While the American republic was still being formed – that is, before it outgrew its britches and started pining for global full spectrum dominance – the concept of Liberty was vibrant, and alive. Today, however, as we approach the 9th month of the year 2013, the colors of Liberty have faded from her shores; preferring conformity and convenience to individuality and self-sufficiency, preferring television and nutritionism to simple pleasures and real food, the American people are in a sorry state. How do we shake them out of their stupor? How do we shock them back into passionate dialog and community-conscious living? One method for awakening them from their trance is to show them that most actions done with a car can be done on a bicycle. Another way to quicken their tepid fluids is to don a Phyrgian cap and prove to a candid world that we few who are mocked and ridiculed and looked upon with scorn have doffed the shackles of materialism and freed ourselves from greed and need and avarice by wearing a red and floppy hat. Look no further than the War Office Seal, which features a Liberty cap; find its collapsed contours in the symbols of the American Revolution's own Sons of Liberty. Perhaps we pampered modern Ynki would be able to pull this land out of its tyrannical tailspin if we emulated the men and women who risked Fortune and sacred Honor to create a nation dedicated to the principle that all persons are created equal, a republic founded on the notion that all choices and thoughts and decisions should be allow so long as they do not directly violate the Life, Liberty, or Property of another person. If, however, a majority of the public keeps pumping gasoline into slaves' chariots and numbing itself out to five hours of TV each day, the idea of Liberty will continue to sputter and wheeze, suffocating from lack of believers. Citizens of America, awake!
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥
Showing posts with label property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label property. Show all posts
26 August 2013
20 July 2012
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
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
27 June 2012
on Sallust
I have recently finished reading a Latin-to-English translation from 1920 of the War with Catiline, by Sallust. (I had purchased the book for one dollar during a visit to my alma mater's library.) Beyond the fact that the actual war which this work purports to cover consumed no more than the last few pages of the text (which is scores of pages long), the tale deals primarily with such political corruption, societal decay, and moral downfall as that seems to have set the stage for Catiline's failed rebellion. Moreover, the situations Sallust describes in this book – situations which Catiline appears to have tried to exploit to his own benefit – struck me as eerily similar to situations we face in America, today.
Sallust speaks of the founding of Rome, how the city came to wealth and great fortune, becoming the mother of an empire. But, soon enough, the principles upon which it was founded – industriousness, thriftiness, valor – were supplanted by avarice, sloth, and self-aggrandizement. And, soon enough, in its primary political body, the Senate, “instead of modesty, incorruptibility, and honesty, shamelessness, bribery, and rapacity held sway.” This, I believe, is the trap into which our own Congress and Senate have fallen. The politicians who fill these bodies, while campaigning for election or reelection, champion themselves as honest persons of incorruptible and modest moral fiber only to revert, once they have gained office, to shamelessly selling their time and influence to the highest bidder and to writing such laws as rape the very people they have sworn to protect of their Lives, Liberty, and Property. Sallust speaks that when Rome had grown “great through toil and the practice of justice… savage tribes and mighty people subdued by force of arms… and all the seas and lands were open, then Fortune began to grow cruel and to bring confusion into all our affairs.” This text almost perfectly describes the course America charted from its founding until now, in that this nation was born in perilous circumstances, becoming soon a country dedicated to the preservation of the rule of law, then wiping out whole populations of First People tribes, and finally conquering Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to leave land and sea our disposal, only to discover, as if we had but recently come to our senses, that our internal affairs were seriously – and perhaps irrevocably – out of alignment.
