The Debunking: Public Safety

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington, Farewell Address, 1797

The bombing of the Boston Marathon evoked a great deal of fear. Governments, supposedly pledged to the protection of their citizens' rights, actually like fear rampant among the citizenry; it enables them to exercise powers never granted to them, under the pretext of "public safety." And indeed, in the "investigation" that followed the Marathon Bombings, we saw exactly that.

It was not an exception, but the rule in full flight.

---

During the first days after the bombings, the city of Boston was in "lockdown." This term, usually associated with the confinement of imprisoned felons to their cells, caused no small stir among the more observant commentators on the Web. Popehat provides a trenchant sample:

That said, a large percent of the reaction in Boston has been security theater. "Four victims brutally killed" goes by other names in other cities.

In Detroit, for example, they call it "Tuesday".

…and Detroit does not shut down every time there are a few murders.

"But Clark," I hear you say, "this is different. This was a terrorist attack."

Washington DC, during ongoing sniper terrorist attacks in 2002 that killed twice as many people, was not shut down.

Kileen Texas, after the Fort Hood terrorist attack in 2009 that killed three times as many people, was not shut down.

London, after the bombing terrorist attack in 2005 that killed more than ten times as many people, was not shut down.

"But Clark," I hear you asking, "what about the lives saved?"

There is no evidence that any lives were saved by the Boston shutdown.

"Yeah, but you can't know for sure!"

True. I can't. But in London, Washington, LA after the El Al shootings, and so on and so on and so on, there were not lockdowns, and there were no further fatalities. It's not perfect proof, but it's suggestive.

Commentator Clark Bianco goes on to note the conspicuous exception to the lockdown, made by the police for their own comfort:

But the Boston police didn't shut down an entire city. They shut down an entire city except for the donut shops.

boston.com: Law enforcement asked Dunkin' Donuts to keep restaurants open in locked-down communities to provide… food to police… including in Watertown, the focus of the search for the bombing suspect.

The government and police were willing to shut down parts of the economy like the universities, software, biotech, and manufacturing…but when asked to do an actual risk to reward calculation where a small part of the costs landed on their own shoulders, they had no problem weighing one versus the other and then telling the donut servers "yeah, come to work – no one's going to get shot."

And they were right.

---

There were reports from the lockdown, some with photographic documentation, of Boston residents being herded out of their homes at gunpoint, and being told to keep away from their own windows or they would be shot. Bob Owens provides a chilling example:

The Daily Mail shows just some of the photos of Watertown citizens being forced from their homes, but missed the cop in a armored vehicle's gun turret pointing a rifle at a citizen that dared photograph their thuggish actions.

None of these goons will be reprimanded for their behavior, and it will happen again.

Police commanders will be given a pep talk before their next armed incursion against the citizenry, telling their rank-and-file officers that pointing guns in the faces of children is protecting them, and most of these cops will chose to believe it, all of whom consider themselves "protectors." It’s easier for them to "go along to get along" than admit they're becoming the execution arm of the state's brute force mentality.

And yes, Bob does include a damning photograph.

Does any Gentle Reader imagine that any of that was done with "public safety" uppermost in mind?

---

There is absolutely no connection, ever, between the actions of government and true public safety. In the usual case, the "safety" being promoted is that of the State's enforcers, in a minimum of two dimensions:

• Safety from citizen resistance against violations of their rights;
• Safety from legal consequences to such violations.

Sometimes the "safety" of the authorities that dispatched these myrmidons is also being protected -- in this case, real protection in contrast to the sort trumpeted about at other times. For the official who dispatches an armed agent of the State to commit a violation of some citizen's rights is just as culpable for the deed as the thug who commits it with his own hands. Such an official will often go to great lengths in the aftermath to silence or buy off anyone willing to testify to such events. The stories, when they finally emerge, are among the most lurid demonstration of Lord Acton's Axiom available to us of the present day.

Thus, as in the other Debunkings presented here, the phrase "public safety" should be a bright red warning flag to freedom lovers. Hunker down or flee upon the instant you hear it, for the State will shortly send out its goons -- and the "safety" they'll be least concerned about is yours.

So Tired of This BS

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You are the mantle of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington and Ralph Bunche and Langston Hughes and George Washington Carver and Ralph Abernathy and Thurgood Marshall and, yes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These men were many things to many people and they knew full well the role that racism played in their life. But when it came to their own accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses. Every one of you has a grandma or an uncle or a parent whose told you at some point in life as an African American you have to work twice as hard as anyone else if you want to get by.

****

Oh, BULL!


I've never seen anyone ever work twice as hard as I have at any job I've done or classroom I've been in. It's possible that someone might have worked a little harder than I, but never twice as hard. God. I'm so sick of this tired cant and bull****!

The Debunking: Protections

"I shall say it a hundred times: We really ought to free ourselves from the seductions of words!" -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

How many times have we been told that the police department's function is to "protect" us? How many times have we been told that the United States military "protects our freedom?" How many times have we heard, with regard to this or that item, occupation, or practice, that by passing a law Congress has "protected" it?

Those phrasings promulgate some of the worst misconceptions in all of political speech. Yet most Americans let them pass as if there were nothing to be said about them.

---

To protect a person or thing is to shield him or it from harm. Protection, viewed in this exact sense, is one of the rarest and most difficult of feats. More, it involves practically none of the exercises or accoutrements of the "protections" mentioned in the previous segment.

