guerrilla tactics - squared

(This update covers the first and second of November.)

  On Wednesday, I arrived on the square around noon, and skipped diagonally across it to my post opposite the anti-choice crowd, leaping high in the exact center to click my heels. Once entrenched, I bowed to them, low to the ground and proper-like, to initiate the day's bout. Among my counterparts were new faces, most of them boring except for the blatantly sex-deprived young man who recited his religion's slogans at high volume, continuously. There was also a curious older man who walked up carrying a cane and pushing a wheelchair (briskly), only to sit in his device and to prop his PRAY TO END ABORTION sign on his seemingly all-too-functional legs.

  My dear readers, the foes of freedom are pulling out all the stops in their battle against the right of the American adult to make a decision. While their minor offenses of blatantly and continuously obstructing foot traffic on their staked-out sidewalk and of jaywalking in full view of the world (to escape proximity to me), their major offense is their continued struggle to force the American People to live according to one set of religious rules among the thousands practiced here every day. Such actions, honored friends, constitute religious oppression by any rule and measure. Hence, my newest sign, END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION.

  Regarding the name of this article, my guerrilla tactics have proven very effective. (I would like to thank Sun Tzu, and Mao Zedong.) Instead of just waving at the people who give me thumbs up, I have begun waving at everyone who honks or waves, without exception. This has led to a general decrease in honking, and to many upset anti-choicers who try to convey with any hand signal but the middle finger that they in no way support me. This has also led drivers who happen to be watching to think that I am waving back at my supporters, which helps them to override their fears, whereupon they give me a nice broad smile or a secret nod of approval.

  As I am taking from my opponents their (open) public support, so have I taken their slogans. My signs, (DEFEND FREEDOM | END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION | WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH), when used properly, in thirteen words are capable of changing the mind of the wary passer-by, whom I can watch evolve from impartial spectator to full-blown, horn-honking supporter. If I am lucky, I actually witness the beginning of long and potentially deal-breaking conversations between romantic couples who probably should have talked about the whole abortion thing before they read it on some crazy guy's signs.

  As an effort to maintain a level of self-mockery, I always come dressed in different costumes. This confuses my foes and robs them of the power to offend my pride. (Pride is a huge factor in participatory democracy: maintaining a stable emotional state is crucial, so my distinctive lack of self-respect is really coming in handy.)

  In line with the ancient tactics of long-deceased military minds, I am flexible where my foe is stagnant, my message fresh, entertaining, attention-getting, their message one-sided, fixed. I have side-stepped the false prizes my counterparts have offered (calling the cops of them, responding physically to harassment by priest or parishioner), striking instead boldly to the crux of the issue. One of the most important victories I have won is the ability to control the dialogue. By addressing my opponents directly (when they are trying so hard to ignore me, and to shut me down), and by cutting to the honest core of the issue, I have exposed the cruel, thinly-veiled heart of their message: YOU WILL BOW TO OUR GOD. To force the American People to live according to the rules of one god in particular is to rob us completely of our freedom. If we ease off, and allow religious fanatics to erode just one of our Constitutional rights (such as a woman's right to her body, which is her property), we will forsake all of our rights, we will destroy our inalienable protections, and we will make a mockery of a once free People.

  I was in the middle of my dramatic farewell bow, when, righting myself, I turned to find a quasi-homeless man (with whom I have spoken previously) smiling at me from a few feet away. “Why don't you leave those poor crazy people alone?” he said. A note to the anti-choicers: if homeless people are calling you crazy, then your message is in serious trouble. Our foes are shaken, their position increasingly untenable.

  Long live the forces of freedom!

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp 

religious oppression in PA

  I have recently been the victim of religious oppression. An inhabitant of the state of Pennsylvania, I was a few days ago in the market for buying alcohol, which I could not do because of the religious laws that have been adopted by this Commonwealth. On Sundays, upstanding citizens of legal age cannot purchase alcohol because it is forbidden in this state to sell booze on that day, not due to laws based on rationality or on efforts to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, but laws based on the codex of one specific religion (even though the Sabbath, which occurs on Saturday, is the day that in the Christian bible Yahweh says to keep holy, not Sunday, a day not specifically mentioned as holy in that text).

  I am not a Christian, but I am being forced to follow its (purported) teachings. I am being oppressed by the rules of one specific religion, rules that have been incorporated into the laws of the state, making Christianity the official religion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This state of affairs violates the constitutional right of all Pennsylvanians to liberty by taking away our ability to decide for ourselves on which days we should wish to purchase alcohol for private consumption. Just as women would be incensed if they were forced by the state to cover their heads or to hide their faces out of some sort of religious observation (as the Taliban did in Afghanistan), I am incensed that I am being forced by the politicians and lawmakers of the state of Pennsylvania to follow the rules of a religion not my own.

  For some strange reason not rooted in the teachings of Jesus (who himself supposedly performed a divine act at the wedding of Canna just to keep the booze flowing) but located solely in the Old Testament of the Christian bible, religious zealots in this state have found a way to codify their beliefs into law, thus restraining me in my liberty and forcing me to live under the rules of a religion not of my choosing. Additionally, these religious laws force the individual to cross state lines on Sunday to purchase booze for private consumption back in PA, an action that, as bootlegging, is illegal at the federal level because it violates the Interstate Commerce Clause.

  In order for liberty to once again reign in this state, all laws based on religious codices must be nullified and struck from its constitution. This must be done in an effort to maintain the separation of church and state, and to forestall the implementation of additional Old Testament directives, the worst of which are found in Leviticus, where Yahweh demands the murder of homosexuals, adulterers, the incestuous, and girls who are discovered, on their wedding night, not to be virgins. The right to buy booze is just one front in the national war against Liberty that is being waged by religious conservatives: laws that prohibit abortion based on the rules of the Christian religion violate the individual's constitutional right to property by restricting her ability to decide to have unwanted growths removed from within her body.

  To be the shining example to the world to which we so often aspire, America must return to rationality by putting a stop to this oppression. If one state in the Union is oppressing its people religiously, by extension all states are being oppressive, violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by passing laws that establish religion. If these laws are not struck from the books, and Americans do not regain the right to decide for themselves how best to lead their lives, our system, weakened as it has been by the actions of the greedy and the dishonest, will surely crumble under the continuing onslaught from one specific religion in a nation of thousands of different systems of belief.

  To end religious oppression in America, we must obey the constitutional mandate by securing for ourselves and our Posterity the Blessings of Liberty, a mandate that can only be fulfilled when the individual is allowed, unfettered and unhindered, to do those things she deems are best for herself and her body, so long as she is not infringing upon the right of any other person to life, liberty, or property.

  End this tyranny. Reinstate liberty among the American people. We will not stand to be ruled by one religion among many. Freedom will ring when the Blessings of Liberty are prosecuted as aggressively as certain religious observances. In the words of George Washington and John Adams, “[t]he government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” (Treaty of Tripoli); let us honor these founding fathers by making sure America remains a safe haven for all peoples, regardless of creed or color, and by fighting to the last against those who would see us dancing to the tune of whichever god they have chosen for themselves.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp