MAN'S RUIN FINDS A TIT

"...Vimes shook his head. "That always chews me up," he said. "People killing one another just because their gods have squabbled—"
"Oh, they’ve got the same god, sir. Apparently it’s over a word in their holy book, sir. The Elharibians say it translates as ‘god’ and the Smalies say it’s ‘man.’"
"How can you mix them up?”
“Well, there’s only one tiny dot difference in the script, you see. And some people reckon it’s only a bit of fly dirt in any case.”
“Centuries of war because a fly crapped in the wrong place?”
“It could have been worse,” said Carrot. “If it had been slightly to the left the word would have been ‘liquorice.’”..."
—Terry Pratchett, Jingo

A LIBERTARIAN MANIFESTO

Contrary to popular opinion, I am not a Liberal in the strictest sense. I adore my 2nd and 10th Amendment rights; I oppose socialism; I support most conservative tax reform, and believe the IRS to be an unconstitutional body. I even liked Reagan; he was the "right kind" of insane.

But I am not a Conservative either: chiefly, I oppose the American Jesus, and I detest all that "He" stands for--or that "He" stands for anything at all in a supposedly secular society.

Good government must be agnostic, yet sympathetic to those who are not. I demand the separation of Church & State--the cause of peace itself demands it.

We shall not wage wars over Invisible Men; we shall not hinder science over that which science itself cannot verify. It may seem insensitive to a considerable portion of the populace, but science and reason are quite insensitive in general. Evolution--social or otherwise--takes no prisoners.

While I may be a "fiscal conservative," I remain a "social liberal;" because, when you dechristianize the issues, what reason is there to discriminate against homosexuals, or hinder human sexuality, or selectively obstruct free speech in the name of some arcane metaphysical concept of "obscenity"--and how much different do things like abortion or even US foreign policy seem when viewed through the godless goggles of true personal sovereignty?

Certainly, things like marriage must be defined--but not in the way Social Conservatives would have you to believe. They seek to answer the wrong question, that you might not question their answers in the end. We must define what marriage implies--not what it merely entails: Is it a legal institution with spiritual implications? Or is it a religious institution, with legal ramifications?

If it is merely a legal institution, then there is no logical, rational precedent to discriminate against gays. Surely other religions believe in marriage, and have believed such since before Chrisitianity--and many of them have no such prejudices against alternative sexuality. It must, therefore, be open to all--as Christianity cannot constitutionally hold a monopoly over a legal institution.

Furthermore, if marriage be a religious institution, then--in the interest of that Blessed Separation of Church and Police State--no one's marriage is legal. And your children? All bastards. (Not because of anything I've said--children are just little bastards in general. I know; I used to be one.)

And as for abortion, despite the fact that even the Bible itself seems indifferent to it (see Exodus 21:22-25; Numbers 5:11-31; Psalm 139:13-16), it must be rationally argued that if even one tenth of the revenue that is commonly spent on pro-life and pro-choice bumper stickers were to be spent on researching safe and effective Birth Control methods, abortion would slowly cease to be an issue. But therein lay the clencher--most Christians don't want better Birth Control; they prefer abstinence. I prefer abstinence from them.

All said, people who have never broken a law, will never seek to reform one. Those who have never touched a non-government-endorsed drug will never seek to reform our drug laws, and those who have always worked high-paying jobs that provide health care will never fight for Minimum Wage or Living Wage, or health care for anybody else. It is ironic that those most opposed to Darwinism have foisted Social Darwinism upon us all. Truly, only the strong shall survive their impotent piety, their iron fist of "loving kindness."

So if I reject both the Left and Right, where am I? I'm right here...typing. And this is where I'm at: I believe in my right to eat a greasy meat pattie, smoke a fat cigar, then drive home, drink a pint of beer, watch a trashy, violent B-movie or play a violent video game, have kinky sex, listen to loud music, swallow a fistful of ephedrine, then die facedown in my own vomit...because as long as I'm not harming you or your children, it is my God-given right to do so, on my property, if that is my choice.

To me, the American Dream means that your whitebread wife and children can sleep safely at night, secure behind your picket fences, to live out the dreams of your choice--while across the alley, we who are single and childless are free to drink, and smoke, and fuck--and NOT be made to feel guilt because you might.

To me, my personal brand of Libertarianism means that my personal liberties are a HELL OF A LOT more important than your person beliefs, and that my civil rights should not be in jeopardy because some politically-connected TV Preacher fails to get laid at night, or because some yuppie soccer mom dislikes my T-Shirt or my taste in music, or because some rural bumpkin in curlers and a mu-mu is offended when scientific discovery invalidates the sacred parchments of 2000-year-old nomadic desert tribes.

I should not be frisked at random, nor should I be detained because of racially-loaded profiling, or because some quasi-military jocks with nightsticks--who, because they defended us abroad, believe that they can get medieval here--dislike men with long hair, or women with an "aggressive" look. I should not be kept from employment because of appearance or beliefs, or cultural identity; and "corporate culture" should not be a thinly-veiled haven for exculsionary practice, politco-religious bias, sexism, or racism. And I should not be unemployed because our parents never met.

I believe that we can fight and win a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, a war in Pakistan, a war in Iran, a war in North Korea...but until we win the battle to separate Church and State, not a single liberty our troops have died for is secure, and nobody is ever truly safe.

JUNG & THE RESTLESS

Or, "How Crazy People Won The Election."

"...the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of Man's outstanding peculiarities, and even where it exists it proves to be wavering and inconsistent, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are. The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible in the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional State should succumb to a fit of weakness.
"...the relatively small percentage of the population figures they represent is more than compensated by the peculiar dangerousness of these people. Their mental state is that of a collectively excited group ruled by affective judgments and wish-fantasies. In a state of 'collective possession' they are the adapted ones and consequently they feel quite at home in it. They know from their own experience the language of these conditions and they know how to handle them. Their chimerical ideas, upborne by fanatical resentment, appeal to the collective irrationality and find fruitful soil there, for they express all those motives and resentments which lurk in more normal people under the cloak of reason and insight.
"They are, therefore, despite their small number in comparison with the population as a whole, dangerous as sources of infection..."

--Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self

THE LONG RUN, RUNNING AWAY

In four years, Republicans will realize how shortsighted far-reaching victory truly is.

In four years (maybe less), senior citizens will be in record numbers; and they will realize that their “values”—which they voted by this fall—fail to lower medication costs.
In four years (maybe less), Christian activists may come to note that outlawing gay marriage hasn’t won the gays to any god, and has failed to curb our record deficit.
In four years (maybe less), Amendment #2 enthusiasts will observe that their AK-47’s won’t protect them from The Threat they stockpile for—Imperialism, a Police State, or the whittling away of Civil Rights. Ashcroft hates your privacy, and he hates it when you hate things even more.
In four years (maybe less), Right-To-Lifers might observe the grimmest fate of all: that their “every sperm is sacred” politico-theology failed to keep the older kids from dying in The War.

There are some who would contend that the first of these may contend with all the rest. There are some who might suggest that the elderly are weak on civil rights, especially with our raging Culture War. There are some brazen dozen few who’d suggest they’ll simply want their medicine…that they’ll just want to be cared for, like you or I. Their eighty-dollar pension, paired with sixty-dollar meds, makes Socialism look not quite so bad. Republicans afraid of Hillary’s Revenge might want to turn O’Reilly down, and add their greatest prejudices up…two plus two, and three by three to carry Freedom’s coffin to its grave.
There is a precedent for Presidents upon their second term. The word “restraint” is gone to them, and their party begins to behave as exactly that—a great backhanded backdoor bacchanal, with checks and balances, and balanced checkbooks, dissolved into the netherworld…wished into the cornfield of some bureau-theocratic Twilight Zone. People don’t take kindly to such things, and those who last till Round Two with Congress on their side, are due for a surprise in the Mid-Terms. It happened to the best of them—even Bush’s Flipside Twin, Bill Clinton. Gridlock is the greatest coup a common-schmuck democracy could have. The instincts of the Moderate will realize this when it’s finally too late. .
But the hits just keep on coming: Now that our nation’s post-religious drip, and the Absolute Truth commandos that dropped it upon our heads and beaten backs—like so much sulphur for Sodom and Sodomites—have proven they can deliver on their own, there is no more need for Moderates in the camp.
The next round of limp Richards and fake Shemps will have no need for any pretense of diplomacy or tact; “God” will have spoken, and the infidels will be crushed. This is why the Ugly American requires there be only two parties: one will surely differ with “God’s Word,” or established Evangelical interpretation of thereof, and thus by logical default, the hand of “God” must be upon the other.
But it is we—the Rational, the Moderate, the Middle Wing—who truly are the others, otherwise.

I long for the days of Shadow Government; at least they had the decency to hide. Now the Unconscious Collective who elected them fail to gain even enough respect for the luxury of plausible lies. Perhaps we could unite as Shadow Protesters…
Or perhaps, we could just unite while we still can.

THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF YOURS

"May God bite into the bones of men the pain of that hell on earth (I have prayed often) that by them it may be sowed with salt, accursed forever! May the maiden that passes it be barren, and the pregnant woman that beholdeth it abort! May the birds of the air refuse to fly over it! May it stand as a curse, as a fear, as a hate, among men! May the wicked dwell therein! May the light of the Sun be withheld therefrom, and the light of the Moon not lighten it! May it become the home of the shells of the dead, and may the demons of the pit inhabit it! May it be accursed, accursed, accursed--accursed forever and ever!

"And still, standing as I stand in the prime of early manhood, free from all the fetters of the body and the mind, do I curse the memory thereof unto the ages."

--Aleister Crowley, THE WORLD'S TRAGEDY (1910)