Grigovia condemns killings

The Glorious Republic of Grigovia recently joined a growing number of nations protesting America's ongoing policy of killing people using unmanned aerial systems, or drones. Concurrent with its formal application to United Nations membership, Grigovia signed the Pact of Peace amongst Prosperous Peoples (PoPaPP), which censures the government of the United States and calls for it to stop its drone strikes immediately. “Given the illegality of these attacks and a proven American willingness to bomb the citizens of nations with which it is not officially at war, we call for America to forget hatred, anger, and fear and return to the table of friendship,” said Piendoyast Tormund, deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for the state of Grigovia. “It is illegal, inappropriate, and rude for a big kid to go around with a bucket of his own tears drowning the smaller kids who live down the street.”

Since assuming world hegemony after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the federal government of the United States of America has donned a mantle it once sacrificed so much to overthrow: that of petty, spiteful tyrant. “Fewer than 70 years ago, the U.S. fought to free the oppressed people of the world from the tyrants Hitler and Hirohito,” said Biel Nourdegast, professor of 20th Century history at Pylta the Terrible University, in Pyltagrad. “Now, however, it spirits people from the lands of their birth and tortures them in secret prisons around the world while also using its unmanned aerial systems to watch, track, and kill persons it merely suspects of wanting to do it or its people harm. Such behavior is estimable to tyrants only.” In 1776, a group of non-conformist Americans operating in the 13 original colonies cried foul of King George's ongoing torture and intimidation of his own subjects; they rebelled, using terrorist tactics to topple a corrupt and murderous hegemon. Now, though, in 2013, their ancestors torture and intimidate peaceful peoples the world over, fomenting anger and spreading hatred one drone strike at a time.

“On many levels, the American government's actions violate its founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution” said Ula Ouliffant, a political science student at Eastern Grigovia University, in Gar Nuuzsh. “When president Obama authorized the Hellfire missile strike that killed the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, he violated the XIV Constitutional amendment by depriving the boy of life without due process of law [i.e. without first fulfilling the young man's right to a trial by his peers]. Any sane person will agree that the president of a republic who destroys its founding document by violating its clearly worded text should be removed from office as quickly as is possible.” Grigovia has expelled the American diplomatic mission until such time as drone strikes stop. Despite ongoing international efforts, neither presidents G.W. Bush nor B.H. Obama will likely ever be tried in The Hague for their crimes against humanity.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

American theocracy - 2

  In my writing, I am often more critical of Christianity than of the hundreds of other religions practiced every day in these United States. America is not a Christian nation, nor is it Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or Taoist. This nation was not founded upon the principles of any one belief system. Therefore, we as a nation cannot allow one religious group, under any circumstance, to incorporate their beliefs into the laws of our land; we can ill afford to take sitting down the intractable religious rhetoric spewing from the orifices of our public figures.

  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 – that will drum up more controversy, boosting readership numbers on your blog in the process."

  I am loathe to attack Muslims because: they are not attempting to define legally the parameters of marriage according to their own religious texts; they are not attempting to restrict legally, again according to their religious texts, a woman's inalienable right to do to her property, her body, whatever she pleases (such as aborting a fetus), a right granted to all women under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; they are not attempting to claim for their own the reference in the Declaration of Independence to Nature's God, a moniker broad enough to encompass, in the spirit of true egalitarianism, the deities of all systems of belief, not a direct reference to one god in particular. (If, instead of Nature's God the Declaration read Yahweh, I would concede the field to the Christians, but it does not, so I will stand my ground.)

  In comparison, Christians are laboring to define marriage according to the books they consider holy (see here); they are trying to take from the women of this land the right to their bodies, their property, by making abortions illegal (see here); they claim that Nature's God refers to Yahweh, the god of the Christians, the father of Jesus (see here), when Nature's God could refer to anything from the Universe, to Chaos, to the Great Spirit once known to the Indian tribes.

  We hear in the news about the dangers of an Islamic caliphate arising in the Middle East. (For one example of this, see here.) Here in America, we face the dangers of an impending Christianity-based theocracy. Any system of government that rules according to the code of a specific religion will, invariably, subjugate those people living under it to its own laws; it will stifle freedom of expression by striking fear in the hearts of honest but non-believing citizens; it will, when challenged, resort to barbaric and unreasonable action to silence dissent; and, most crucially, it will render unattainable to ourselves and to our Posterity the Blessings of Liberty by coercing us into recognizing and worshiping a suicidal zombie who, being “one with god,” as the “holy spirit” impregnated his own mother.

  For an example of the horrors inherent to religious rule, look into life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. We, as a nation, must fight the efforts currently under way to further codify into law one religious doctrine in particular, no matter how long that religion has been practiced here or what percentage of the population holds it to be true. We cannot allow our fundamental principles to be made subservient to the beliefs of one specific religion: our republic, our rights, our liberty, and our lives are at risk. American flexibility and inventiveness will suffer under religious rule – these characteristics that we hold so highly will wither and die if confined in a closed and unchanging framework based on the writings of a desert people who lived in the Iron Age many thousands of years ago. To do any of these things would be to shatter fully our frail democracy, our tenuous republic.

  Future generations will cheer our efforts at maintaining a republic dedicated to the principles upon which it was founded, those being the general Welfare, a more perfect Union, the establishment of Justice, the domestic Tranquility, the common defence, and the Blessings of Liberty. If our nation were to fall under the sway of the religious zealot, even a supposedly pious zealot possessing of convincing fear-mongery, these founding principles would fall prey to the demands of righteous necessity.

