America doffs Liberty

Citing its ongoing disregard for the Constitutional directive to secure the Blessings of Liberty for millions of its citizens, the federal government of the United States of America officially abandoned its stated purpose. “We recognize that spying on the People without securing warrants for each intrusion, and denying Americans the right to choose what substances to put into their bodies, has revealed to a candid world that we've given up on the founding principles,” said president Barack Obama at a Rose Garden press conference. “Therefore, we'll continue the process of distancing ourselves from any and all mentions or references to Liberty, a process that started with the sale of the statue known as Liberty Enlightening the World to Grigovia, a Central Asian nation.” Having written the following: in subsection 1 of section D of the Student Guide Introduction of AFSS 0910, a training document, that the persons who founded the American republic were violent extremists; and in subsection 1 of section E of the same document, that speaking about individual liberties, states' rights, and ways to make the world a better place are examples of extremist behavior; the Department of the Army of the United States ordered a redesign of its official crest. “We reject the notion that freedom is an essential component of American society, and are therefore removing the Phyrgian, or Liberty cap, from our emblem,” said John McHugh, current Secretary of the Army. “Henceforth, on the seal, the tip of the sword will be fully visible, to symbolize our unfailing dedication to striking first without regard to consequence.” Plans announced today also call for the removal of artwork depicting the Phyrgian cap from the Senate, and elsewhere. If the government continues its destruction of civil rights, watchdog groups expect incidents of civil unrest to increase as Americans begin to realize the full extent of federal skullduggery.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

Grigovia blocks pipeline

After reviewing numerous environmental and economic feasibility studies, the Grigovian government is blocking a plan to drain local aquifers and export the water via pipeline. The decision is based primarily on concerns for the country's future independence and enduring water security. AguaMundo Holdings Ltd. (AHL), the Argentinian-Indian company that first proposed the idea, claims that the pipeline will bring prosperity to parched communities throughout Central Asia. “By moving water from these pristine limestone aquifers to the rain-deprived steppes of Grigovia's neighbor nations, we will help impoverished people gain self-sufficiency through agriculture,” said Armando Gupta, chief operating officer for AHL. “With access to these reserves and a 40 year exclusive contract to carry water anywhere in the Yalung River watershed or floodplain, our company will be able to operate at a relatively low cost to the consumer.”

News of the proposed pipeline (as well as the selling off of Grigovia's sovereign resources) sparked protests and indignation. Tens of thousands of people carrying signs and banners have gathered in front of the nation's parliamentary buildings to protest the pipeline talks; some three hundred environmentalists have set up a tent village in Free Speech Square, just down the road from the prime minister's house, where they plan to remain until the threats to Grigovian sovereignty and national resources have passed; and a group of vocational-technical college students is traveling on foot in the areas along the pipeline's proposed route to record the flora and fauna that live there and upload their videos to Youtube, in order to showcase the ecologically-diverse landscapes that would be threatened. “We will not rest until the threat to our homeland has passed,” said a masked protester in Free Speech Square who was perched atop a lamppost talking to passers-by. “We do well in Grigovia because we protect our resources, using them wisely and slowly, using them so that we all share equally of our natural bounty. This foreign company, however, wants to take our water and sell it to the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, our kind and generous regional neighbors. We love our oppressed brothers and sisters, and we wish them the best, but we refuse to let outsiders drain our aquifers and pipe our water – the very lifeblood of our people – beyond our borders and down into the dry and the dusty plains.”

Initial support for the pipeline came from a group of politicians from the Grigovia Forward Grigovia First Party (ЮВЮД). The group, which is known as the Kremlin 7 for their close ties to Russian business and political leaders, was also behind efforts to privatize Grigovia's national forests and open strip-mining concessions in the Yiptlong massif. Despite receiving less than 10% of the votes in national elections, ЮВЮД maintains influence in Parliament due mostly to its sizable war-chest, which is estimated to be as large as the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka and Liechtenstein, combined.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on Grigovian women

Women in Grigovia have for centuries enjoyed equal status with men. Long before it was popular among the Western nations to grant females the same rights bestowed upon males, this republic's mothers and daughters were equal citizens. The tradition dates back to the nation's spiritual and historical founder, Krikuv (i.e. Grigov) the Watchful, who, according to the tribe's extensive verbal histories, in 1235 Common Error (C.E.) married the daughter of a powerful Yaelong war-chief, rescinding his high priesthood in order to be with the woman he loved. The act proved well-timed; the region was thereafter raided frequently by armies from the eastern steppes that razed crops and burned settlements, decimating all local populations but those located on the Yaelong's tribal lands. To commemorate the alliance between Grigov's band of loyal followers and the area's fierce inhabitants, the nation includes a depiction of Crucuv Pass – an important ancient trade route between the region around the Caspian Sea to the north and the parched deserts to the south – in its official state seal. Furthermore, Grigov adopted the Yaelong tradition of equality amongst the sexes, to great avail.