If Smith, seeing Jones approach Davis with lethal intent, positions himself between the two, such that Jones must first remove Smith before he can strike Davis, Smith has performed a true act of protection, however temporary or effective it might prove to be. But if Smith stands aside, brandishes a pistol and announces to Jones that "if you touch Davis I'll shoot you," Smith isn't protecting anything; he's threatening Jones with vengeance, conditional upon Jones's next actions.

Similarly, when Congress passes a law that criminalizes interference with some tract of land, it isn't "protecting" that land, but rather threatening to visit undesirable consequences upon anyone who dares to use it in a legally disapproved fashion. The land itself might be ravaged to an indefinite extent; what passes for "protection" does nothing to restore it to its former state -- if, indeed, any penalty is thereafter exacted from the violator.

Do you imagine that the residents of high-crime areas feel well "protected" by the local police? How about the residents of Arizonan and Texan border regions where violent Mexican drug cartels range freely, doing what they please? As for lands that have been fully "exploited" by companies or groups granted waivers from "protection" laws, is further comment required?

---

    "Why, James, I came here to thank you."
    "To thank me?"
    "Of course. You've done me a great favor-you and your boys in Washington and the boys in Santiago. Only I wonder why none of you took the trouble to inform me about it. Those directives that somebody issued here a few months ago are choking off the entire copper industry of this country. And the result is that this country suddenly has to import much larger amounts of copper. And where in the world is there any copper left-unless it's d'Anconia copper? So you see that I have good reason to be grateful."
    "1 assure you I had nothing to do with it," Taggart said hastily, "and besides, the vital economic policies of this country are not determined by any considerations such as you're intimating or--"
    "I know how they're determined, James. I know that the deal started with the boys in Santiago, because they've been on the d'Anconia pay roll for centuries-well, no, 'pay roll' is an honorable word, it would be more exact to say that d'Anconia Copper has been paying them protection money for centuries-isn't that what your gangsters call it? Our boys in Santiago call it taxes."

[From Atlas Shrugged]

"Protection money" is a phrase most often associated with the "protection rackets" of urban organized crime. Yet it has another, quite different application, delineated by Francisco d'Anconia's statement above.

Political "protection" often functions in the exact opposite direction from a gang's "protection." Whereas the gang solicits payment under threat of the destruction of the targeted business, the government offers to impede the targeted business's competitors...for a price. The impediment might be legal, regulatory, or through licensure; the price paid might be directly monetary, indirectly monetary (e.g., campaign contributions), or through the cession of some item the target controls (e.g., land the government covets for its own purposes).

Many a law "protecting" this or that is followed by the issuance of waivers from the terms of the law. Indeed, in quite a number of cases, "protecting" anything is the last concern on the legislators' minds. ObamaCare is merely the latest example.

But how often do Americans reflect on this aspect of aggressive legislation when they learn about the "creation" of a new "national monument," or some regulation supposedly to "protect consumer safety?"

---

Political language, as George Orwell has told us in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, is designed to deflect, distract, and conceal -- to turn the attention and thoughts of the outsider away from the true purpose of whatever is being discussed. This is nowhere more significant than in this business of governmental "protection." Indeed, Americans could hardly gain more from any other debunking than from this: to realize that when politicians speak of the need to "protect" this or that, the time is upon us, in the classic phrase, to "put one hand on your wallet and the other on your gun."

The Debunking: Nice Guys

Good morning, Gentle Reader. Yes, it's the start of another series, possibly a long one. These "Debunking" pieces will have a common aim: to tell you, in no uncertain terms, what you already know but are unwilling to admit to yourself.

Many of Man's troubles stem from the widespread insistence that things are other than they really are, in the face of imperative, irrefutable evidence to the contrary. However, the overwhelming majority of commentators are rather too polite about our preference for such fantasies. As a fantasist of some accomplishments, I can sympathize, but not to the extent of silently watching the destruction of the United States of America or the human race generally. Anyway, someone has to pick up this gauntlet, and my colleagues in the DextroSphere appear, ah, disinclined to soil themselves by doing so. So here we go.

---

    The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men.

[Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene II]

Hearken to Ann Althouse about some Republican strategic and tactical decisions during the 2012 campaign:

The Republicans had good reason to believe that the American people resisted thinking ill of the famously likeable President and so they pursued campaign strategies that allowed people to maintain this treasured belief. Their idea was: He's a nice guy but it would be good to switch to this other person who's also nice and will do an even better job. That's lame, we can see in retrospect, but it was the decision at the time.

I added the emphases in the above. Let's explore the ramifications:

• Nice guys, Obama and Romney, contended for the highest office in the land;
  • Whose occupant is Commander-in-Chief of the mightiest military machine on Earth, with the power to lay complete and utter waste to any region thereof at his sole command;
  • Whose occupant also directs the Executive branch of the federal government, which wields powers so vast that the Constitution has become a present-day nullity;
  • Whose occupant also commands the resources of several intelligence-gathering bureaucracies, capable of eliminating the privacy of any person or institution upon which it might focus;
• And hired thousands of "opposition researchers" to dig up dirt upon one another;
• And slung whatever those researchers could find at their opponents, without conscience qualms or other inhibitions (other than "might this rebound against me?").

How many "nice guys" do you know, Gentle Reader, who would stoop to any of that, regardless of the potential gain? Of those you know who would do so, which ones would you be willing to trust with power over you?

Give that a spin on your mental merry-go-round while I pour myself more coffee.

---

Among the political maladies of the nation, this one ranks high: The coverage of national politics by our news media -- including the much vaunted New Media -- focuses on the federal level with near-absolute dedication. State and local politics receives attention only when it evinces a degree of disorder verging on general rioting and bloodshed. Yet federal-level figures often get their start at the state and / or local levels, where, according to Ferdinand Lundberg, things are routinely less than savory:

...it is a settled conclusion among seasoned observers that, Congress apart as a separate case, the lower legislatures -- state, county, and municipal -- are Augean stables of misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance from year to year and decade to decade, and that they are preponderantly staffed by riffraff, or what the police define as "undesirables," people who if they were not in influential positions would be unceremoniously told to "keep moving." Exceptions among them are minor. Many of them, including congressmen, refuse to go before the television cameras because it is then so plainly obvious to everybody what they are. Their whole demeanor arouses instant distrust in the intelligent. They are, all too painfully, type-cast for the race track, the sideshow carnival, the back alley, the peep show, the low tavern, the bordello, the dive. Evasiveness, dissimulation, insincerity shine through their false bonhomie like beacon lights....

As to other legislatures, Senator Estes Kefauver found representatives of the vulpine Chicago Mafia ensconced in the Illinois legislature, which has been rocked by one scandal of the standard variety after the other off and on for seventy-five years. What he didn't bring out was that the Mafians were clearly superior types to many non-Mafians.

Public attention, indeed, usually centers on only a few lower legislatures -- Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois -- and the impression is thereby fostered in the unduly trusting that the ones they don't hear about are on the level. But such an impression is false. The ones just mentioned come into more frequent view because their jurisdictions are extremely competitive and the pickings are richer. Fierce fights over the spoils generate telltale commotion. Most of the states are quieter under strict one-party quasi-Soviet Establishment dominance, with local newspapers cut in on the gravy. Public criticism and information are held to a minimum, grousers are thrown a bone, and not many in the local populace know or really care. Even so, scandalous goings-on explode into view from time to time in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Missouri and elsewhere -- no state excepted. Any enterprising newspaper at any time could send an aggressive reporter into any one of them and come up with enough ordure to make the Founding Fathers collectively vomit up their very souls in their graves.

[The Rich and the Super-Rich, 1968]

To rise in American politics, the aspirant must be more ruthless and less scrupled than his opponents. The dynamic of political power requires it, for, as Friedrich Hayek noted in The Road to Serfdom, "the worst always get on top." Only men who love power and prize it above all other things will even attempt to scale that cliff, and woe betide him whose conscience forbids him a useful toehold:

In order to obtain and hold power, a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, cunning, and cruelty. -- Leo Tolstoy

Just how many "nice guys" would you expect to find among such persons?

---

There are no "nice guys" in politics. It's really that simple. Yet enormous effort goes into persuading the electorate that this or that official or aspirant to office is a "nice guy:" in Robert A. Heinlein's formulation, "good to dogs and children." The "nice guy" image appears to be essential to political elevation, at least in the thinking of political strategists and image engineers -- and they're likely to be right.

My thesis, for what it's worth, is that we're more likely to trust a "nice guy" with power and discretion no public official should have...and all aspirants to power crave.

Whenever a common citizen is told, directly or indirectly, about what a "nice guy" politician X is, he's being propagandized. Were the great majority of Americans aware of this -- consciously aware during political campaigns, rather than grudgingly willing to concede it to his asshole buddies over beer and pretzels on a Friday evening after work -- we would have far less taste for the sort of Government Uber Alles regime we suffer today. We would grasp viscerally that which we occasionally admit intellectually: that no man should be allowed power over others.

Whatsoever, for any cause,
    Seeketh to take or give,
Power above or beyond the Laws,
    Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King—
    Or Holy People’s Will—
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
    Order the guns and kill!

[Rudyard Kipling]

You can quote me

The assertion that race is a social construct -- is a social construct.


(You can substitute IQ or patriarchy or what you will for race in the above statement.)

Freedom’s Scion Now Available!

My latest novel, Freedom’s Scion, sequel to the widely praised Which Art In Hope, is now available for your reading pleasure.

Althea Morelon, polymath, psi adept, and the highest child of the anarchic world of Hope, wants to travel the galaxy. Indeed, it’s her dying grandparents’ last wish that she put her enormous gifts to the task of finding a way around the lightspeed barrier and voyaging to Earth, to discover what has become of Man’s homeworld, which has lain silent for many centuries. However, her clan, the foremost of Hope, has other plans for her. Nor will her husband Martin let her go without a fight. Inter-clan struggles, dynastic tensions, and love combine to obstruct her path, as Hope gestates that which its settlers fled Earth to escape: the State.

Only $2.99 at Smashwords, in a wide variety of eBook formats.

Because I lack the grace to accept with serenity...

...all the downright dangerous shenanigans

going on in the world, I create.

"Deliver us from Evil, one Beasturd at a time. Amen."

I must thank Mr. Porretto for the opportunity to share my work with you, his trusting readers (fingers crossed that a few of you will thank him, too). I passionately favor Jeffersonian Liberty; passionately oppose Hypocrites of all colors, flavors, and shapes, regardless their field of expertise or station in life. If, through my work, I can show them-and-their-kind the Fool and/or dangerous, I will have succeeded. I know I'm not the best creative I can be, so I honestly ask for your help in getting closer to that goal. Tell me if my characters aren't likeable/believable or are just plain MEH; ditto for their quandaries or solutions to their problems. Additionally, let me know if I use too many: obvious anagrams, commas, far out foreign words, or am just too wordy, generally. (I probably won't ever give up: hyphenated-words-and-phrases, ellipses...or parentheticals. You can try.)

I write fiction for several reasons, not the least of which is to shut-the-voices-up :-). (Of course that only encourages the ones previously in the wings to step to center stage, so off we go again.) Many ideas come out of pure frustration noted above, which is primarily "political" - and fiction therefore serves as a way to vent, constructively.

I'm pretty quick to assess news and other information, so unfortunately can come across as purely "opinionated." But believe me, in the face of compelling feedback in the case of my creative work, or new facts about some real-world issue? I'll readily accept my mere-humanity (maybe get a little embarrassed) and change my method or my mind, depending.

You'll find my work quite different from the other Liberty-Literature out there. My theory is that I choose  "magical realism" or "paranormal elements" because I'm a bit too timid for the times, and therefore for my own good! By weaving in such otherworldly- or fantastic- abilities, my good-guys and gals can often avoid the whole getting down & dirty & bloody & gutsy. They avoid (as do I, as their "cinematographer") all the throat-cutting, all the exploding skulls, and all those beyond messy crime-scene cleanups and explanations. (Just so you know, I'm not opposed to such doings. For instance I take pride in being in the first wave of Rob Olive/"Essential Liberty" fandom; find my Amazon review here.)

The following is my first offering at the Torch. It was written in April and first posted on my writing blog.

"Three if by fire"

Part 1 of 5 - "Don't change horses..."

Yoshi Pratt bolted out of the nightmare and straight up in bed. The 26-year-old D.C. native’s hand flew to his heart. He pressed mightily, as if the wildly beating thing would break free at the next beat…or the next.

It didn’t. He threw off the now cold clammy sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He couldn’t stay up. Still too many hours before the alarm would screech.

From the bathroom, by shear contrast in the dark, the mussed up bed’s expanse of pale colored cotton-innards glowed. He grabbed the top sheet; it was far from dry. He flipped on the overhead fan. His dream, like the fan on low, was still going around and around his mind lazily. Though Yoshi didn’t think much about politics normally, the pulse-pounding final scenes had been nothing but.

When it came to Washington machinations and his so-called civic-duties, he’d describe himself as frozen in time. 26-going-on-18.

After college he’d tried living at the ground zero of American politics. Had dreams of working at its newspaper, The Post. That dream died, however, with multiple rejections; quickly followed by a bailing roommate, then a near-zero bank balance. He preferred renting a stranger’s basement than bunk for “free” with parent-babysitters in his boyhood room. Now he lived just over the river and through a wooded part of Virginia.

Though he’d finally been hired by a suburban newspaper, the 18-year-old in him was still angry at The Post’s rebuff. To “punish” their stupidity he purposefully donned a political cone-of-silence. Lifted it for one thing only: the Presidential Elections. He went back under the cone after the inaugural parade. This time the election “cycle” seemed to last years.

“To torture us longer,” Yoshi’d joked.

Just Try and Be a Nice Guy

Just a few moments ago.

Ring.

Caller ID: anonymous.

Hmm, could be the vet about my dog and her bladder infection. Her phone said anonymous. Better answer it.

"Hello?"

"Hi, my name is Paul and I'm calling for the Children's Leukemia Foundation. We do  . . . blah blah blah-de-blah blah for children with leukemia . . . blah de blah . . . wish baskets . . . can we count on you for a contribution today?"

"How many children have leukemia?"

"Huh?"

"How many children have leukemia."

"Uh, I don't know but we help 236 hospitals and give wish baskets to children."

"Well, how many children need wish baskets?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, does every child with leukemia need my help in getting a wish basket or want one?"

"I don't know, we just give them to social workers who know who needs them?"

"Ok, well, how many wish baskets do you give out."

"I don't know."

"Well, just last year."

"Look, you're wasting my time, I'm trying to help kids with leukemia. Good bye."

I had been wondering -- what if a kid has rich parents. Why would I donate to get that kid a wish basket?

This charity obviously exists to create jobs for nice middle class white people (for the most part). Every kid getting a plush toy is just part of a cheap scam.

Which is better for the kid and family -- I pray for them or give the kid a packet of M & Ms and a stuffed kitten? Well, a lot of people will say prayer is useless so give the kid some candy and a toy. But the kid has all the toys he needs most likely and all the candy he wants. Why don't they just ask me to get the kid an iPad? He probably has that, too, once every relative hears his hard luck tale (not being flip here. It is hard luck to get that sick).

It's not a hard luck tale to go without a wish basket any more than it is to not get that pony for Christmas. (I really thought they would get me one for some utterly irrational reason even after they'd told me 'not a chance'. I ran out on the cold ground in my pajamas thinking they hid it behind the garage. Boy, was I ever disappointed. You cannot believe how dumb my mother thought I was when I told her what I was out there looking for. Kids.)

If Mitt Romney were President

Lately, I've been thinking that I'm glad Romney lost.

Here's why:

Imagine what he'd be doing if he'd won.

Let's see what that might be.

1) He'd be trying to dismantle Obamacare, right? Maybe. After all, he's the guy who thinks a lot of it is a great idea. Plus, would the Dems in the Senate go along? Of course not, but then, he said he'd just not enforce any provisions. But that gets dicey, too, since a lot of blue states signed on and would sue for non-compliance with the law, no doubt.

So, Romney would have a big mess to try and sort out, and probably get nowhere.

2) Romney would be full bore on helping the so-called rebels in Syria. Oh boy, another intervention in the land of the insane. That's really promising foreign policy, isn't it?

3) Romney would try and open up oil and gas drilling on public lands. That would be good, but every lunatic greenie group in the country would be suing the govt to stop it causing years of delay, and so nothing would come of it, probably.

4) All the sick crap that Obama has been getting away with for years would not have come to light as it has in the last few months.

5) Romney would be trying to manage the economy better and cut some spending and none of it would help or be effective because of Dems in the Senate and Reps in Congress.

6) Romney would be trying to let millions and millions of mestizos get a free pass to citizenship (which they couldn't care less about except to collect Welfare more easily) because Romney would be making deals involving "compromise" and so on, because Romney is weak cheese and has no real principles except to try and look good to himself.

So, exactly how much better would things be if Romney had won the election? Marginally better. He'd spend four years talking about how we have to cut the budget, and not actually cut the budget.

Hundreds of thousands of regulations would still be in place doing their damage to growth and expenses.

****

But as things now stand, I'm somewhat enjoying watching King Obama getting scorched and flying up out of his throne as someone keeps lighting his farts on fire beneath him.

It appears that our permanently vacationing world leader isn't capable of getting any of his further nation destroying plans into action so all we have to put up with in the next three years plus is watching the guy spin records in the WH ballroom with his Hollywood pals while smoking dope and playing with his butt boys like Tiberius on Capri.

Obama is highly ineffective in most ways, whereas Romney would try too hard to be effective without much success, either.

I think we're seeing proof that it's better not to elect a RINO and let the Dems run roughshod over us (and earn all the blame), then to elect a RINO and still have the Dems run roughshod over us with help from "mavericks" like McCain and Lindsey Graham and the new POS from Fla, Rubio (and conservatives, not RINOs, getting all the blame).

Assorted

Hope you're enjoying the Week of Five Scandals, Gentle Reader. I know I am!

---

1. Underground.

This article on the rapidly expanding underground economy makes the critical point:

The question is, what are the consequences? There are the obvious: The government does not collect taxes on the income of such workers. Because otherwise legitimate businesses can and indeed must pay "informal" workers in cash and therefore cannot deduct those wages as expense, we imagine most owners are, er, qualifying their own reported income. Also, we cannot count off-the-books workers, so government figures probably understate employment and economic growth, which might result in poorly-reasoned fiscal policy (in the alternative universe where actual economic conditions drive the political decision to increase or decrease the size of government).

But there is this, too, which concerns us far more than even hundreds of billions in lost tax revenue: When with regulation and taxation we drive the legitimate economy in to the shadows, we turn otherwise honest people who are only trying to earn a living in to dishonest people. Just as broken windows, litter, and graffiti beget more serious crime, underground business corrupts the soul, and makes people more likely to take or pay bribes, evade taxes, or otherwise break the law more comprehensively. Increasing quotidian dishonesty is a symptom of a culture in decline, and we ignore its consequences for posterity at the peril of our children.

The underground economy is an assemblage of black markets.
Black markets are outlaw markets.
Those who work or trade in outlaw markets eventually see themselves as outlaws.
Outlaws have no respect for the law.
When law receives insufficient respect, it ceases to operate -- at all.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

---

2. The Beat-Down Is Working.

Ponder this observation of our current inanition:

Occasionally, I miss the Bush years.

Not because I’m a “compassionate conservative” or because I have a hawkish foreign policy outlook, or even because I miss the leader of the free world routinely asking after my lunch plans (and the lunch plans of everyone in a large crowd). I miss the Bush years because, back then, when someone in the government did something ridiculous to infringe on the personal liberty of American citizens, people would turn out in droves to Hula Hoop for Peace on Pennsylvania Avenue, and plaster what social media sites existed with Ben Franklin quotes about how people are stupid for giving up their rights to the illusion of security.

But now, the government just does sh*t like this and everyone is like, “meh.”

Outrage when outrage is appropriate is a sign of a healthy polity. Ours ceased to be healthy some time ago -- but we managed not to notice. We're certainly not terribly disturbed by it. That would require us to turn off Real Housewives Of Orange County and actually do something. Who has the energy?

---

3. At Last!

You know, I've always wanted one of these -- they're so useful! -- but as a white man, and a conservative to boot, I was told I couldn't have one:

Thank you, Sister Toldjah!

Incompatible Strategies

The coverage of the recent burst of Obamunist scandals has been brisk enough that I feel no need to recap it here. It's even seeped into the Main Stream Media, which are beginning to display an inchoate sense that something about The Won -- their hero! -- and his regime is not...quite...right. At any rate, any sensible American stopped relying 100% on the MSM for his news feed long ago, so I feel confident that the Gentle Readers of Liberty's Torch are already well informed about the specifics.

For me, the question of greatest interest is strategic: Will Obama and his lieutenants continue in their current isolate-and-insulate strategy, to preserve the positions and reputations of the high at the price of the low, or will it eventually take John Dean's advice and "come clean?"

Dean's suggestion is a good one, viewed outside of all contexts. The absolute best way a high official can protect himself from the odium associated with shady doings is to "get out in front" of the investigations, the disclosures, and the distribution of punishments. But that assumes his own fanny isn't in any of the various slings being slung. If so, the deny/deny/deny strategy of the Watergate period and the isolate-and-insulate technique currently employed by Obama and his inner circle are the preferred alternatives.

