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 free time

Today, devices exist in homes across the world that work so that humans do not have to. Among these are dish-washers, vacuum-cleaners, lawnmowers, well-water pumps, washing-machines for clothes, and televisions. Rather than having to wash one's dishes by hand, to sweep furiously at one's carpet, to cut one's grass using muscle power, to maintain water-pressure by hand, to clean one's clothes, or to entertain oneself, these machines – which run either on gasoline burning in their innards or on electricity (that is generated by the burning of coal before it is piped via an enormous network of skeletal electrical towers across vast distances to emerge finally from wall-mounted sockets) – do nearly all of the work that people used to do for themselves. In order to buy these devices, to pay to have them repaired, maintained, and upgraded, ​and to pay for the gasoline and for the electricity required to make them run, their owners must work – depending on their level of skill, influence, luck, and education – at one or more jobs, labor for which they receive financial compensation.

Advertisers market the aforementioned devices as things that will increase the amount of free time available to consumers and as things that are supposed to make life better. In reality, however, these devices do not make life easier for the majority of people who grow accustomed to their use; these devices rob the people of the good, hearty workouts associated with cutting grass using the body's own power, with washing clothes using the body's own power, with washing dishes using the body's own power, and with hauling water using the body's own power; these devices rob the people of the need to maintain the art of storytelling, and of the need to maintain the art of making art. But, aha! I have just had a thought, namely that because these machines exist, and because they reduce the amount of time that people would otherwise have to set aside to take care of their household and garden chores or to come up with clever ways to keep themselves entertained, because of these supposed time-savers, people are able to work longer hours and to work at more than one job in order to maintain their supposedly time-saving devices and to keep buying new ones as the old ones wear out. Therefore, these devices and the oft-repeated lie that they “save time” not only create but also perpetuate the type of wage-slave, consumption-oriented capitalism that, as I type, is being waged against the American people.

I have nothing really against free time, only the way that free time is used. Americans and persons living in industrialized nations similar to ours use their free time to sit around eating highly processed and chemical-laden foodstuffs, watching television, playing video games, and generally getting fatter and unhealthier by the day; if, however these free-time-rich people were to work in community gardens, paint pictures, tell each other stories, go on hikes, or exercise their bodies and minds and make themselves into better and more interesting people instead of poking at touch-screen-equipped tablet computers while turning up the volume on the TV in order to drown out the sound pollution generated by the dishwasher and the washing-machine running at the same time, if these people were to be active and creative and all chip in to make this nation and this planet a greener and quieter place for all then we might slowly redeem ourselves in the opinions and estimations of a candid world. As it stands however, with our federal government owned and operated by the very persons who gain the most – financially – from our brand of wage-slave style capitalism, there is a greater incentive to keep the people fat, stupid, and sold on the idea that there are devices for sale that will make their lives easier or better rather than to encourage them to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self-respecting. How much farther down this stinking rabbit-hole of convenience-driven consumerism can we possibly allow ourselves to fall? America delenda est.

agitate – challenge – debunk – restore

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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.

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on America's central problem

For nearly a century now Americans have remained universally addicted to one thing: the constant availability of alternating-current (AC) electrical power (as well as, of course, mankind's damnable propensity to take the path of least resistance). This addiction is responsible for nearly each of our nation's woes, among them our backslide into a convenience-oriented culture and our over-reliance on mechanical and electrical devices to do all of our work for us which in turn makes us lazy and prone to lie around all day watching television and being worthless pieces of shit. In order to fuel the dynamos that make this power, good, honest Americans risk their lives to drag coal out of deep tunnels, whereupon it is dumped into trains, moved vast distances, and burned by the ton, releasing large amounts of harmful by-products every step of the way. Then, instead of just using the direct current (DC) coming from the high-tension lines that zigzag across our abused and once-pristine land, power companies transform the direct current into alternating current, losing a large portion of the initial electrical charge in the process. Anyone who has ever charged a cellphone or laptop computer battery uses DC: most batteries used today employ the DC system – which is an effective and efficient method for storing and using electricity – but this means that the juice that keeps our handheld devices running is first transformed into AC before being piped back into the home, whereupon it is transformed (via the little box on one's electrical-charging-cable) back into DC so that it can charge said battery. Furthermore, in order for said battery to be charged in the first place, the various power companies must run their power-generating stations at certain levels all of the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year, even when no one is using that power, such as at night when most people are sleeping. And what is at the root of all of this wastefulness? Why do we still adhere to standards that have been proven over and over again to be inferior to other designs? One reason is Mr. Edison's (and his sinister cabal's) early 20th century efforts to replace the alternating current championed by Mr. Nikola Tesla with their system of direct current – a more complicated and more costly but no safer alternative to the Tesla design – so that he could sell the inventions he himself had designed and built; his short-sighted avarice, along with the acquiescence of the U.S. federal government, have put us – and kept us – in this mess.

Since the federal government of this country has kept us in this mess for so long, it is only fitting that it should get us back out of it. Please, release Mr. Tesla's documents, which became the property of you our tyrannical federal overlords immediately upon his death. We must start building and using the Wardenclyffe tower designs to provide no-cost-to-the-consumer wireless communications and no-cost-to-the-consumer wireless electrical power; anything less shall be seen as neglecting the general Welfare by keeping the People addicted to such power as seems to spring effortlessly from the nation's wall-sockets but that in reality wastes so many of our precious resources. Please, dear g-men down in Whorshanktin, rewrite the standards to allow us to conserve as much of the energy we generate as possible so that we might use the product of our nation's labor most efficiently, conserve our dwindling stock of natural resources, guide the People back along a path of intelligent sustainability, and reduce our fantastically high levels of pollution. Anything less, dear Senators, Congresspersons, and President, anything less shall be construed as spineless obedience to the pressures of lobbyists and to the power companies that pay for them (to whom you, in turn, routinely sell your souls).

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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.

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from Common Sense, by Thomas Paine

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”