I am not the first to draw comparisons between the Roman and the American empires, and I am not the first to suggest the inevitability of an empire such as our own to fail, but I am delighted to have found an ancient work that so well supports these points. While there is much solid wisdom to be learned from past writers (I should like to suggest to persons in the Occupy and the Indignados movements to read the aforementioned book, and to prepare for a total lack of positive change), the primary lessons I gleaned from this interesting and worthwhile text are that life seems to follow certain paths inexorably, that politics are intolerably messy and best left alone, that money and influence always corrupt, that people should be trusted about as far as they can be thrown, and that elected officials will only reluctantly and with much kicking and screaming give up such power as to which they have become accustomed. So please, dear reader, fellow Second Sons of Liberty, comrades of the New Guards for our Future Security, please do not despair, for no matter how dark our times may seem, they are sure to get worse before they get better. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
work cited: Sallust, page 14, J. C. Rolfe, London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam's Sons, 1920
Sallust speaks of the founding of Rome, how the city came to wealth and great fortune, becoming the mother of an empire. But, soon enough, the principles upon which it was founded – industriousness, thriftiness, valor – were supplanted by avarice, sloth, and self-aggrandizement. And, soon enough, in its primary political body, the Senate, “instead of modesty, incorruptibility, and honesty, shamelessness, bribery, and rapacity held sway.” This, I believe, is the trap into which our own Congress and Senate have fallen. The politicians who fill these bodies, while campaigning for election or reelection, champion themselves as honest persons of incorruptible and modest moral fiber only to revert, once they have gained office, to shamelessly selling their time and influence to the highest bidder and to writing such laws as rape the very people they have sworn to protect of their Lives, Liberty, and Property. Sallust speaks that when Rome had grown “great through toil and the practice of justice… savage tribes and mighty people subdued by force of arms… and all the seas and lands were open, then Fortune began to grow cruel and to bring confusion into all our affairs.” This text almost perfectly describes the course America charted from its founding until now, in that this nation was born in perilous circumstances, becoming soon a country dedicated to the preservation of the rule of law, then wiping out whole populations of First People tribes, and finally conquering Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to leave land and sea our disposal, only to discover, as if we had but recently come to our senses, that our internal affairs were seriously – and perhaps irrevocably – out of alignment.
I am not the first to draw comparisons between the Roman and the American empires, and I am not the first to suggest the inevitability of an empire such as our own to fail, but I am delighted to have found an ancient work that so well supports these points. While there is much solid wisdom to be learned from past writers (I should like to suggest to persons in the Occupy and the Indignados movements to read the aforementioned book, and to prepare for a total lack of positive change), the primary lessons I gleaned from this interesting and worthwhile text are that life seems to follow certain paths inexorably, that politics are intolerably messy and best left alone, that money and influence always corrupt, that people should be trusted about as far as they can be thrown, and that elected officials will only reluctantly and with much kicking and screaming give up such power as to which they have become accustomed. So please, dear reader, fellow Second Sons of Liberty, comrades of the New Guards for our Future Security, please do not despair, for no matter how dark our times may seem, they are sure to get worse before they get better. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
work cited: Sallust, page 14, J. C. Rolfe, London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam's Sons, 1920
16 April 2012
on the SDUBS codex
Street artists have a method, yet they have no known method; they follow a code, yet they follow no known code. There is a rule and a measure to the business of graffiti, a codex of unwritten, non-binding, and unspoken rules that are themselves constantly in flux, and always changing. As it would be foolish to attempt to capture these rules or to try to fix them in ink and in time, and as few who dare write about them live to tell the tale (let alone receive any sort of respect from their peers), let us examine a few of the more apparent entries in the SDUBS codex, or the Self Directed Urban Beautification Specialist's rulebook.