Unfortunately for the Obamunists, those two techniques are incompatible. Indeed, choosing either one locks out all other alternatives, for a simple reason: They imply innocence.

Once you've claimed innocence, you cannot confess and expect to win public approbation. Indeed, it strains credulity to hope for mercy. "The cover-up is worse than the crime" has achieved homiletic status for a good reason.

However, if the Obama regime should succeed in:

• Bringing the MSM "back into the fold," and:
• Buying off or intimidating any low- or mid-level defectors from its strategy;

...it might still manage to avoid the worst possible outcomes: total regime delegitimization and / or impeachment of various high officials -- possibly including the president -- by Congress.

It's possible that the various participants in all this skullduggery are casting about for a way to "come clean," as John Dean has advised them. And for some mid-level functionaries, there are still possibilities, though they would be required to join the parade of whistleblowers. These are the persons whom the higher-ups must buy off or threaten into silence: a difficult chore when loss of career and prison time are among the possibilities.

All that having been said, Obama himself will probably survive in office, though even under the best outcome his ability to command his co-partisans on Capitol Hill will be greatly reduced. However, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius, and a large number of other State Department, Justice Department, HHS Department, and IRS officials would be well advised to get their resumes up to date.

Hide :: Chapped

Human folly is irrepressible.

In 1983, I went to the opening day of an SF Giants home baseball game with my future wife. Afterwards, I wrote a fairly long piece of narrative poetry in blank verse describing the game and the scene. Before the start of the game, I observed:

I am no hero. I'm a nobody.

An ordinary creatureling of Earth,

a goofy speck of animated dust,

a human unimportance: idle watcher.

One more parading dirt-bound lunatic

awaiting Doomsday like a perfect fool,

a giddy clown.

                              I am a baseball fan,

a no-name rump, the cheapest ticket sold,

a good-for-nothin' left field bleacher bum.

   Scanning 'round the stadium, gazing at

the jostling, variegated plumagery,

my daimon tagged a coda to its speech:

Behold the Mob, the bane of Emperors

and Presidents; of Kings, and Courts, and Laws.

A hydra-headed beast, capricious dragon,

zealous bigot, riotous destroyer,

fearless unity, and coward's haven.

   That moment, timorous and strange, eroded

as I focused on particulars

and noted individuals instead.

My section held some groups of puerile men.

Shirtless, hairless-chested youths already soused

with beer, and recklessly imbibing more;

who ranted cheers and hoopla without cause,

for nothing had begun except their lust

to shout and rave. As if excess itself

could prove a fulsome guarantor of pleasure.

And they were zealous in that cause, while I,

my friend, and others sat, enjoyed the Sun,

and waited for the game; idly wondering

how long it'd be before some fights broke out

(offense and instigations being forced ).

   The Sun burned hot, and so I left my seat

to buy a Giant's cap, partisan badge

to shield my head and eyes. When I returned,

I found the seats in front of us now filled

by two black men, both old. One thin and gaunt,

the other thick and fleshy. Both benign

and calm. A serene, soothing contrast

to gangs of oafs surrounding us. One, whom

particularly fascinated me:

   A lanky youth, pale and chestless,

long armed, long legged, long necked. A gangling dope

who backwards wore a baseball cap which made

him more ridiculous.

                                        He wore a grin

below a long hooked nose. A boozy grin

which looked grotesque as though it, gaping, leered

like satyrs' masks of Roman comedy.

A gargoyle who incited trouble; stamped

with willful glee while throwing peanuts past

some rows at others. Tossing cups of beer

across the crowd, and smirking at offense.

   He was too low to qualify a fool,

embodying, instead, an Idiot.

A gross and goatish cretin reveling

in pranks. A sniggering and lurid Puck: white face,

a wound obscenely ludicrous; a mask

fixed permanently. An eternal, cast

expression of the victory of knaves:

a grin capturing all that's base and coarse -

torpid, vile, and imbecilic saying:

beat me, rob me, cuckold me, yet I'll grin!

   Demented goon and sap, a prankster thug

with dangling phallic nose drooping on his mouth.

In fact, resembling nothing human but

a phallus; visaging the belly and

the groin. He wanted smashing, yet, in blood

and drunken haze, through broken teeth, would grin.

                                    ***

. . . Suddenly, amidst the pre-game rituals -

shouts from people in the stands around us:

"Fight! Fight!" We leapt up eagerly to watch

a brawl, a tangled mound of men, wild arms

and flailing fists. A fray enjoyable

for us, safe watchers. The asininity

of violence cheering us. "Let the fools destroy

themselves!" As orange vested guards descend

like dogs upon a cat fight, quelling it.

   Excited by the fracus, we sat down

rising afresh to hear our Anthem sung.

A moment when the Mob of Us is stilled

and hush, and almost prayerful as One.

After the strike by baseball players in the 90s, I lost interest in following the sport, and with the advent of Barry Bonds to the Giants, I was easily prevented from renewing interest due to his cretinous manner, and then his corruption of the sport itself with illegal doping.

Yet, when the Giants got to the World Series last Fall, I became intrigued. I watched the series and found myself enjoying the passtime again.

Having read about as many thousands of books as I care to, watched thousands of movies and TV shows in the course of my life, spent as much time on the Internet, I was looking for another way to rid myself of the day, as Samuel Johnson put it. Why not watch baseball?

So, I've been watching Giants (and some A's and others) games.

