand up, speak out, and demand the right to Pursue your Happiness as you decide is best. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

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 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

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 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

encylopediamericanifesto - phaltscape withdrawal

  The phaltweary smog rider proves her phaltworthiness by bicycling the phaltscape. The evidence of her efforts lie in her callused hands, in her creaking bones, and in gritty, fleeting smiles that threaten sometimes to skate across her youthful and vibrant face. She accepts her station in life so long as she is allowed the exhilarating freedom of gliding around town atop a skinny metal sled. If she can ride smog in the city of her choosing, she has beef with no man.

  But what happens when injury, weather, or mechanical failure incapacitate the smog rider, and keep him from his Rounds? He will descend slowly but surely into the same type of madness that inflicts any proud and majestic beast that is kept away from its preordained way of life. Similar to a tiger taken from the jungle, the smog rider who cannot ride will develop a variety of diseases, among them shingles, bulimia, and long spells of wild-eyed, howling insanity. He will move about the area in which he is confined with increasingly erratic and violent movements until such time as he must be contained to avoid damaging himself. The color will flee from his once-rosy cheeks, he will put on weight, and his overall happiness will decrease markedly.

  If your smog-rider begins to develop symptoms similar to those mentioned above – if she turns cranky, impatient, or bossy, or if she loses sight suddenly of the horrible beauty of life itself – get her onto a bicycle and out in the phaltscape as quickly as you can. Every school-aged child knows that to keep an animal locked up far from its usual habitat is cruel and unusual punishment. She who smog-mashes, her insanity dashes.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on the pagan power of capitalism

  Capitalism, with all its evil and all its ills, has had one definitely positive affect on American society: to rid our pagan holidays of religious contamination. Neither morality nor meaning matter in the eyes of capitalism – the only thing that matters is making more money. For example: capitalism has freed the ancient holiday of goddess Eostre from the clutches of biblical oppression. As a holiday that once celebrated that goddess who makes women fertile (and the land grow green again), the festival we now know as Easter was high-jacked by religious forces and co-opted for their own narrow uses. In the last half century, however, the ever-grasping paws of capitalistic greed have freed Easter from the Shackles of Scripture, so that we once again celebrate lustful procreation (symbolized by the rabbit) and the return of the teeming things (symbolized by daffodils and other such flowers).

  Similarly, the holiday of the winter solstice, an occasion that has been marked throughout the centuries with lights mounted on pine trees. This holiday was taken hostage by the forces of Christianity, forces that bastardized the logical marking of the passage of time and tied it to the fictitious birth of a fictitious god in a land far removed in time and space. The passing of the winter solstice was only recently liberated by the uncaring hand of capitalism – an emphasis on Santa Claus and the profuse giving of gifts has replaced, thankfully, the (biblically) unspecified day upon which a young lady gave birth, in a (biblically) unspecified structure, in an (biblically) unspecified place, to a male child. (The story of Jesus is a precise retelling of the story of Horus, an Egyptian god born of a virgin who died only to arise from death after three days.) Now, instead of worshiping some stagnant and foreign godhead, during the darkest days of winter we celebrate the coming-together of loved-ones, and shower them with presents as a sign of our affection. Gone are the days of the churchly mandate – capitalism has finally, and for good, removed Christ from Christmas.

  And, most importantly (to me, at least), the uncaring and voracious greed of capitalism has removed any shred of religiosity from the delightfully pagan holiday of Halloween. What started as a heathen ritual to mark the beginning of winter was commandeered by Christian forces, who turned it into All Saint's Day, on which day only the dead of that religion were praised (in effigy). After centuries of suffering under the cruel, stifling blanket of this biblical slavery, Halloween has been dragged from its prison by the ever-hungry maw of monster-capitalism. Gone are the days when Americans celebrated the Christian dead – arrived are the days when we Americans celebrate inventiveness and the ability to take a good scaring, when we shower upon the children of the land many sweet gifts, when we might, for one short night, become someone other than our boring normal selves. (The proliferation of Halloween as a national holiday was made possible by profit-hungry corporations that recognized in it a way to sell cheap, Chinese-made costumes.)