To celebrate the glories of socialism, the SDUBS applies her artwork primarily to public property such as street signs, USPS mail boxes, pavement, asphalt, utility poles, subway and light-rail cars, city buses, and to any otherwise unadorned surface located in or on local, state, or federal government buildings. (Graffiti will find its way onto privately-owned property, but if it does, it more than likely belongs on whatever boring and otherwise unadorned surface the vandal decided to deface.) Since she cannot hope to please all persons who might cast eyes upon her labors, the SDUBS works to satisfy her own artistic sensitivities and not those of anyone else. As her work is constantly exposed to external and internal criticism, she allows her natural abilities to flourish ceaselessly, and strives to make her artwork more vibrant, more colorful, less oppressive, more daring, less confusing, and more dastardly than all the rest; it is her goal to criticize those things as she sees wrong with the society in which she lives. Driven by a righteous purity that even she cannot quite explain, she is always on the move seeking out virgin surfaces upon which to display her talents. A creature of deep serenity and pervasive inner calm, she goes about the business of graffiti accompanied only by her own steadfast conviction, never hesitating in the application of her work, never fearful of the potential consequences of her actions, never glancing about to see who might be looking at her; she is a seasoned operator who cares about little but the task at hand. She does not linger near the applied work, nor does she deviate from her course any longer than it might take to stick up her dearly departed piece. And, finally, she experiments with any and every conceivable style of artwork creation and application until she has found the mixture that suits her best: Hereby, she avoids frustration, plays to her greatest strengths, and stagnates neither in style nor in daring.
The author hopes that this brief but poorly-worded and insufficiently-researched list might help the uninitiated to gain a better understanding of street art, of the street artist, and of the goals and aspirations of these strange and wonderful persons. To the night-crawling, alley-lurking, pride-swallowing, risk-taking SDUBS of the world: May your pens not leak, your nozzles never clog, and your hearts stay free of pride and malice. Mahalo, friends, mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
To celebrate the glories of socialism, the SDUBS applies her artwork primarily to public property such as street signs, USPS mail boxes, pavement, asphalt, utility poles, subway and light-rail cars, city buses, and to any otherwise unadorned surface located in or on local, state, or federal government buildings. (Graffiti will find its way onto privately-owned property, but if it does, it more than likely belongs on whatever boring and otherwise unadorned surface the vandal decided to deface.) Since she cannot hope to please all persons who might cast eyes upon her labors, the SDUBS works to satisfy her own artistic sensitivities and not those of anyone else. As her work is constantly exposed to external and internal criticism, she allows her natural abilities to flourish ceaselessly, and strives to make her artwork more vibrant, more colorful, less oppressive, more daring, less confusing, and more dastardly than all the rest; it is her goal to criticize those things as she sees wrong with the society in which she lives. Driven by a righteous purity that even she cannot quite explain, she is always on the move seeking out virgin surfaces upon which to display her talents. A creature of deep serenity and pervasive inner calm, she goes about the business of graffiti accompanied only by her own steadfast conviction, never hesitating in the application of her work, never fearful of the potential consequences of her actions, never glancing about to see who might be looking at her; she is a seasoned operator who cares about little but the task at hand. She does not linger near the applied work, nor does she deviate from her course any longer than it might take to stick up her dearly departed piece. And, finally, she experiments with any and every conceivable style of artwork creation and application until she has found the mixture that suits her best: Hereby, she avoids frustration, plays to her greatest strengths, and stagnates neither in style nor in daring.
The author hopes that this brief but poorly-worded and insufficiently-researched list might help the uninitiated to gain a better understanding of street art, of the street artist, and of the goals and aspirations of these strange and wonderful persons. To the night-crawling, alley-lurking, pride-swallowing, risk-taking SDUBS of the world: May your pens not leak, your nozzles never clog, and your hearts stay free of pride and malice. Mahalo, friends, mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
13 October 2011
on Our forsaken Rights
Citizens of America: We, the People of this land are at a crossroads, pausing now to decide whether to abandon our constitutional protections or to speak out against their destruction. Not long ago, an American named Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by his government without being first sentenced in a court of the United States. This latest action should not take us by surprise - the federal government (fed) has taken away our liberty by passing the Controlled Substances Act, legislation that robs us of the inalienable Right to live however we might decide to live; it has already violated our privacy and our properties via the Patriot Act, legislation that allows for unwarranted intrusions into previously protected domains.