The Giants have a beautiful ball park (I've seen one game there on a church outing in the late 90s, and it is a lovely place with a great view of the Bay). The new park affords closeness along the foul ball areas with a low fence bringing the first row down to ground level, but it creates a problem. Fans can reach down into the field and try to grab balls hit near the fence.

The penalty for interfering with a hit ball that was fair or in the air is to call the batter out (or halt his progress on base), and throw the offending fan out of the park.

You would think that loyal fans would eschew interfering with the team's hits in the corner and along the line that might result in extra bases and runs being driven in, but you'd be wrong.

In fact, no matter who hits the ball, people's lust to get a free baseball is so great that they couldn't care less how it affects the game.

Thus far, in the ten or so home games I've seen, three times have fans interfered with the play on the field, the last one occurring in the outfield stands when a Giant hit a long fly ball deep to left center. The Atlanta Brave layer drifted back to the wall, and just as the ball arrived short of the fence and a home run, an older fan reached into the playing field with his glove and tried to catch the ball in front of the Brave's outstretched mitt.

The ball fell out of the fan's glove, hit the wall and bounced out into the field. This was in the third inning, I believe. The Giant reached second, the umps studied instant replay and decided that the fan's interference did not result in an automatic out since they felt the outfielder had misjudged the fly and was slightly out of reach of the ball in any event (which was true).

The fan was removed from the park, but the ump's call was incorrect, I believe. Fan interference always ought to be punished by calling the home team player out every time it happens. The Giants were lucky to get away with one, I thought.

But I couldn't help ranting once again to the TV about these stupid idiots who want a baseball more than their team to succeed.

You see these guys, ordinary joes, grinning and laughing, the people around them grinning and laughing, and all I can think is how incredibly childish they are. They are worse than children, though, because if you tell a child the rules, they'll obey them when you've explained the reason. These idiot adults don't care. They know the why and wherefore, but screw it, I want a ball! The field is the cookie jar and they can't keep out of it.

Americans didn't used to be like this. My dad took me to Yankee games in the early 60s when we had seats close to the field on the first base line, and no one ever interfered with play. We waited for foul balls to come to us. Nobody had to be warned, no one had to be threatened. It was simply taken for granted that you let the ball stay in play.

In fact, watch today when a player chases a foul fly near the stands and reaches into the stands to try and catch it. A lot of the time, you'll see fans try to catch it instead, and won't get away from the player as he reaches for it.

In the old days, everyone moved if the player had a chance at the ball, even if it was the opposing team.

This lack of self-control and inability to understand that they are not only interfering with the game, but also with the outcome affecting tens of thousands of other people who are hoping for a win or loss based solely on the contest between two squads of men, and not because some idiot couldn't help himself, well, it says a lot about what we've become as a people - how weak in character, how selfish in manner, and inconsiderate in nature.

I marvel at human perversity. Shall ever be so?

The Accusation Of Racism: The Chimera That Will Not Die

I once posted the following questionnaire at Eternity Road:

To those who consider it racist to ask whether there might be real, objective differences among the races as regards intelligence, moral fiber, predisposition to act from emotion rather than reason, depth of religious feeling, and so forth: Please contemplate the following questions, and answer them to the best of your ability. In all of them, the use of the terms "equal" and "unequal" should be taken to refer to statistical aggregates, not to individuals.

1. Is racism:
   • The belief that the races differ in one or more measurable ways?
   • The belief that persons of different races should be treated differently by the law?
   • The belief that one race is, overall, "superior" to another?
   • The belief that the races are unequal in God's eyes?
   • All of the above?
   • Something other than any of the above?
   
   
2. Is it racist to note correlations between race and:
   • Rates of violent crime?
   • Demographic concentrations?
   • Propensity toward poverty, however defined?
   • Propensity toward single-parent, female-headed households?
   • Any of the above?
   • Something other than any of the above?
   
   
3. Imagine that predominance in some activity A consistently belongs to race R. Would it be racist to posit that race R has a natural superiority at activity A, if A were:
   • Basketball?
   • Mathematics?
   • Singing?
   • Chess?
   • Maintaining stable families?
   • Any of the above?
   • Something other than any of the above?
   
   
4. Imagine that Smith believes that the races don't really mix well -- i.e., that each race does best for itself when the races live apart. Which of the following would absolve Smith of racism?
   • He maintains that the races are absolutely equal in all important ways, but that they simply don't get along well?
   • He maintains that, though the races might be statistically unequal in some details, nevertheless all individuals should be judged, not according to their race, but according to their personal merits?
   • He maintains that, though the races are statistically unequal in one or more important ways, those disparities can be overcome over time?
   • He maintains that though the races are statistically unequal in several important ways, nevertheless the law should treat all persons equally -- i.e., the law should be "color-blind?"
   • Any of the above?
   • Something other than any of the above?
   
   
5. Which of the following contentions, in the absence of objective data, would be racist behavior:
   • To insist on the inequality of the races in some measurable way, and to be correct?
   • To insist on the inequality of the races in some measurable way, and to be incorrect?
   • To insist on the equality of the races in some measurable way, and to be correct?
   • To insist on the equality of the races in some measurable way, and to be incorrect?
   • Any of the above?
   • Something other than any of the above?
   
   
6. Imagine the following: You have been kidnapped and are confronted by four doors. Behind door A is a Negro, behind door B is an Oriental, behind door C is a Caucasian, and behind door D is a purebred American Indian. Your kidnapper tells you an activity, and commands you to select one of the four doors. Whoever is behind that door will be your champion in a contest drawn from that activity. For example, if the activity were mathematics, your champion might have to solve a set of simultaneous equations faster than his opponent; if the activity were fisticuffs, your champion would have to out-box his opponent according to standard rules; if the activity were tightrope walking, your champion might have to maintain his balance longer than his opponent. The stakes are your life. Knowing nothing about the persons behind the doors but their races, which door would you choose if the activity were:
   • Arm-wrestling?
   • Computer programming?
   • Sorting a large number of small objects by size, color, or shape?
   • Automobile racing?
   • Hunting?
   
   
7. Having answered the above questions sincerely, has your definition of racism changed?

I received very few responses, which is understandable. Even one who travels the Web anonymously is likely to be reticent about the subjects of racism, race relations, and racial integration. The accusation of racism remains a damaging thing, not to be courted by anyone who fears the possible consequences.

One of the advantages the old possess that the young do not is that our time horizons, foreshortened by the finitude of human life, render some fears less compelling than others. That's certainly been the case for me. In particular, I no longer fear baseless accusations made by persons with an axe of any sort to grind. My body of expressed opinions, every last one of which has been made under my right and full name, should speak for itself -- at least, to anyone I respect and whose opinion I value.

So give that questionnaire above your full attention, Gentle Reader. Don't bother to post your answers; I'm not really interested in them. How does it make you feel? Nervous? As if you're being watched? As if I might be inviting you to step into a mine field?

Now ask yourself why.

---

Recently, a post that linked to Mark Butterworth's "Tales of New America" series appeared at the heavily traveled Free Republic Website. It brought Liberty's Torch a lot of traffic...and a lot of very nasty comments and email, all of which I've suppressed.

Mark's stories were forthright about the tensions and sporadic violence that currently characterize relations between Caucasian and Negro Americans, and one of the probable paths that might arise from those facts. But in America in the year of Our Lord 2013, even to speculate about such things is baiting the bear of the racialist Left. And so the torrent of venom was unleashed, and I was compelled to exercise my powers as moderator of this site.

The Left is aware that charges of racism, though no longer the mortal wounds they once were, are still potent enough to silence many an American. Inasmuch as the subject of interracial relations is becoming ever more critical -- you have been keeping up with the news, haven't you? -- they're swinging that hammer more frequently, and more viciously, than ever.

This was to be expected. Not only are race relations becoming the hottest of hot topics once again; the Left's bastions are crumbling in plain sight. Its most prominent figures are disgracing themselves; the policies it's championed are visibly causing social and economic deterioration; and its other rhetorical weapons are failing it. So it's falling back on the tool that's never failed it: the baseless accusation that this or that commentator is a racist; in the most extreme formulation, that the target "wants to bring back slavery."

I am reminded of another post from long ago:

Some years ago, a theater impresario whom we shall call Smith, whose current production Hoity-Toity was, shall we say, not repaying its production costs received a phone call from Jones, a well-known reporter for the prestigious publication Theater Life. Their conversation ran as follows:

"Mr. Smith," Jones said, "I'm calling to ask a few questions about Hoity-Toity."

"Go right ahead," Smith said.

"Well, first of all," Jones said, "the talk is that Hoity-Toity is falling deeply into arrears and will soon be closed. Is that the case?"

Smith, a careful and experienced man, counted to ten before answering. "I would imagine that if I were to say no, your story in tomorrow's edition would be headlined 'Smith Denies Hoity-Toity Near To Closing.' Am I correct?"

"Well, yes," Jones said. "Something like that, anyway."

"Well, then," Smith said, "I'll answer your question if you'll answer one for me. How's that sound?"

"Fair enough," Jones said warily. "What's your question?"

"Mr. Jones, is it true that your wife has syphilis?"

"What?" Jones shrieked. "Why are you asking me that? What put such an idea into your head?"

"Oh, you know how the rumor mill churns," Smith said breezily. "But, as it happens, you're on speakerphone and Davis is here from Variety. If you were to answer no, he might have a story in tomorrow's edition headlined 'Jones Denies Wife Has Syphilis.' What would you think of a story like that?"

There was a long silence on the line. Finally, Jones said, "All right, Smith. I take your point."

Do you take the point, Gentle Reader?

---

So much of what I write here "should go without saying" that I sometimes despair. But then, it's a commonplace that "common sense" is among the least common things in the universe.

Many an accusation is made merely to provoke a denial. Experienced politicos know that -- and know that the denial, if one is offered, is grist for the PR mill. It will displace all the other news about the subject or persons in controversy; it will invite further questions about the character of the accused; and worst of all, it will stimulate further accusations, probably no better founded than the original, to prevent the accused from returning to the case he was trying to make.

The denial of a substanceless accusation is "blood in the water" to the sharks of the political scene. Yet resisting the urge to deny such an accusation -- especially the charge of racism -- takes more fortitude than many accused persons can summon.

The moral should be obvious...but once again, the Latin roots of obvious mean overlooked.

It's far better to be forthright about one's convictions, even on an ultra-sensitive subject such as race relations, than to hedge them about with qualifiers, exclusions, and exculpations. Mark Butterworth has made his convictions about race relations plain, which marks him as an unusually courageous writer. More, he has the good sense not to "feed the sharks" by responding to their accusations...assisted, of course, by your humble servant's powers of comment moderation. If enough of us were to grasp this, such charges would eventually fade away completely for lack of effect...yet another "obvious" point it pains me to have to make.

Keep the faith.