The second woman (but first female physician) to enter space, Dr. Kleivast Yostindt was born and raised in Pyltagrad. After graduating with honors from the University of Practical Sciences and proving herself to the Soviet cosmonaut governing board by besting their finest athletes in both physical and mental competition, she was slated to be the first woman in space until last-minute testing showed she had food poisoning, likely from eating tainted caviar served at a celebratory luncheon. In the realm of the arts, Sali Obrest, of Gar Nuuzsh, shocked the literary world (and received a nod from the Nobel committee) for her book Things I Learned While Flogging Ilyitch, a novel from 1984 that lambastes the architects of perestroika. She fled her native land to escape Soviet retaliation, eventually settling in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she became an outspoken advocate of indigenous rights. Among, however, the most impressive Grigovian women were the nameless babushkas who faced down a contingent of Russian military police in the fall of 1988, occupying an entire wing of Grig's central market and refusing to back down from their demands for more equitable grain prices and the right to barter openly. Their action helped to spark the revolution that would see Grigovia leave the Warsaw Pact at the same time as Poland.

Wages among men and women are by law equal in the Glorious Republic of Grigovia; more than half of the seats in state and national Parliament are filled by female people's representatives; and women are just as likely to found companies and chair executive boards as their male counterparts. “An equal share of responsibility for the safety and Happiness of the Grigovian people is one that we Grigoviennes are proud to shoulder,” said Shuireyi'i Oryind, head of the Ministry of Equality and Justice. “During the Great Patriotic War [World War II], my great-grandmother helped to defend Crucuv Pass side by side with her four brothers and (future) husband. They fought off an entire Nazi tank battalion using little more than innate cleverness, a few limpet mines, and the local geography. That tradition continues to this today: Grigovians of both genders and all sexual orientations face the challenges of a global economy, pooling our talents and resources so as to best suit the needs of the greater community. We neither live nor work alone, each person by his or herself, to heap and hoard the largest possible portion of our nation's wealth – we work together and prosper together, one people striving, unified, for a bright common future.”

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

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

on abortion (counter-protesting)

  I am just come from counter-protesting the abortion protesters who have been infesting the central square in the small, rural town where I live. For weeks now, I have driven past them day after day, middle-aged men, grandmothers, and nuns standing out in the cold, standing up for that in which they believe. They carry professionally-made signs that say, PRAY TO END ABORTION, or, LIFE IS PRECIOUS. Some of the signs bear pictures of aborted fetuses, some pictures of cute and cuddly little babies.

  The first sign I made, at two Saturday morning with a head full of booze and a heart full of indignation, said, CHOICE = LIBERTY – KEEP ABORTION LEGAL. Having spent the day playing disk golf at Codorus State Park, I remembered the sign I had shoved into the trunk of my car the night before, and made it out to the square just before dusk, Saturday evening. Within a few minutes, two separate drives had either booed me or given me thumbs down, while one of the protesters, a young, sporty-looking woman, had waved to me at least five times. Fortunately, my disk golfing partner was there to back me up, and to take pictures for posting to the socialverse.

  Once again fresh from disk golfing, today I debuted my new sign, this one with two sides, and two messages. The first: CHOICE = LIBERTY – DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION. The second: KEEP YOUR PRAYERS OUT OF MY VAGINA. I made sure to hit the square around lunch time, this time without backup, to catch the midday traffic. Immediately, there were honks and jeers, thumbs up and down, brief conversations with drivers stopped at the light where I stood, and many, many people looking away in shame or embarrassment. More than one driver agreed that it was “only a matter of time” before someone did what I was doing. The sporty young woman waved once or twice, but her companions, two women in their seventies, never ceased shooting daggers at me, their looks dripping with malicious contempt, their polished little signs no match for the giant piece of spray-painted cardboard upon which I had clumsily scrawled my counter-slogans.

  I caught a half dozen drivers taking pictures, and a trio of proto-hipsters approached me at one point, to have their picture taken next to the vagina slogan, but the highlight of my hour on the square was the local rapid-transit bus that circled the block so that one of the passengers could take a picture of the vagina slogan, the bus's driver laughing and signaling to me with her hands to flip over my message-board.

  I believe strongly in my messages. According to just about every doctor on the planet, a fetus is just not a baby until it emerges from the mother's body. Until such time that it emerges, the fetus is the property of the mother – she has the inalienable right to do with it what she pleases. In the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, each person is granted the right to life, liberty, and property, rights that pertain to the body specifically, that property without which life is impossible.