Now the fed has proven willing to take also our lives without so much as a by your leave. Life, liberty, and property are supposedly immutable rights supposedly protected under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; they cannot be taken from the person individually, let alone from the People as a whole, without each individual facing the due and deliberate process of law, so that her liberty might be taken from her. (It can take years to revoke a man's right to life, with that man fighting every step to retain his sacred prize; the same process must take place, on an individual level, to revoke a person's liberty or property.) Now that the fed has proven a willingness to take freely our lives, let us honestly acknowledge that we no longer live in the country designed by the Constitution, that we can no longer expect reason from our overlords, that we sat back in quiet resignation and watched as our country was gutted from within.
In truth, however, the American People have no protection from the overreaches of their federal government: while the 14th Amendment protects us from violations performed by the States, the Constitution does not protect our lives, our liberty, or our property, from violations done by federal hand.
Now the fed has proven willing to take also our lives without so much as a by your leave. Life, liberty, and property are supposedly immutable rights supposedly protected under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; they cannot be taken from the person individually, let alone from the People as a whole, without each individual facing the due and deliberate process of law, so that her liberty might be taken from her. (It can take years to revoke a man's right to life, with that man fighting every step to retain his sacred prize; the same process must take place, on an individual level, to revoke a person's liberty or property.) Now that the fed has proven a willingness to take freely our lives, let us honestly acknowledge that we no longer live in the country designed by the Constitution, that we can no longer expect reason from our overlords, that we sat back in quiet resignation and watched as our country was gutted from within.
In truth, however, the American People have no protection from the overreaches of their federal government: while the 14th Amendment protects us from violations performed by the States, the Constitution does not protect our lives, our liberty, or our property, from violations done by federal hand.
We witness with the death of al-Awlaki the unwarranted termination of American life. We witness with the Controlled Substances Act the unwarranted termination of American liberty. We witness with the Patriot Act the unwarranted termination of American privacy, and the unwarranted invasion of American property. Our inalienable Rights are being casually tossed out the window, and we sit here, helpless, smiling to hide the despair.
Look not to Hope, for she has left these lands - with her she took Happiness, both laughing at our plans.
Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp
Look not to Hope, for she has left these lands - with her she took Happiness, both laughing at our plans.
Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp
30 August 2011
on additional amendment
The rights of the American People are being violated by those sworn to uphold them. Not having foreseen the recent ascendancy of the federal government over the states (the potential for which was, however, well known and widely debated at the time), the drafters of our Constitution, when amending that document to flesh out the protections essential to the unimpeded and unfettered pursuit of Happiness, failed to incorporate protections necessary to securing fully the Blessings of Liberty to each and every individual and maintaining those protections ad infinitum. In the XIV Amendment, it is written that, “No State [...] shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (see here)
While this amendment might have protected the People from overreaches by the individual states (it has failed, as the populations of the various states are continually restricted in the execution of their liberty), it does not protect us from overreaches by the federal government. In order to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, and to ensure that the individual can decide how best to dispose of the only property (that being her body) without which her life is impossible, the Constitution must be further amended to protect her from indiscriminate and unjust actions by the federal government, against which she currently has little recourse.
Put simply, the XIV Amendment must be altered to read, “No Government shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” An alteration to this affect (coupled with an aggressive prosecution of the newly altered amendment) would fulfill at least one of the purposes of government as defined in the preamble to the Constitution by securing for the individual, fully and unconditionally, the Blessings of Liberty (liberty means he has the right to decide for himself how best to lead his life), so long as it is made clear to him that he may not not infringe in any way upon the life, liberty, or property of any other person (the flip-side of the coin of liberty that any rational, free-thinking individual will readily understand).
Therefore, unless you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers and ordered by a judicial body (convened to try your case) not to engage in certain specifically enumerated activities (such as consuming drugs in private or growing them for your own use, getting an abortion, gaining or losing weight, getting tattooed, or any other such things that affect your body and your body alone), you have the constitutional right to do any and all of these things. The only possible justification that the federal government might bring for its blanket prohibitions on certain activities and altered states of consciousness is perhaps that while the Constitution prohibits depriving “any person” of liberty or property, it does not expressly prohibit depriving the entire American population of the unalienable Rights set forth in both of our founding documents.
