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)

tenacious Republican terrorism

Western newscasters are quick to call any Arab suspected of committing acts of violence a terrorist, a practice that appears to have blinded them to the true extent of terrorism right here in America. He calls himself Mitt, and his last name is Romney, and he and his party are pushing a terrorist agenda. Hidden in plain view in the Republican party's presidential platform is a plan to terrorize the homosexual humans living in America, a plan that would turn them into citizens with fewer rights than their heterosexual neighbors, a plan that can have as its only consequence a surge of state-sanctioned violence and hatred against these our same-sex-loving brothers and sisters. Governor Romney has stated openly that if he should become president he would amend our secular Constitution for the first time in nearly a century, adding to it rules found only in the old testament of the Christian bible (see Leviticus 20) that mandate among many other horrible things the murder of gays and the killing of young women who lose their virginity before they are married; the only purpose such an amendment serves is to strike fear in the hearts of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans-gender (LGBT) community and to cause these peace-loving and innocent persons to live their lives in constant fear of reproach, disenfranchisement, and assault.

There is another group in the world that encroaches upon the rights of its citizens (be they Women, Gay, Colored, or otherwise), that disenfranchises them, that assaults them, that stands by as their rights are stripped away and they are raped, beaten, and murdered – the Taliban. The Republican party's plan to strip away the rights of homosexuals and to encroach upon the equality guaranteed them in our Declaration of Independence puts the Republican Party in American (RePIA, pronounced “rape-ya”) on equal footing with the Taliban; it exposes the RePIA as a threat to the Safety and Happiness of the American people equal to or greater than the threat posed by other terror-promoting organizations around the world, be they al-Qaida, Hamas, or the Haqqani Network (which continues to hold an American serviceman hostage, see here.)

To vote for RePIA this November 6th is to elect terror; to support Mitt Romney in his drive for our nation's highest office is to spit in the face of lady Liberty, to shit on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and to declare oneself so ignorant of the ideals of equality and freedom that our ancestors once fought and died for as to be unworthy of calling oneself an upstanding member of society, let alone a patriot. To effect true change, to protect our own dreams and aspirations and those of the many generations to come, to take this country back from greased-up bankers and fat-backed politicians, vote for a third-party candidate such as Dr. Jill Stein or governor Gary Johnson. The newscasters won't stop calling votes for third-party candidates wasted votes, so let's all waste our votes on a person who will stop federal oppression and end the wars on drugs and in Afghanistan, a person who will ensure freedom and equality for all citizens regardless of their race, belief, sex, or sexual orientation. Vote green, or vote yellow, and help us liberate America from the cruel lash of mindless hatred, from the heavy yoke of unchecked greed, and from the rusty chains of perpetual strife. Be well, and mahalo.

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)