  While I generally abhor capitalism for its tendency to make only a small portion of the American people rich, I celebrate it now for freeing our shared and common history from the clutches of religious oppression. We can ill afford to live according to the rules of a lost tribe of desert people, so it is fitting that the forces of our chosen economic model are wiping our history clean of religious contamination.

  The next time you are carving up a lamb on Easter, remember horny old Eostre, and give your spouse a long, lingering kiss. When you find yourself stringing lights on a tree, remember to go outside and enjoy the longest night of the year. As you are putting the finishing touches on an elaborate and dazzling costume, remember that its job is to scare away the sickness-bringing forces of the impending long cold darkness. Thanks to the religious impartiality of our capitalistic system, you can enjoy these events without being forced to fear the wrath of some jealous, vengeful godhead.

  America is not a Christian nation, nor was it in any way founded upon the Christian faith. Neither easter nor the winter solstice were originally Christian holidays – these pagan rituals were commandeered in order to facilitate the spread of one set of religious teachings. Just how non-Christian is America? We honor the Roman god Saturn on Saturday. On Wednesday, we remember the Norse god Wotan, and on Thursday, his son-brother Thor. In the harbor of New York there stands a large statue of the Roman goddess Libertas (whom we call Lady Liberty), a goddess who holds in one hand the Torch of Progress, in the other a representation of our most treasured of documents, the Declaration of Independence.

  Everywhere in this great land we witness the chaotic jumble of different faiths and systems of belief, all tumbling together and jostling to retain the slightest shred of relevancy. May the uncaring grasp of our institutionalized greed continue to keep American society free of religious one-mindedness! Thank you, lustful and rapacious Capitalism, you old sport, for doing you part to keep America jumbled, confused, and oppression-free.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 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

counter-protest | assault on the square

  In keeping with the horrendous pagan tradition known as Halloween, today I dressed up in a fine cashmere loden (cloak) and a nice, pointy felt hat, to keep me warm out on the square in downtown Hanover, Pennsylvania. My new sign for this heathen holiday: WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END HALLOWEEN opposite KEEP DEMOCRACY MESSY.

  In addition to the usual jeers, middle fingers, and cautious votes of confidence, I was approached by a skinny, middle-aged man who claimed that freedom of religion means freedom to worship Jesus, not freedom to worship any other god (Satan). I told him he was wrong about that, and about his claims that the Quakers founded America (we were founded in 1776, by the 2^nd Constitutional Congress), whereupon he battered me (by tapping me on the arm with his cheap little fake-leather notebook). Immediately I sprung back out of his reach, lambasting him for violating my person and saying, “If you assault me again, sir, I will defend myself.” He laughed and scoffed and looked around to see if anyone else had witnessed his foul act, mocking my anger at having been touched without consent. He claimed to have at one time been a Marine, and said that he was about to beat the crap out of me.

  He called me a pussy (I agreed), and a faggot (I agreed), and I invited him to kindly go fuck himself somewhere else, but he stuck around to make fun of me and to try to block my sign with his body. “Why are you assaulting their freedom of speech?” he asked, to which I responded that I was doing nothing of the sort, rather that I was defending the rights of the women of America to decide for themselves what to do with their bodies, and with things growing inside their bodies. When he would not budge, I started singing my nonsense song about vaginas and wombs and keeping your business out of them, which sent him skittering across the road to safety.

  He talked to each of the anti-choice protester in turn (no doubt recounting his terrifying encounter), and when a police cruiser drove past (they drive past every few minutes now) he pointed at the officer and yelled at me to report his criminal conduct. I responded by smiling and nodding my head at him, so he gave me the finger, and fled into a nearby shoe store.

  With my new signs – WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH and WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END HALLOWEEN – I think I have been getting my message through to the disinterested drivers who pretend to ignore the sign-war on their square. The gist of my struggle is this: if we let the forces of moralistic and religious conservatism destroy one of our freedoms (that being liberty, or the ability to decide what to do with your own body), all other freedoms (speech, assembly, religion, &c) will be taken from us as well.

  Hence my other new sign, KEEP DEMOCRACY MESSY, to remind the People that counter-protest is vital to the healthy functioning of a true democracy in that, as an organic reaction to a well-organized and well-funded juggernaut of religious oppression (40 days for life), it provides a plurality of opinion.

  Stand up. Speak out. Challenge everything.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

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

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