I hereby call upon the federal government to cease with all policies that infringe upon the right of the individual to do to herself and to her body as she pleases so long as she is not infringing demonstrably upon the life, liberty, or property of any other person or persons. The Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of the government of the United States of America is bring about the Safety and Happiness of the People. Until the People are granted unconditional liberty, they cannot ever be truly Happy; until they are granted the freedom to choose for themselves how best to lead their lives, and they are allowed to affect their bodies as they see fit, they are little better off, and just as likely to rebel, as those fine proud Americans who once rose up and threw off the mantle of a government that had lost sight of its duty to those it purported to represent.
Join me in the effort to free the American People from under the yoke of repression; write to your representative in Congress and demand that she or he join in your fight for full, unconditional liberty. Over the last forty years, the People, by continuing to consume whichever drugs they desired, have sent a message to the federal government: We will decide for ourselves how best to lead our lives, and we will not renounce our liberty just because you have declared a War on those Drugs we have as much of a right to consume as we do to partake of alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine.
Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp
While this amendment might have protected the People from overreaches by the individual states (it has failed, as the populations of the various states are continually restricted in the execution of their liberty), it does not protect us from overreaches by the federal government. In order to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, and to ensure that the individual can decide how best to dispose of the only property (that being her body) without which her life is impossible, the Constitution must be further amended to protect her from indiscriminate and unjust actions by the federal government, against which she currently has little recourse.
Put simply, the XIV Amendment must be altered to read, “No Government shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” An alteration to this affect (coupled with an aggressive prosecution of the newly altered amendment) would fulfill at least one of the purposes of government as defined in the preamble to the Constitution by securing for the individual, fully and unconditionally, the Blessings of Liberty (liberty means he has the right to decide for himself how best to lead his life), so long as it is made clear to him that he may not not infringe in any way upon the life, liberty, or property of any other person (the flip-side of the coin of liberty that any rational, free-thinking individual will readily understand).
Therefore, unless you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers and ordered by a judicial body (convened to try your case) not to engage in certain specifically enumerated activities (such as consuming drugs in private or growing them for your own use, getting an abortion, gaining or losing weight, getting tattooed, or any other such things that affect your body and your body alone), you have the constitutional right to do any and all of these things. The only possible justification that the federal government might bring for its blanket prohibitions on certain activities and altered states of consciousness is perhaps that while the Constitution prohibits depriving “any person” of liberty or property, it does not expressly prohibit depriving the entire American population of the unalienable Rights set forth in both of our founding documents.
I hereby call upon the federal government to cease with all policies that infringe upon the right of the individual to do to herself and to her body as she pleases so long as she is not infringing demonstrably upon the life, liberty, or property of any other person or persons. The Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of the government of the United States of America is bring about the Safety and Happiness of the People. Until the People are granted unconditional liberty, they cannot ever be truly Happy; until they are granted the freedom to choose for themselves how best to lead their lives, and they are allowed to affect their bodies as they see fit, they are little better off, and just as likely to rebel, as those fine proud Americans who once rose up and threw off the mantle of a government that had lost sight of its duty to those it purported to represent.
Join me in the effort to free the American People from under the yoke of repression; write to your representative in Congress and demand that she or he join in your fight for full, unconditional liberty. Over the last forty years, the People, by continuing to consume whichever drugs they desired, have sent a message to the federal government: We will decide for ourselves how best to lead our lives, and we will not renounce our liberty just because you have declared a War on those Drugs we have as much of a right to consume as we do to partake of alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine.
Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp
12 August 2011
counterweight Constitution
Citizens of America: the Constitution of these States is a covenant we all share equally. Simply by being citizens of this land, we give our tacit consent to the opening declaration of this covenant, wherein it is declared that we are one People, a People with the common goal of making for ourselves a more perfect government. Among the established parameters of this goal are Union, Justice, Domestic Tranquility, Common Defense, general Welfare, and Blessings of Liberty, goals that must, by any reckoning, be the counterweight against which all legislation and other national decisions are measured.
The XIV Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the People life, liberty, and property until they shall be taken from them under due process of law. Blanket prohibitions that restrict individuals in their liberty, foremost among them laws that prohibit the People from possessing and consuming Mood Altering Substances, restrict the individual in her liberty by prohibiting her from utilizing methods by which to pursue her Happiness; they violate her right to dispose of her ultimate property, her body, as she as a consenting and capable adult should decides is in her best interest. Therefore, the Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional, as it infringes upon the individual's constitutional rights to her liberty and to her body even when she has in no way indicated a desire or willingness to do harm to the property of bodies of other people. It is already permitted for the People to dispose of their property in most any other way, by tattoo or surgery or haircut, by consuming of certain Mood Altering Substances (MAS) such as coffee and sugar and alcohol and tobacco, by entertaining in the mind any number of opinions on religion or morality or social equality, all activities or states of mind that are universally recognized as components of liberty. It would be unthinkable for the government of the United States to pass laws specifying by which methods the People would be able to wash or mend property such as socks; it is just as unthinkable that our government specifies the methods by which we affect our only true property, our bodies, by its enforcement of blanket prohibitions on the consumption of specific MAS other than those socially-accepted ones listed above.
The XIV Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the People life, liberty, and property until they shall be taken from them under due process of law. Blanket prohibitions that restrict individuals in their liberty, foremost among them laws that prohibit the People from possessing and consuming Mood Altering Substances, restrict the individual in her liberty by prohibiting her from utilizing methods by which to pursue her Happiness; they violate her right to dispose of her ultimate property, her body, as she as a consenting and capable adult should decides is in her best interest. Therefore, the Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional, as it infringes upon the individual's constitutional rights to her liberty and to her body even when she has in no way indicated a desire or willingness to do harm to the property of bodies of other people. It is already permitted for the People to dispose of their property in most any other way, by tattoo or surgery or haircut, by consuming of certain Mood Altering Substances (MAS) such as coffee and sugar and alcohol and tobacco, by entertaining in the mind any number of opinions on religion or morality or social equality, all activities or states of mind that are universally recognized as components of liberty. It would be unthinkable for the government of the United States to pass laws specifying by which methods the People would be able to wash or mend property such as socks; it is just as unthinkable that our government specifies the methods by which we affect our only true property, our bodies, by its enforcement of blanket prohibitions on the consumption of specific MAS other than those socially-accepted ones listed above.
Laws banning the possession and consumption of specific MAS do not insure the Domestic Tranquility requirement set forth in our Constitution, as they do not outlaw the use of alcohol, a substance that in its use is responsible for countless acts of insurrection and aggression, a substance that in its use degrades the general Welfare by enraging its user and reducing his ability to make reasonable judgments, a substance that in its use violates the individual's liberty by often ensnaring her in its addiction and all but forcing her to feed the sickness she has unwittingly brought into her life. Overuse of substances, addictions to substances, especially substances such as tobacco that in its use degrades the general Welfare by ruining the health of the People and leading to their premature demise, addictions are conditions that must be addressed with a logical and compassionate eye, so that the individual can regain the capacity to use those MAS that he decides he needs to facilitate or enhance his pursuit of Happiness instead of being relegated to a prison cell and treated as a criminal for his inability to control his appetites.
Punishments for consumption of illicit MAS cannot be applied to great swaths of the population for infractions that in no way cause direct and measurable offense to the life, liberty, or property of any other person. Just as a lengthy process is required to deprive a person of Life and to condemn her to death, the removal of liberty can be meted out only on an individual basis by an august panel that shall decide that the person in question should no longer deserve specific and enumerated liberties (the penalty for the continued execution of these liberties being tailored so as to maintain the parameters of the Constitution), thus ensuring that her constitutional right to freedom of action and thought is not taken from her without profound and rational deliberation.
A person is not sentenced to death for anything less than infringing upon or extinguishing the Life of another person. Therefore, a person cannot have his Liberty revoked unless he has infringed demonstrably upon the right of other people to their Lives, Liberty, or Property, or if he has clearly violated the parameters of the constitution. The incarceration of non-violent drug offenders whose sole purported violation was to consume or possess MAS degrades the general Welfare and the Domestic Tranquility by removing those individuals from their long-established familial and community ties, by restricting them in their ability to work and to be productive, by holding them in close proximity to violent and dangerous criminals.
A woman seeking to abort an unwanted fetus has the constitutional right to do so. Under the XIV Amendment, she has the right to decide for herself what to do with her body, her only true property, so she may pierce or tattoo it as she sees fit, cut its hair in whatever fashion she desires, eat and let it become fat or exercise and keep it in shape, have her stomach stapled and her organs and cancerous tumors removed, and abort any fetus growing within her female parts. Furthermore, as the Blessings of Liberty have been bestowed upon her, she may decide for herself how best to lead her life; she is allowed to do anything to herself so long as she is not infringing upon the constitutional rights of any other persons (a fetus is a part of a woman's body until it is born, at which point it becomes a baby, or a tiny little person with constitutional rights).
The requirements of a more perfect Union and the provision for the general Welfare are not being met under our current system of top-few capitalism, under which a minority of the People is compensated in the form of great wealth for the labors of the majority of the People. Allowing the wealthiest few Americans to amass such great wealth gives them the power of the purse strings, which breeds corruption and makes these few rich folks so essential to the reelection of political figures that they become the masters of said political figures, dictating, formulating, and influencing legislation to their own benefit at the expense of the vast majority of the population. To provide for our future Prosperity and to redirect the wealth of this nation toward realizing the Welfare of the People generally, it behooves us to alter the fabric of our corporatized and corrupted society, and to seek new methods by which to assure that all Americans might benefit equally of the bounty inherent to this land that is daily brought forth by the People of this nation.
Great bodies of men and women have joined the U. S. armed forces to provide for the Common Defense, and vast stockpiles of personal weapons and other mechanical contrivances stand at the ready to assist them in this task. To provide for the Common Defense, however, we must keep these forces at home, on true American soil, so that, if needed, they can defend the American People from threats here at home; we cannot continue to launch wars of aggression, as we did in Iraq in 2003, to protect or to promote the business interests of a tiny fraction of the population that has a corporate or otherwise monetary interest in the oil fields located in that Middle Eastern nation. There is a role for American armed forces to play beyond our shores (humanitarian aide, protecting innocents, punishing those who seek to destroy us), but it cannot ever again be a war of aggression against another sovereign nation. Many good Americans have died, and much of our nation's wealth has been wasted by intervening in conflicts not our own, in nations not our own, against people who just want to see us leave. Let the chips fall where they may, unless they are huge chip-shaped bombs raining down onto our cities.
Until it comes to pass that all political and government efforts are focused solely on meeting the requirements set forth in the Constitution, and until such time as the rights enumerated in the Constitution are granted to all People fully and without prejudice, the fundamental American documents are protecting only those people who are rich in monetary wealth and political connections; they have ceased to be documents that serve for the elevation of the People generally, and have been high-jacked by an oligarchy that has lost sight of the deep and enduring essence of the American Dream, i.e. Safety, Happiness, and the Blessings of Liberty.
p.s. This is a general appeal to all police officers in America: If you have ever even attempted to trick or browbeat someone into forfeiting their Constitutional rights, or if you operate in a fashion that in any way even attempts to sidestep said rights, and if you have ever sworn an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States of America, take a good look in the mirror, and consider that you very well may have violated your oath. If so, relinquish your post immediately, and pursue a different career.
Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)