  The Christians of America have not been subjected to a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations – thus, they have no Right, no Duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security: their communities are not under siege, their places of worship are being built regardless of location, they are not being attacked in taxi cabs, or in the streets. I believe in freedom of religion. I envy the faithful for their unfaltering belief. I support fully the right to pray to the god of your choosing in public or in private. I will not, however, stand idly by as born-again, my-way-or-the-highway, ultra-conservative types vie for this country's highest office with dreams of dominionism dancing in their eyes.

Fight theocracy in the U.S.A. Act now, for the forces of oppression seldom rest.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

a critique of corporate governance

I was recently involved in a discussion on reddit.com (my profile) regarding the extent to which socialism is to blame for the perceived downfall of America. My counterpart, arealrevolutionary, argued vehemently for the transfer of power from elected officials and our current system to a form of corporation-based governance that he was utterly convinced would stop local cops from killing innocent people. He also argued that a completely open drug market functioning outside of any governmental control, as opposed to our current situation in which the US federal government supposedly controls drugs, would greatly alleviate our crowded prison system and basically fix most of society's problems. He was also against low-income housing, arguing that, well, I'm not sure he was arguing anything other than the fact that he doesn't like low-income housing as it is not a profit-making enterprise. (His primary source book is: Enterprise Law, by Benson)

["A Critique of My Adversary:" The main thing that bothered me about our discussion was the fact that arealrevolutionary never answered my questions, although I asked him several. He always skipped direct answering and instead posed a counter-question based partially on the question I had asked him. While this is a good tactic occasionally, when you need to buy some time to formulate an answer or when you are simply drawing a blank, constant use of this tactic indicates a lack of courage when making direct statements; also, it indicates that you have not thought out fully the breadth of your viewpoint, and that you are incapable of direct and honest debate. A second thing that bothered me about this person's viewpoint (which I pieced together based on his counter-questions) is that] :

He supposes that corporation-based governance (CBG) would by far trump our current system of elected officials and (albeit very 18th century) representative government. He argues that a local police force owned by a corporation would never allow psychopathic or otherwise dangerous people into their ranks who might shoot an innocent person for no reason, as such behavior would negatively affect their profit-margins (presuming that all local residents have purchased the services of the corporate police force, which they would likely be forced to if they lived in a certain area). While I see his point, I cannot but shiver at the thought of granting the right to execute law and order to a for-profit enterprise that might at any time close down your local branch due to cost-cutting measures. (Consider this: you are traveling outside of your corporate police force's area and are questioned by a different corporate police force. Would they treat you kindly and with common decency? Would they be able to incarcerate you on false charges (which would, supposing that the corporation owned the jails, increase the corporation's overall profitability and therefore fit into their profit-motive) if they knew they would not face repercussions from a person not in their corporation or on her board of directors?)

Basically, the CBG system has not been tried on a national scale ever in the history of America, and therefore, as a theoretical model, it is unproven. Governments large and small have been experimenting with aspects of socialism for over a hundred years now, and while socialism has led to the betterment of countless lives (as well as to the death of equally countless lives, but so it goes), we are still experimenting with the notion of common goods and how to finance them, and American society is still to a significant degree socialist. Furthermore, neither the Constitution nor the Declaration mention anything about CBG, so attempts to establish this theory on a national level would presuppose complete abandonment of our nation's founding principles as well as the founding of a new nation (which is granted to us in the Declaration, but which should not be done for light or transient causes).

One of the dangers within this theoretical model would be the takeover of local corporate governments by larger and better financed corporations that would not be willing to adapt to the demands of each location (due to operational streamlining that mitigates losses to the profit-margin), forcing local individuals to live by the rules the corporation thinks is best rather than by rules that would best apply to their unique situations, a problem still prevalent in our current society.
Another danger of this model is the path required to reach it (think complete societal breakdown, civil war in the US, chaos on a global scale, upheavals lasting for decades). Furthermore, corporations are focused nearly exclusively on maximizing their profits. An economy, unlike the one we have today, that is supposedly free from oversight and control, would be rife with faulty and dangerous products that could kill and maim innocent people until enough were killed and maimed that someone would raised her voice and would perhaps even band together with others to boycott or close the offending manufacturer, at which point people would begin demanding quality controls on consumable products, at which point the market stops being free and socialism rears its ugly head.
One could argue that in the above case the individual would be able to sue the manufacturer, but corporations generally have vast resources and can therefore hire skilled and numerous lawyers who would relentlessly pursue the accuser and drag her name through the mud, provided of course that lawyers would still exist in this theoretical model and that they would have a place to meet and do their lawyering and someone with the authority to distribute justice to whom they could plead their case.

The counterargument to the above case will be this: corporations would not sell faulty products because they need to keep the customers happy so that their profit-margins stay high. The way to increase your profits is to sell cheap stuff that soon breaks, forcing the customer to buy new cheap stuff. This is the way it is now, and no mythical free market is going to cure corporate greed or customer acquiescence. Americans have become used to the sad reality of cheap products; we expect it and live with it.
Would we acquiesce to our local CBG shutting down because of a hostile takeover? Would we still enjoy the rights and freedoms we have today? Would our children sing songs to the heroes of Big Tobacco or to the Pioneers of the Microchip? Would we take up arms to defend the interests and boundaries of our corporation, even if the boundary cut through our neighbor's house? Would corporations wage wars not just of the purse-strings and of market-shares, but live wars with dead people and carpet-bombing?
This thought experiment about the potential benefits of CBG is still evolving within my brains; the above are some contemplations. (For a glimpse at a fictional CBG world, read Snow Crash, by Stephenson.)
word is bond.
JP