  If one thinks that the fetus during the first trimester is human life (when it is only a cluster of cells), then abortion activists surely oppose (on moral grounds) surgery of any kind. During liposuction, living human tissue is removed from the body. Similarly, a cancerous tumor is living human tissue – when it is removed from the body, it dies. Who is protesting publicly to end the removal of cancerous growths? No one. When my pancreas is issued a passport, or when my trachea obtains the right to vote, I might agree with the protesters, but these internal tissue clusters are part of me, not separate entities: they are mine to dispose of as I please.

  No country of which I know issues a certificate of conception, whereas most countries issue some sort of certificate of birth. I think this shows us what modern, enlightened society understands: that anything growing within your body belongs to you. Our Constitutional rights must be guarded continuously from attacks by persons and groups that wish to take them from us. So stand up, speak out, and keep your prayers out of my vagina

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

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.

  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

on our Declarational legacy

  The United States of America was founded on such principles and organized in such form as to make the People Safe and Happy. In order for us to preserve for future generations even a shred of this nation's potential, we must redirect her course to honor and perpetuate the aims of the Declaration of Independence, and the promise of the Constitution. While this may sound complicated, the founders of our nation designed a relatively simple system with clearly defined parameters and expectations, those being: bestowing upon all mankind the inalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; forming a more perfect Union; establishing Justice; insuring the domestic Tranquility; providing for the common defence; providing for the general Welfare; and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

  Current conditions in our Union of States infringe upon the Liberty of the People by dictating how we might dispose of our bodies (by consuming drugs or aborting unwanted fetuses), and by allowing the People to indenture themselves to undemocratic and totalitarian corporations that offer the shallow promise of monetary gain at the expense of individual pride and self-sufficiency. These conditions undermine the general Welfare by eliminating funding for public schools, and by leaving us exposed, lacking a national health care system, to the ravages of sickness and disease. These conditions infringe upon the Safety of the People by exposing us to hostility from without (due to our continuing occupation of countries that Muslims consider holy), by allowing too young citizens to drive, by polluting the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, and by granting privileged status to the economic interests of the top 20% at the expense of the economic Safety of the remaining 80% of the population, a privilege that furthermore does injury to Justice and the general Welfare alike when one considers that many millions of American children go hungry every day (see here).

  These self-contradictory conditions are tearing apart our country from within. We have made our government bloated and inefficient by adding layers of bureaucracy to Homeland Security and by paying corporations interested solely in their own bottom line exorbitant sums to supply and assist our troopers deployed overseas; we as a People have lost our way, capable neither of compromise for the sake of national progress nor of peaceful cooperation with fellow citizens who do not share our political or religious opinions. As long as our nation persists, however, the Constitutional parameters are the benchmarks against which all legislation and all government actions must be weighed. Any legislation or acts that infringe thereupon (such as the Patriot Act, and the 1970 Controlled Substances Act) are estimable to tyrants only, and, as they violate the very essence upon which America was founded, must be repealed immediately.

  Neither the Constitution nor the Declaration call for the dominion of one religion over the remaining religions or over the federal or state governments. Therefore, efforts by Sarah Palin and Rick Perry to spread like a suffocating blanket the teachings of their New Apostolic Reformation over our various halls of government can not, and will not, be successful. Similarly, any persons or groups calling for the incorporation of the rules of a specific religion into the laws of the land have no right to carry out their goals; indeed, any such efforts seek to abolish the Blessings of Liberty, and are thus intrinsically anti-American. The only acceptable actions that the various governments existing in these United States might initiate are those that satisfy the parameters of the Constitution and the Declaration alike.

  For us as a People to realign ourselves with the founding parameters and principles, we should: ensure the general Welfare by extending Medicaid to all citizens, by pursuing medical research (stem cells) that exhibits significant potential for healing, and by making affordable and high-quality education available to all persons equally; reinstate Liberty by granting women full custodianship over their bodies, and by extending to all grown citizens the right to consume whichever drugs they think best; provide for the common defence by recalling our armed forces from territories not our own, so that they might defend the motherland; create and expand domestic markets so that our citizens might pursue a decent Happiness on their own soil; form a more perfect Union by abolishing electoral laws that favor a few states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida) at the expense of the remaining forty six states; rekindle the dying flame of Justice by retraining our police forces to protect rather than circumvent the rights granted the individual by the Constitution, and by altering the current rules of electoral fund-raising, rules that amplify well-funded interests while making irrelevant the voice of the common man; recalibrate the three branches of government so that they might once again gain the tender balance between executive, legislative, and judicial powers, a balance central to the (Constitutionally) correct functioning of our nation.

  There are many more changes that must be made before we will have met the parameters of our founding documents, but the few suggestions mentioned above will put us back on track. As Benjamin Franklin said, We have created a republic, but only if we can keep it. In order to regain this grasp, we must break down existing legal and moral conditions, so that we and our Posterity might once again enjoy the full, unbridled joy of the Blessings of Liberty.

  p.s. requiescat in pacem, Steven Paul Jobs, 1955-2011

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

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.

  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

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp