on girls in movies

  Some time ago I was discussing,  with a close associate, the film Kick Ass. He had expressed his concern about the scene in which the character named Hitgirl is beaten unconscious by the movie's main antagonist. He had said something to the tune of, "If it's now ok to have little girls getting the shit kicked out of them, then, in films releasing in the future, it will be ok for all little girls to get the shit kicked out of them, and we will likely be seeing a lot more of it." At first, I found this comment funny, and made as if to laugh along with the joke. Soon, however, I realized that my counterpart was serious, that he had a problem seeing a fictional scene depicting a fictional young woman locked in choreographed combat with a fictional villain. I do not condone violence toward children; I have (and will in the future) personally intervened in situations in which I witnessed children at risk of physical harm so as to protect them (even if only briefly). (Side note: if you are smoking while children are in your car or in your home, or smoking anywhere near children, you are causing harm to those children, and you are an asshole.)
  Then, last night, I watched Leon the Professional, a film directed by Luc Besson, starring Jean Reno and Natalie Portman, in which in one scene the protagonist, a pubescent girl, holds a gun to her head and narrowly avoids blowing out her brains. After watching that scene, I realized that this scene was the origin of all the depictions in recent Hollywood blockbusters of young women holding guns to their heads and trying to blow out their brains. In nearly every movie since Leon the Professional came out, over the past couple of decades, at least one young actress has held a gun to her head and threatened to cap herself if not given the love or the attention or the breakfast cereal she felt she deserved. It has, as we all know, become a hallmark of modern cinema to depict young women playing Hanoi roulette, one chamber empty and the other five full, the metal flashing as they spun their pistols shut and thrust the business end dramatically to their temples.
  After having re-watched Leon, I now agree: we cannot allow the continued portrayal of young women who are willing to put their lives on the line for something in which they believe, or who have the courage to go up against great and tremendous odds in order to protect their friends or to avenge the murder of a loved one (for this might encourage our women-folk to take action, to challenge the strictures of our paternalistic society and win for themselves an equal station in the workplace and in the home). Also, we cannot trust that movie-makers or movie-goers will be able to differentiate between fact and fiction.
  For to allow one movie to show a young woman taking action in the face of adversity, to depict one girl demanding the swift and merciful execution of justice, is to invite chaos into our homes, into our hearts, and into our minds. We have already stamped out poverty on a global scale; we have already eradicated disease across the seven continents; we have already ensured that each and every human being has the means to lead a peaceful and hunger-free life devoid of suffering and deprivation; now, all we need to do, is to make sure no fake children are hurt in the movies we watch. The general public is sheep-like and utterly devoid of any inherent ability to think or to judge on its own, and must therefore not be exposed to any such violent portrayals lest it succumb immediately to the temptation to act out what was just shown on screen. Join us in our fight against this terrible scourge, and let us together ban these horrendous portrayals of strong young women putting it all on the line for their beliefs. Sign the petition at your local censor's bureau, and remember: we are watching you.

(postscriptum: Movies are make-believe, and worrying about their potential impact on future society is counter-productive and a waste of time. Keep expression, and the mind, open and free.)

declaration of corporate supremacy

When in the course of pursuing profits it becomes necessary to remind the People for whom it is they toil, and to formulate the rules by which they shall lead their lives, we, the assembled capitalists and corporations headquartered in these United States (but not necessarily operating here), only occasionally and perfunctorily respectful to the Opinions of Mankind, declare that the economic wellbeing of our executive boards and voting members by far outweighs the Right of the People to Safety and Happiness. The original Declaration of Independence, that document upon which the United States was founded, those words that might have given mankind the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, is, and has for some time now been, a dead and forgotten document, its declaration of unalienable rights null and void, its formulation of the core principle of the role of government - to bring about the Safety and the Happiness of the People - ground to dust under the jack-boot of our Capitalistic Greed.

We hold these Lies to be enforceable through police action: that a small percentage of Americans should by rights reap the profits generated by the labor of all who work in this country; that we have the right to speculate with and to risk the invested monies of those Americans stupid enough to have entrusted us with their savings, and, when our speculations fail and millions of Americans lose their hard-won gains, to be safe and secure in our gated communities, our ill-begotten money protected by the federal government, our risky businesses kept from failing by the taxes paid by the very people whom we had hoodwinked originally; that we shall profit from the sale of drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, that are legally available to the People, drugs that kill them by the hundreds of thousands and maim them by the millions, while supporting the persecution and the imprisonment of the People in for-profit penitentiaries owned and run by us, for the crime of consuming drugs not to our liking, such as marijuana, drugs that have no discernible negative affect on their health or on their Happiness; that the US government should wage un-winnable wars against faceless foes (see the "war on terror") so that we may continue to manufacture, develop, and sell arms and weaponry, wars that might be won only if every person on Earth were placed in concentration camps and forcibly lobotomized; that we have the Right, through unscrupulous and down-right false advertising, to convince the People that unbridled consumption and unchecked personal debt are the bedrock of the American Dream, that Happiness does not grow from within, that it is not a fragile state of mind that blossoms from patience and self-understanding, but that it is something we cram into our wallets and pocket-books, that we spend in our shopping plazas, that we waste on useless items that supposedly make life easier but that are little more than clutter; that it was our patriotic duty to abandon the American manufacturing sector for foreign shores, sacrificing the jobs of millions of our countrymen to boost our profit-margins, allowing children across the Pacific Rim to work as slave-laborers in free-economic zones so that unemployed Americans could buy cheap goods that break soon after use; that we have the Right, regardless of the complaints of tree-hugging hippies, to rape and destroy the land for short-term gain, to saturate the lands with chemicals to make plants grow instead of learning from the soil, to poison the streams with mine-tailings, to clear-cut the once-great forests for export, and to pump the animals we slaughter for food full of steroids and antibiotics instead of providing them with clean and open places in which to live out their short and pathetic lives; that we have willingly and to vast personal profit rejuvenated the methods of the ancient Romans for controlling the lower classes by providing them with bread (fast food) and circuses (television), methods that poison the body and the mind but that keep the rabble blessedly quiet and contented throughout their pitiful and mostly worthless lives; that we will run our corporate societies, not as democracies, but as quasi-totalitarian states, while convincing our workers that, through hard and dedicated labor, they might reach the highest rungs of our bogus organizations, while, in reality, they will, after infighting, backstabbing, and reckless self-promotion, find themselves flung out into the cold, the pathways to our fleeting and hollow ranks closed to all but a most rapacious and lustful few.

  At no point in the long yet subtle Process of making a mockery of this once great Nation did we pause to consider that our hoarding of the nation's wealth would violate the Constitutional directive of promoting the general Welfare, although we will, by funneling the collective wealth of all Americans into the pockets of our cronies and fellow oligarchs, secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity, not to all Americans equally, but to those who have, as we have, dutifully sacrificed their sacred Honor on the altar of Capitalisic Greed, who have shat, as we have shat, upon the once-grand notion of Liberty and Justice for All. We have stopped our ears to the Voice of Justice, preferring rather the Shreik of Lies, preferring rather to profit from spying on the People (through the sale and maintenance of the materials necessary to the surveilance society), under the falsely-titled and unpatiotic Patiot Act, rejoicing in the violation of the flimsy protections once, but no longer, afforded the People by the Constitution.

  All this we pledge, and more, for: we have the means to lobby the Legislature for our own gain; we have the money with which to live comfortably for ten lifetimes while millions of American children go to bed hungry each night; we have convinced the People that consumption is preferrable to ingenuity, that watching TV is preferrable to creative expression and the telling of stories, that there is a universal formula for Happiness, a formula that starts with a dollar sign. We, therefore, the capitalists and corporations headquartered in these United States, Assembled, appealing to none but our majority share-holders, by our own authority and the might of our wrongly appropriated wealth, brazenly Publish and Declare, that this Country belongs to Us now, that the dream of a more perfect Union has no place in the world of top-few-capitalism, that ninety-nine percent of all Americans shall toil ceaselessly to make us, those of the remaining One Percent, rich beyond reckoning, that governemnt is not instituted to secure the Rights of the People, and that they have neither the Right to alter nor to abolish their governemnt, even though it long ago abandoned them to satisfy the needs of the most monied few, as it is too late, and they waited too long to act.

  So suck it, you hard-working American fools, suck it good and hard.

wine & dine - limerick

I'll be in town, so if you're around
I certainly would like to meet.
But if not, that's fine,
I'll wine and I'll dine,
The next girl I pass on the street.

on political correctness

  Sometime in the 1990s, the practice of political correctness gained widespread traction in American society. According to the theory of political correctness, nothing should be said publicly that might offend someone who may be listening. Additionally, anyone who feels offended after hearing something someone else said has the right to complain about what was said, forcing the utterer of the offending remark to apologize publicly for her (perceived) transgressions and to make grand pronouncements regarding her steadfast and perpetual love and respect for the person or group that has decided to consider itself maligned. Political correctness at best forces people to be conscious of the feelings of others; at worst, it drives inherently racist and discriminatory opinions (which all but the most disciplined and enlightened among us have) below the surface, where they invariably fester, and grow. Allowing the free expression of racist and discriminatory opinions does two things: it makes racists easier to spot, and to thus avoid; and it grants the individual who harbors discriminatory opinions the ability to vent his or her feelings of hatred verbally, before the venting process turns physical.
  In my opinion, political correctness has hamstrung life in America. Instead of confronting our true feelings and voicing those feelings in public where they can be challenged and counter-acted, we now play nice, pretending to be best friends while making no progress on our stated mission (found on the back of every single dollar bill in circulation) of crafting One out of Many.
  Political correctness is counter-productive also because it implies that, as a speaker in public, I am somehow responsible for the emotional well-being of my audience. If I say something offensive, it is the choice of the listener to be offended by what I have said. The offended party can just as easily decide not to be offended by what I have said, and go on with her day. Too often, however, that person calls for my censorship because she has decided to be offended by what I have said. The theory of political correctness demands that a person complain if they have decided to be offended by someone else's comment; it reduces the likelihood that the offender will voice his true and honest opinion, thus encouraging him to lie, to practice deceit. (I consider the replacement of our desire for truthfulness with socially-acceptable deceitfulness a symptom of the greed and individualistic self-aggrandizement inherent to capitalism.)
  So, next time you are offended by what someone else has said or done, remember: you can always look away, leave the offender's vicinity, or simply consider, in your own mind, their opinion silly, false, or just plain stupid. No one is forcing you to be offended by the actions of another - your bruised feelings are your choice alone, your burden to bear. So please, keep your feelings honest, voice your discriminatory feelings loudly and proudly, and help stamp out the scourge of political correctness.
  Honesty will again prevail in this country, but only if we can first be honest with ourselves, voicing our feelings and opinions freely and in the knowledge that they will be greeted by those seeking, not their own self-satisfaction, but, through open and lively discourse, the betterment of those among us who have been blinded to the equality of all persons (as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence).

(For a perfect example of the doctrine of political non-correctness, watch Clint Eastwood's movie, Gran Torino.)

Stand up. Speak out. Spread freedom.
JPR

on rational thinking - short

The cornerstone of rational thinking is the decision to assume everything is wrong before seeking the truth.

Piracy Raid in Idaho

  Officers of the Warren City police department (WCPD), a suburb outside Boise, today raided the house of a suspected piracy offender. The primary objects seized in the dawn operation were a significant number of pirated DVDs. A subsequent search of the premise turned up discarded NetFlix envelopes and stacks of blank DVDs that investigators consider evidence of premeditation. "Anyone who has watched a film at home has seen the FBI warning at the beginning of that movie," said Douglas Meyer, head of the FBI's Anti-Piracy Mobile Strike Force. "If we can prove that this copy of Little House on the Prairie is pirated, we will punish this perpetrator to the fullest extent of the law." The Warren City man who was taken into custody immediately following the raid could face three years in jail and a $250,000 fine for each item of pirated intellectual property.
  "I don't give a shit about the weed we found," Detective Rune Randolfe, WCPD, said before doughnuting out of the parking lot in response to a phoned-in tip, "we got his stash of burned VHS tapes, too. This guy is headed Rapeside."
  The residents of this sleepy community were shocked by the appearance of so many heavily-armed officers within their midst. "I heard shouting, then what sounded like a door splintering," Tara Hogarth, 38, who lives immediately adjacent to the scene of the crime, said. "Mr... our neighbor was always nice to me, and to my kids. He would have people over sometimes, and we could see a large TV flickering through the blinds in his living room, but to think he was committing piracy, right here, in Warren City? Wow."
  Investigators are fanning out across the United States to track down and punish the millions of Americans suspected of piracy. "The numbers are staggering," agent Meyer said. "We think that over half of the adult population in this country is guilty of at least one act of piracy. Good thing my wife got into corrections."
  Citizens are urged to report instances of piracy, even piracy without monetary gain performed in the privacy of the home, to the appropriate federal authorities. "We have been spending billions on a war against drugs that has had no discernible affect," a state official speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "now it's time to really bleed our coffers dry going after these pirates. They ain't safe nowhere."

(This non-news article is satirical. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. None of the statements attributed to the various federal agents are intended to be taken as factual statements. This is a joke, in more ways than one.)

on open carry laws

  This morning, on my way to get lowfat Greek yogurt (worthless tree-hugger that I am) and a dozen eggs, I had paused to peruse the flower selection in front of my local grocery store when I saw a man exiting a nearby pharmacy. The black bundle on his right hip was either a pistol or a bulky black cellphone with a detachable clip.
  Curious, I watched the lanky and mud-splattered chap enter his dented light-blue Honda crossover, reverse out of his parking spot at high speed, run one stop sign, and then another. I walked out into the road after he had passed, pointing at the stop sign and wagging my finger. The man slammed on the brakes, reversed to my location, and rolled down the passenger window.
  "Stop sign," I said, patting the metal octagon affectionately.
  "Do you want me to get out of this car and beat the shit out of you?"
  I chuckled and said again, Stop sign, with the adrenaline surging in my veins and my knees flexing instinctively into a fighting stance. As I backed away to gain more secure footing, I ascertained that the individual was in fact packing heat.
  With a parting, "Fuck you, motherfucker," the individual sped over to the tobacco store, where he most likely found sympathy with the nice and accommodating ladies behind the counter.

  This man broke two traffic laws in a parking-lot frequented by slow-moving septuagenarians and families with small children. He was armed with a semi-automatic, nine-millimeter pistol that likely held fourteen rounds, and the sole discernible purpose of his lawlessness and hostility was to satisfy his addiction to nicotine.
  I have discussed with a range of individuals the psychological affect of being armed. Furthermore, I have directly experienced the nearly god-like feeling one gets when one knows that there is a cold, hard, death-spitting machine tucked into one's trouserband. While I fully support the right to keep and to bear arms (a Constitutional right), I think that allowing individuals to waltz around in public with pistols on their belts can endanger the general public.
  With a firearm on your hip, you feel invincible, powerful, nearly omnipotent, for you are displaying to the world your ability to extinguish life with the twitch of a finger (whereas you would otherwise have to get your hands dirty strangling your opponent to death, to name but one method). Would the aforementioned individual have been so brash and so flippant had he not been strapped? Perhaps he might have been, and perhaps he might not have been, but allowing him to roll around town at ten in the morning in a residential area with a pistol on his belt in no way reduces his tendency to lawless and aggression; if anything, it heightens his clearly twisted sense of self-importance, and allows him to think that his agenda, no matter how trivial, trumps the bodily safety of those around him.
  This bedraggled chap might be the exception to the rule, one lone asshole in a community of otherwise law-abiding and sensible armed citizens, but, as we saw with Jared Loughner in Arizona, one individual is all it takes to get the blood flowing in the streets. So, where do we draw the line? I believe rigorous psychological examination should be a prerequisite to firearm ownership, but, since I currently reside in Pennsylvania, a state in which it is more difficult to procure booze than guns, mine is more than likely the minority opinion.
  The great travesty I see in this situation is that this individual, because of the Constitutional protection, is allowed to act in the aforementioned way, while individuals pursuing their Happiness (smoking drugs) in the privacy of their own homes, without in any way threatening demonstrably the Safety of those around them, must be in constant fear of having their doors smashed down by armed police officers executing a no-knock raid. Has our republic truly descended to a state in which the public display of weaponry is more important than the liberty to privately pursue one's Happiness?
  Woe be unto freedom. The individual has no right to do with his ultimate private property, his body, as he or she deems best fit. The right to bear Arms has superseded the right to individual Liberty. The ability to deal death enjoys a far higher standing in our society than the ability, as a fully emancipated adult, to decide how to elevate the mind. The state of affairs in our country is in shambles, our concept of Justice tarnished beyond recognition.
  Woe be unto Lady Liberty, for while she stands tall in New York Harbor clutching the Declaration of Independence with stoic pride, we have allowed: the Torch of Progress to burn out; powerful interests to place limits on our most fundamental principles, among them the pursuit of Happiness.
  Speak out. Stand up. Spread freedom.

Ultima Ratio Regum
场黑麦 John Paul Roggenkamp

dollar stores = commie outposts

  As of today, 25May2011, millions of Americans are directly supporting the People's Republic of China, America's primary economic competitor and one of the sole remaining bastions of the socialistic worldview. All across our nation, in cities great and small, from the rolling central plains to the rugged western coastline, countless numbers of American citizens contribute directly to the ascending might of the Middle Kingdom.
  Dollar stores, which sell products ranging from shower curtains to miniature cast-resin busts of zebras, stand at the forefront of the Chinese invasion of, and inevitable dominance over, the American economy. Purchasing an item that reads, Made In China, directly shuttles funds into the rapidly growing Chinese economy (where most of the consumer items sold in dollar stores are made) rather than into the pockets of native-born producers. In the 1980s, the capitalistic-minded oligarchy that holds the vast majority of the wealth in America saw an opportunity to further boost their profits, destroying the manufacturing economy in this country by paying others to manufacture for us. As hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens lost their manufacturing jobs, they were forced to buy the cheapest products in order to survive; they turned to dollar stores, thus supporting the very people who had taken their jobs in the first place. The capitalistic oligarchy effectively enslaved the American consumer to the whims of foreign nations by shifting production overseas, to free-economic zones that are, in everything but name, slave camps.
  Personally, I welcome our soon-to-be Chinese masters, and would like to say, Ni-Hao-Ma (roughly, Greetings, exalted one). As a Son of the American Revolution, my lineage in America runs deep. I, however, am not blindly patriotic, nor am I inextricably tied to our prevailing economic model, top-few capitalism (in fact I find it intrinsically un-American). I am, however, as of this moment personally boycotting dollar stores, not to harm the Chinese economy, but in quiet mourning for our lost manufacturing economy. Join me if you wish, but know that this choice requires sacrificing a little more money for everyday goods.
  So, remember - if you aren't buying American products exclusively, don't complain about the downfall of America's manufacturing sector; if you truly consider yourself a patriot, buy American.

All hail the wise and benevolent Central Committee!

场黑麦

on slavery as punishment

  The thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution reads, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
  By any measure, this amendment does not abolish slavery, turning it rather into an institution of punishment. If my memory serves me correctly, however, few if any convicted criminals have been sentenced recently to slavery or indentured servitude. The use of slavery as a punitive measure would be more useful in some situations, less in others. A petty thief is unlikely to renounce his life of crime after a few hard seasons under the lash, while a corporate officer convicted of fraud and embezzlement, one accustomed to the finest treatment his ill-won gains could afford, might just emerge from his grueling months under the hot summer sun a humble and reformed person. Similarly, a manslaughtering cuckold is unlikely to find redemption in the tall swaying fields of sugarcane (a modern industry in which, even today, slavery is common), while the bankers who were allowed to profit enormously from the sale of dressed up mortgage-backed securities would truly understand the meaning of labor if put to task making self-guided rockets in a cave in southern Germany.     

  Perhaps is is because so many Americans have enslaved themselves willingly to small-scale capital gain and conspicuous materialism that slavery is not used more frequently as a punitive measure; the slave is already under the yoke, so allowing her to max out her credit cards and providing her with no better outlet at which to express her abounding creativity and endless potential - in her pursuit of food, shelter, and clothing, the Three Fundamental Components of Safety - than a menial, repetitive job ensures that the fruits of her hard labor are not afforded to her, but to the few who sit in the All Seeing Eye atop the pyramid of capitalism. The slave will be in debt until the day she dies, always struggling to make the minimal payment for things she did not truly need and could not truly afford.
  If we start using slavery as a punitive measure, we should seek out someone with knowledge of mass-production and streamlining, as Hitler did when he employed Henry Ford in his efforts to make the vast armies of Nazi slaves more efficient.

  I abhor slavery. I do not think people should ever be put in chains, but as long as our Constitution states that slavery can be considered as punishment for a crime, we should consider using it to bring the false princes of capitalism down a peg or two. The humble are not just the backbone of civil society, they are akin to gods.

So be it.
JPR

Laurel of Godlike American Achievement

  The founders of America were influenced primarily by two religions: Christianity and Hellenistic polytheism (they pored over texts written alike by ancient Christians and ancient Greeks, as argued here).
  Christianity, however, does not tend to celebrate achievements made by non-Christians, rather hoisting high the deeds of individuals who have sacrificed solely for their cause.
  In the ancient Greek world, individuals who in battle displayed the guile, the strategic mind, the cunning of goddess Athena were said to be the embodiment of that god, to be filled with her spirit. I hereby propose the creation of a national body that will determine, via a thorough vetting process, those Americans who in our times are most filled with the spirit of the gods who influenced the founding of this nation.
  Great generals will receive the Laurel of the Owl and Shield for displaying the heroic endeavor and battle strategy attributed to goddess Athena.
  Great poets and authors will receive the Laurel of the Arrow and Lyre for displaying the poetry and truthfulness attributed to god Apollo.
  Great diplomats and merchants will receive the Laurel of the Winged Boot for displaying the diplomacy and cunning wiles attributed to god Hermes.
  Great disruptors of society and graffiti artists will receive the Laurel of Helm and Spear for displaying the civil disorder and manly courage attributed to god Ares.
  Many other gods exist in the Olympian pantheon, and many more Laurels will be issued.
  The concept of the Laurel of Godlike American Achievement will celebrate people from all castes, all groups, all races, and all religions. It will whip the masses into a great churning froth of Happiness by giving them something to which to aspire, such as knowledge of the woodland arts (Artemis), metalworking and sculpture (Hephaestus), and the celebration of eternal youth (Dionysus), aspirations other than those based purely on the accumulation of capital.
  Your suggestions are welcome. Your readership is appreciated. Your hope springs eternal.

Ultima Ratio Regum,
Juliet Papa Romeo

michael foxtrot

Michael Foxtrot. Mike Fox. MF - mother fucker. now who's being sneaky?

on Safety and Happiness

  The Declaration of Independence, to use business parlance, is the mission statement to the Constitution's business plan. Without the Declaration, the Constitution is a merely an outline for civil government. With the Declaration, the Constitution is a malleable, living document whose purpose is to make real the few driving ideas behind the Declaration: that all persons are equal, that together they share the inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and that their government exists solely to bring about their Safety and their Happiness.
  We hear in our legislative bodies and in the press of great battles being waged along moral and idealistic lines, yet seldom do we hear this fundamental question: Will this piece of legislation bring about the Safety and/or the Happiness of the greatest possible majority of the population? Instead, we are told: that the rich will suddenly turn into magnanimous fountains of job-creation if their taxes are lowered further; that the elderly will somehow thrive when forced to purchase their own health-care plans in exceedingly complex markets; that our statue to the goddess of Liberty, she who stands proudly in New York Harbor, is a liar, her flame now extinguished, the promise of our land's vast potential reserved solely for the growing masses of native poor who already huddle here.
  We have lost sight of the essence of the American Dream, the idea that each person who here dwells may determine the parameters of his or her Happiness, and that as long as those parameters do not constrict or endanger the parameters set by other people, he or she has the inalienable Right to Pursue that Happiness. Without Safety, however, the parameters of Happiness are largely symbolic, and no attempt to Pursue Happiness can be successful. For this reason, our founding fathers distilled the myriad purposes of government into just two fundamental reasons for government: to effect, i.e. to create, to bring about, to make, the American people Safe and Happy.
  Does our current government expend every conceivable effort to make us Safe and Happy? I must applaud the extraordinary efforts of Director Mueller and the reformation of the FBI under his watch. Aside from my personal experience with the wild-eyed agents who targeted me in their desperate search for a scape-goat (see here), I believe the FBI is performing admirably in its efforts to fulfill the first promise of the Declaration - to keep the American people Safe. Furthermore, our police and fire departments (with some exceptions, of course) are also performing their efforts in this regard in admirable fashion.
  While the fulfillment of the promise of Safety is widely pursued and well-funded, the fulfillment of the promise of Happiness has been at best neglected, at worst countermanded. We have allowed an economic system (capitalism) to spread in this country, a system that rewards a few for the labor of all, a system that affords a few the capacity to Pursue their Happiness with wild abandon while denying the vast majority of the population the capacity to do the same, a system that reduces every year thousands of hard-working Americans to wage-slaves living one personal disaster away from abject poverty. Rather than allowing each American to consume whichever substances she deems most likely to affect positively her state of mind, her Happiness, we have: outlawed all but the most deadly, and mundane (alcohol and tobacco): routinely incarcerated individuals found to possess any substance other than these mundane and deadly few; funneled vast sums of money into the hands of pharmaceutical corporations that engineer and distribute street drugs under different names; deemed it wise to feed our children synthetic cocaine and synthetic amphetamines to help them succeed in school.
  Our government's efforts to live up the Declaration's promise of Safety are commendable, but without equally expansive efforts to bring about the Happiness of all Americans equally, the Safety efforts are for naught. In order for the American citizen to start down the Path to Happiness, three key requirements must be met: food, clothing, and shelter. Should these key requirements be in place, the individual will be able to determine the breadth of his abilities, which will then allow him to determine a way to support himself through the effortless expression of those abilities, otherwise known as Productive Happiness. Our current, capitalistic approach, is one that requires the individual to labor constantly in fields not necessarily optimally balanced against his abilities, thus keeping him from determining the parameters of his Happiness, from living a life of Happiness; capitalism in America therefore violates the second promise of the Declaration.
  For many reasons, this is not a desirable state of affairs. A tiny fraction of our population does not have the right to receive the fruits of the labors of a majority of that population. We cannot allow some drugs to be tolerated and others not. We cannot afford to waste the untapped potential of our citizens by providing them with no better place to express their abilities than from behind a convenience-store cash register. We cannot allow millions of American children to suffer daily from food insecurity (see here). We can and we must provide for the Safety and Happiness of all Americans equally.
  So, next time you see politicians fighting over whatever piece of legislation is on the table, write or call their offices and ask if the legislation in question brings about the Safety and Happiness of the greatest possible majority of American citizens. Together, we can realign our country with the dual promises of the Declaration of Independence. Together, we can unleash the great untapped potential that simmers within each of us. Together, we can fulfill the promises of Safety and Happiness first to each American equally, and then equally to all mankind.

Ultima Ratio Regum

John Paul Roggenkamp

on fishing

The saying goes, Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life (or at least until he defaults on the loan that afforded him his fishing gear, at which point you confiscate his boat, rods, and tackle, and his boat and fishing grounds become yours).
It's just that easy.

war on drugs - caffeine

The Momentary Courier of Newsiness
08MAY2011

Des Moines.
  In their ongoing efforts to eradicate the distribution of deadly drugs throughout America, federal agents today raided the Sippy House, a coffee shop in a quiet neighborhood of Des Moines. After receiving a tip from an unnamed source concerned that children were being served drugs at the Sippy House, members of the ATF moved in just after the establishment opened at 8:30 am.
  "I was walking by on my way to get a bagel," said longtime Des Moines resident Enrique Sanchez, 39, "when I saw armed men clad in black and carrying automatic weapons kicking down the back door to the Sippy House." Agents confirm they have secured large amounts of caffeine in various forms, including finely and coarsely ground coffees, and teas neatly packed in small pouches that, agents said, facilitate the quick and efficient delivery and distribution of this drug. "We have seized all manner of this dangerous substance, including coffee beans coated in chocolate, and chocolate bars laced with caffeine," said Sergeant Allen T. Samuelson III, the commander of the raid, in an interview at the scene. "Caffeine is a drug," Samuelson continued, "and we need to make sure the American people cannot access this or any other drug."
  Georgette Bristol-Schmidt, age 11, was waiting to be taken into state custody after her mother, Henrietta, was charged with child endangerment and corruption of a minor for buying a small iced latte that she then handed to her preteen daughter. "I was tired this morning," Georgette said, "so Mommy bought me a coffee. I'm not tired now, and the nice police lady said I'm going to a nice place with nice people."
  Similar raids are taking place across the country. The Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms, which is conducting these raids in conjuncture with the Centers for Disease Control and the Drug Enforcement Agency, said in an online statement, "No longer will Americans be exposed to drugs or stimulants of any kind. We are shutting down all caffeine distribution centers, all alcohol distribution centers, all nicotine distribution centers, any and all establishments that make drugs of any form available to the addict. We're just getting warmed up - you ain't seen nothing yet."
  The Committee for the Defense of Liberty in America, which according to its website was established, "To guarantee that all Americans, in accordance with the Declaration of Independence, can now and forever more Pursue their Happiness as they see best fit, so long as they are not restricting others from pursuing their Happiness in any way, shape, or form," did not officially respond to the widespread actions of the aforementioned federal agencies.
  "I didn't realize caffeine was a drug," Sanchez said. "I guess it's good that our government is protecting us from any and all substances that might cause us harm, or elevate our minds. I, for one, welcome the police state."

James J. Jameson is a reporter for The Momentary Courier of Newsiness

(This non-news article is satirical. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. None of the statements attributed to the various federal agents are intended to be taken as factual statements. This is a joke, in more ways than one.)

on belief

My beliefs, like the beliefs of any person, are complex.
  Foremost, I believe in the teachings of the Tao Te Ching, that simple and profound work that exalts humility, frugality, and mercy.
  I believe in the perpetual yet fragile nature of Liberty, that state of mind in which the pure deep essence of a person's innermost core bubbles out into the world unfettered and pure.
  I believe that goddess Athena visits me at times (when I am exhibiting qualities for which she is the patron goddess), instilling in me superhuman abilities and making me shine with a great, visible light.
  I believe that the birds are watching me, keeping an eye on me and reporting my actions to their respective gods, be those gods Wednesday or Athena or any of the other gods that use birds to spy on us.
  I apologize when I step on a young bamboo shoot, in the belief that my destructive action might turn the entire grove against me.
  When cutting the lawn here, I am in constant anguish, as I can see the tiny beasts, the insects and whatnot, scampering before the whirling blades of death, rushing to escape my descending foot; I weep for their mangled little bodies, for their lifeless husks, and ask for their forgiveness.
  I believe that each and every person in this world has the potential to do great things, to change mankind in fantastic and unprecedented ways, although most are too poor (in the developing world) or too lazy (in the developed world) to develop the method for unleashing this potential. (I also believe that capitalism stunts the flowing of true potential, forcing the individual to replace his search for Happiness with the scramble to merely survive.)
  I believe that a group of shape-shifting giant space aliens live in the dense foliage of the bamboo grove, that they flee at my approach, that they make a terrible rustling sound when I appear too suddenly and too close by.
  I believe that I am an embodiment of Loki, the Norse god of chaos, and that my purpose in life is to disrupt the standard methods and to bring change into the world, for good or ill.

  I believe all these things (and many others, such as the Pan-Human-Consciousness and the Ancient Alien Theory), and I believe none of them.
  Unlike a member of an established religion, my beliefs are fluid, ever-changing, never set in stone and never shoved in the face of the person I run into at the supermarket. At any moment I may believe in all of the above things or in none, in some part-way and in others fully (although I most always perform the whole practice of apologizing-to-living-things-I-accidentally-trample-or-kill).

  My beliefs are absurd, but I know they are absurd, and I cherish them for their absurdity. For the most part (except of course for this blogposting), I keep them to myself. I would never dare to berate another for his or her lack of belief in my beliefs. I would never approach another and ask if he has accepted the Flying Spaghetti Monster as his one and only living and ever-watchful Saviour, nor would I confront another and ask if he has accepted Allah as his one and only true god (mostly because I don't feel like talking to the FBI again and explaining to them, again, that I am not a terrorist).

  So, those are my beliefs, although they aren't, really, as I believe in that which cannot be named, that which is inexhaustible, that which has no form, that which has a name so powerful that to say it would be to rend the very fabric of the universe, that which has a form so subtle that it is the form of all things and no things.
  And yet, unlike a believer in an established religion, I will (and do) change my beliefs if presented with superior and logical evidence that they are wrong.
  My belief-systems are flexible, expanding and contracting with every stroke of the bellows.
  My beliefs will never convince me that the actions of another person merit persecution or death (unless said actions involve rape, theft, or murder). My beliefs will never convince me that they are superior to the beliefs of anyone else in the world.
  I yearn only to exhibit my beliefs through my actions, never by cornering of someone at the local home-improvement store or by yelling at strangers on a street-corner in Hollywood.
  My beliefs are my business; they belong to me alone. I will never kill for my beliefs, nor will I enslave another person, nor will I berate another person for not sharing my beliefs.

  So, for all those people who find it necessary to spread vocally the word of their god, stop. Keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us rational, flexible folk get on with our lives. Your rigid adherence to religious doctrine is sad, at best. Keep your religious observances out of our legislatures, out of our court-rooms, out of our public places. Keep America tolerant; keep her free.

  Vote NO on American theocracy.

Ultima Ratio Regum
Juliet Papa Romeo

drug-free America

  National organizations such as the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and Above the Influence are established to educate children about drugs, including alcohol, in the hopes that these children will not use drugs. Until the last doctor proscribes the last prescription to Addreall, which is synthesized meth-emphetamine, and until the last child pops his Ritalin, which bears close resemblance to cocaine, our children will not be drug-free.
  The positive affect of getting kids hooked on synthetic meth and synthetic coke is that the purity of the drugs they are taking is very high, and the dosages are easily discernible, thus lessening the likelihood that these kids will overdose or be poisoned by the drugs they receive from their parents and from their doctors.
  Until the last liquor store closes and the last pack of cigarettes is sold, we will not be free of drugs in America. Until the last parent stops taking the last pill to combat their probably obesity-related illness, we will not be free of drugs in America.
  The only way to show our kids that life is livable without drugs is to make all drugs in this country illegal and unobtainable. Otherwise, we are sending our young people mixed messages that they will misinterpret. Far better were it to make all drugs available to all people, educating them on the uses of the drugs and on their potential side-affects, and making them sign a waiver before they receive sufficient quantities of the refined substance they deem most likely to positively affect their Pursuit of Happiness. Far better were it to admit to ourselves and to the world that we all take drugs (be they caffeine, sugar, alcohol, or nicotine), that life in this country without drugs is virtually unimaginable, and that we are a people that love their drugs in many and varied forms.
  End the confusion. End the oppression. End the restriction of Liberty.
  Legalize all drugs, or ban them all.
  Let the people Pursue their Happiness as they see best fit.
  Remember the promise of the Declaration of Independence.

Ultima Ratio Regum
John Paul Roggenkamp

on rational egoism

  Much has been ado of late about the theory of rational egoism championed by Ayn Rand. Politicians have taken up the call, among them Rand Paul, stating clearly their opinions of the Lumpenproletariat, i.e. the growing segment of the American population that has little or no capital; the poor. According to the theory of rational egoism, the poor and the destitute are parasites on society, while the rich are the wise and money-generating hosts on whom these parasites prey.
  A small number of people in America have been allowed to amass large amounts of money and property, either by individual effort or through inheritance. Such vast quantities of capital are not necessary to house and to feed and to clothe the families and dependents of this tiny, monied elite. To protect their vast holdings, the monied elite has corrupted our elected officials, using the power inherent to capital to craft legislation favorable to them and theirs, thus becoming a plutocracy. To protect its vast holdings, this plutocracy has convinced the American people, using ingenious methods of propaganda, that the essence of the American Dream is to have capital, to be rich, to claw one's way at all cost into the closed ranks of the plutocracy, when these vast quantities of capital can only be brought into being by the united actions of all members of society, by the combined efforts of all people who labor in America.
  The Constitution of the United States of America does not establish a capitalistic system in this country. It does not anywhere mandate that a few hundred families are to receive the fruits of the labor of tens of millions of American citizens. Instead, it states that this country is established to promote the general Welfare, to insure domestic Tranquility, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity. When the capital that is brought into being by millions of laboring citizens is funneled into the pockets of a few dozen, when whole populations are left to fend for themselves, denied quality schooling and medical care, when millions of Americans pass on to their Posterity not Liberty but enslavement to the ceaseless demands and empty joys of materialism, we can no longer honestly call ourselves the Children of the Constitutional Convention.
  America has abandoned the principles set forth in the Constitution. Instead of employing the enormous amount of capital created here every day in the interest of all citizens equally, instead of providing each American woman, child, and man with the basic tools (i.e. food, clothing, shelter) necessary to even consider a method for obtaining Happiness, instead of ensuring that we are and shall always be able to pursue: "Our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it" (J.S. Mill, On Liberty), instead we have allowed a small, selfish group to highjack our most fundamental principles and to convince us that money - dirty, ever-corrupting money - is a more important component of our lives than unadulterated Happiness.
  There is a storm coming. We have allowed those at the bottom (the poor) to go hungry for too long, and to grow too envious of those at the top (the rich). We have allowed the rich and the well-connected to escape Justice through presidential pardon and access to prohibitively expensive legal representation. We mock the concept of Welfare; we have reduced it to a pitiful and deplorable concept few self-respecting people care to support. Once the great swelling masses of the poor come to look past the smokescreen of propaganda, our domestic Tranquility will be shattered.
  The Randian notion of rational egoism only serves to further obfuscate the true, founding principles of this country - that all Americans are created equal, and that they all have the Right to an equal share of the capital that exists and that is created in this country. We spend billions of dollars preparing for potential future conflicts against foes that do not exist, yet we reduce funding to our educational system, thus ensuring the perpetual mediocrity and persistent under-achievement of our nation's youth. We cut the rates at which the plutocracy is taxed while it wallows in more money that it could possibly need to live comfortably. We hear a president call shopping our patriotic duty, and, instead of denouncing roundly this farce, we dutifully max out our credit cards.
  It is easy to blame the politicians for these failures, while We the People alone are solely to blame. We hear from our politicians that the richest few among us should not shoulder their portion of the national burden, and we accept this meekly and without complaint. We listen quietly as powerful forces attempt to elevate one religion (Christianity) over all others, and accept this brazen assault on the concept of religious freedom as inevitable and just.
  We, the People, are failing.
  We, the People, are watching with disinterest as the forces that guide this country are corrupted and bent to the will of those who have most benefited from our decline into capitalism.
  We, the People, cannot afford to allow the greed inherent to rational egoism to further erode our Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We must stand tall, and we must fight.
  Otherwise, we will have sacrificed Lady Liberty to the god of Greed on the altar of Consumerism.
  This aggression will not stand.

Ultima Ratio Regum,
John Paul Roggenkamp

on private property

or, On the individual's right to the body, the ultimate and irrefutable private property.

  Humans have bodies. Without the body, the human dies. There is no way to separate oneself fully from one's body without killing oneself. Therefore, the body is the only truly private property that man possesses. His house can be destroyed; his land taken from him; his car can crash; his clothes will fade and turn to rags; but, throughout his whole life, his body is always his private property, which by right of irrevocable possession he may affect as he pleases.
  If an individual decides to destroy her house, to smash up her car, to tear her clothes to ribbons, i.e. if she decides to do with her external private property as she sees best fit, no government agency will prevent her from altering or destroying her property unless said destruction and alteration should pose a threat to other people.
  In the United States of America, the use of external private property does not fall under federal jurisdiction, unless of course said usage poses a threat to others. Yet, the use of the ultimate private property, the body, does. It is illegal to introduce a great number of substances into the body, substances such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin et cetera, substances that can create feelings of euphoria and that expand the capabilities of the human mind. Instead of these entheogens (see here), Americans are allowed by the federal government to introduce into their bodies a number of other substances that excite the mind to a lesser extent, substances such as sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and salt. It is not illegal to consume these substances, although over-usage of same can and very often does lead to addiction, physical disease, and death.
  Caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine together kill tens of thousands of Americans every year (see here), yet their use is unrestricted, and the federal government does not raid the homes of people using these substances. If police officers suspect that someone is smoking weed, they sometimes conduct, in appalling violation of the Constitutional protections, what are known as a "no-knock warrants" (see here), in which the smoker's property (the door to his home) is destroyed and his peace is violated by the forced entry of heavily armed officers.
  Why is this individual's home being raided? To protect him from himself? To protect those who live around him from potential harm? On average, the marijuana smoker is not a violent person; his drug of choice makes him hungry, prone to conversation, and generally happy. The alcoholic is violent, abusive, and unpredictable, and would therefore be the person who is more likely to be a threat to himself and to those around him. But I doubt a single "no-knock-warrant" has been ever issued because someone was witnessed carrying a case of beer into his house.
  Americans must be allowed to choose for themselves which substances they want to consume. We are already allowed to buy drugs like alcohol and nicotine, drugs that destroy the body and that cause inestimable harm to individuals and their families. Perhaps the greatest harm ever caused by marijuana is the removal of the smoker from society to a prison cell. Imprisonment leads to criminalization. Imprisonment breaks apart families. Imprisonment forever reduces the individual to life as a second class citizen.
  Outlaw all substances or legalize them all. Anything else is hypocritical. Anything else violates the right of the individual to do with her private property as she sees best fit. Anything else violates the essence of the Declaration of Independence, the notion that government is established: "As to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
  The incarceration of non-violent drug offenders does not effect, or create, Happiness; it destroys Happiness.
  The prohibition on substances other than those deemed acceptable by a majority of the population is un-American. We must have the right to choose how we handle our ultimate private property, our bodies. We have the freedom: to eat too much sugar, too much salt; to drink too much booze; to smoke too many cigarettes.
  The freedom to consume these substances is literally killing us. Ergo, any argument claiming that the prohibitions on substances such as marijuana, cocaine, and opium exist to protect us from harm and death are completely invalidated.
  Outlaw them all, or legalize them all.
  Let the People find Happiness where they may.

Ultima Ratio Regum.

JPR 30APR2011

no American theocracy III

  "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." James Madison, 1774;
  "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson;
  "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanac;
  "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson, 1787;
  "And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson, in an 1823 letter to John Adams.

  The above statements were made by individuals whom we now call our founding fathers. Similar quotes were made by George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Abraham Lincoln. We are not a Christian nation, not founded as one, not designed to become one. Never can we allow religious teaching to highjack our institutions of government. To incorporate religious teaching amongst the laws and constitutions of our land would be to destroy the efforts of our founding fathers to create a nation of equal, rational, free-thinking, and exceptional human beings.

  During a recent discussion, my counterpart stated that, The founding fathers were informed by Christianity; they drew from a common value system that was prevalent at the time. While this theory of osmotic Christian indoctrination has some merit, I propose a theory that has perhaps equal merit. In the statements by Thomas Jefferson quoted above, we find two references to ancient Greek notions, namely Reason and Athena (Minerva).

  If Christianity informed our founding fathers, and Jefferson foremost among them, then the polytheistic teachings and values of the illustrious authors of Hellenistic antiquity, who wrote such works as The Republic (Plato) and Politics (Aristotle), informed them also. The notion of Reason - the fluid process of thinking and experimentation by which man masters challenge - can be found in the writings of both Plato and Aristotle. The notion of goddess Athena - patroness of art, craft, guile, justice, strength, civilization, and wisdom - can also be found in the writings of these two men of old. Thomas Jefferson, an educated and well-read individual, in his crafting of the Declaration of Independence, drew upon the writings of the ancient political philosophers, and was sure to have been exposed considerably to the polytheistic notions of the time.

  And yet, when writing the Declaration, did he make mention of the Hellenistic pantheon? He made no more mention of them than he did of Yahweh, the god of the Christians. If I were to stride into the Chambers of Congress and announce to those assembled that, since Greek deities informed our founding fathers, rites must be performed regularly to placate Poseidon, or choice cuts must be burnt to please Zeus, I would surely be laughed out of the room by all present.

  Our Constitution, in the first Amendment, states that no laws shall be passed that restrict the practice of, or that establish officially, any religion. This amendment gives the right to all who here dwell to practice their religion without fear of government repression. In my opinion, a person should be able to decide which god he or she should worship, which religion to practice, and what beliefs, however outlandish and outmoded they may seem to me, to hold. I rejoice in that freedom; I do not wish to see it ever taken from any man or any woman. Efforts currently under way, however: to interfere with a woman's Right to her only true private property, her body, in matters of abortion; to delineate the right to marry according to the religious tract of one specific group; these efforts pose a great risk to the first Amendment, to our Constitution, and to the foundations of this American republic, for they are efforts to subjugate the rule of law to religious teaching.

  I applaud those individuals fighting against these assaults on our core principles.

  I applaud the judges hearing these cases, and know that they will approach the matter with reasonable thinking, sound logic, and foreknowledge of the dangers inherent to state-mandated religious doctrine.

  America, as a country, as a nation, as a concept, can only remain viable if it is founded on reason, justice, and the notion that all persons, regardless of class, creed, or color, can here find fertile grounds on which their dreams and aspirations may grow. If we allow even one snippet of religious code to find its way into our laws: we will have abandoned reason; we will have failed our founding fathers; and we will soon find ourselves in a barren and hostile wasteland rife with intolerance and ruled by fear. This cannot come to pass. We must fight - with patient voice and open mind - for the salvation of our nation.

No American Theocracy.

Ultima Ratio Regum.

John Paul Roggenkamp 20APR2011

no American theocracy II

  America is not a Christian nation. Nor is it Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or Taoist. It is a republic founded on the principles of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We, as a nation, cannot allow one religious group, under any circumstance, to incorporate their beliefs into the laws of our land. In this blog, I am more critical of Christianity than any of the hundreds of other religions currently practiced in the United States.
  Someone asked me recently: Why are you so critical of Christianity? No one will defend Christianity, so you are better off taking Islam to task, as that will drum up more controversy.
  To this I say: Muslims are not currently attempting to legally define the parameters of marriage according to their religious texts; they are not attempting to legally restrict, according to their religious texts, a woman's inalienable right to do with her body as she sees best fit (such as aborting a fetus); they are not attempting to define the reference in the Declaration of Independence to Nature's God as a reference to the god they consider supreme above all others, Allah.
  We hear, in the news, about the dangers of an Islamic caliphate arising in the Middle East. (For one example of this, see here.) Any system of governance that rules according to the code of a specific religion will, by necessity, subjugate those people living under its rule to its own laws; it will stifle freedom of expression; it will, when challenged, resort to barbaric and unreasonable action to silence dissent.
  For an example of the horrors of religious rule, look into life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. We in America cannot allow religious doctrine to become the law of the land. We cannot allow our fundamental principles to be made subservient to the beliefs of one specific religion. Our republic, our freedoms, our liberty, our lives, are at risk. American flexibility and inventiveness will suffer under religious rule; ultimately, these characteristics we hold so highly will be extinguished altogether. We owe it to future generations to maintain a country dedicated to the non-religious principles set forth in our founding documents; we cannot allow our republic to be destroyed by religious zealotry.
  No to theocracy in America.

Ultima Ratio Regum.

John Paul Roggenkamp