Four Freedoms

I'm a little encouraged that Rep Cantor is trying to be a Republican instead of a RHINO.  I use the RHINO term ironically -- to describe rampaging marauders with existential cravings to stamp out fires -- whatever brings warmth and light into the world.  The folks who call real Republicans RINOs.  I was pondering how to get the party back on a course where I might seek to rejoin it.  And I saw an article about the 10 most influential State of the Union addresses (I can't locate the article).  One of those listed was FDR's Four Freedom's speech of 1941.  Despite the flaws of the concept, it's worthwhile to adopt Four Freedoms as a proper end of social organization and government, and argue that voluntary actions in a market economy are the most reliable means to bring them about.  Republicans have been doing so since the days of Lincoln, but have lately forgotten how.

Are Four Freedoms big R Republican values?  Are they RHINO values?  Freedom of Speech?  RHINOs are muzzlers.  From a letter last year to Rep Hurt.

Juries are America's Sovereign (We, the People) exercising its (OUR!) power directly.  If juries are unhappy -- don't muzzle them (These RHINO's that have taken over my Party, and dare call me RINO, love their muzzles: voter suppression, jury suppression, suppression of standing of litigants).

One might add the suppression of science.  Also RHINOs seem to desire freedom from annoyance.  Our founders saw the incompatibility between speech rights and the right to comfort -- and knew that comfort is something gladly sacrificed for the ferment of ideas, opinions, demonstrations, and expressions.  I think the leading edges of the RHINO encroachment of the Republican party came with attempts to criminalize legitimate protest which might deface or damage a flag, but do not share my disgust with commercial exploitation of the flag.  I wrote an essay on that at the time, but alas, it was stored on GeoCities, now defunct.  I might stumble across a copy somewhere. The main thing is that freedom of speech is not something the speaker owns, but that a culture owns.  Anybody can yell FIRE in a crowded theater.  He's free to do so, by divine right of lungs and vocal cords.  What shall the culture suppress, and with what tools?  What the culture is most inclined to suppress, words which threaten its leading figures and presumptions, are subject to spontaneous private suppression -- "Them's Fightin' Words, Pilgrim."  It's only our commitment to free expression and refusal to regard verbal provocation as mitigation for violent response that keeps us free.

Freedom of Religion?  Please!  I hate that schools have become the arena for this.  Teachers lack rights of free expression.  Sometimes even students and voluntary associations among students, faculty, and administration.  I think Republicans and RHINOs are pretty much aligned against any who would have us restrained from vocalizing our conception of the Divine.  Or especially of those who would chose what's permitted ("The divine nature is impersonal, inertial, and immutable" of most science vs "The divine nature is intimate, volitional, and responsive" of most theism).  Where RHINOs overstep is their readiness to compel and proscribe behavior of others.  I cringe every time the oath-giver prompts "So help you God".  I have no problem with an oath-taker stating an unprompted "So help me God." -- the prompt, itself, violates freedom, though I suppose the omission of that gratuitous phrase (could it even be blasphemous?) would be political poison, with or without the prompt.

Freedom from Want?  Here is the rub.  We have no divine right -- no certain inalienable right -- against deprivation.  But there's another part of the preamble to our Declaration which goes beyond securing our rights, and affirms the role of government in "effect[ing] their Safety and Happiness." Here is where we get Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear.  We get it because we are sovereign, as individuals.  Office holders may have some assurance of Safety and Happiness.  Capital investors too.  Intellectual Property creators and owners.  The hired help at the top of corporations with their golden parachutes.  They have that as derivative freedoms.  As means to an end.  The end being the Sovereign's Safety and Happiness -- that of individuals.  I'm not going to try to contrast real Republicans, RHINOs, and other approaches here.  Only say that Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear are core founding values of America, not some FDR intrusion.  Pretty much came to me in writing this.  I own all four freedoms now, instead of my initial approach of submitting to a populist expectation with better means than the Democrat approach of throwing other people's money at it.  That populist expectation is both a legitimate purpose of government, perhaps THE legitimate purpose, and a legitimate reason for dismantling an ineffective government, should it fail to secure these ends.... should it fail even to honor them.

Commando weapons.

I just finished reading Grapes of Wrath.  Among the thoughts provoked was another affirmation of the necessity of a well-regulated militia.  There's a conflict between what armed men will organize to accomplish and what powerful men will arm minions to accomplish.  I think of Bacon's Rebellion, where Gov. Berkeley laments his inability to raise an army to suppress rebellion, lacking the funds.  I think of the army Tom Cruise's character was hired to train in The Last Samurai.  I think of Pinkertons and other hired goons which have been assembled to suppress organized labor.  The age old question of whether one is served by participating in the communistic system of corporations and big capital with their central planning and bureaucratic means of stratification, or with voluntary associations in the free-enterprise system of guilds and small private capital (I like to think of garages and green grocers).

The problem is that scabs and goons-for-hire are likely to be "rugged individualists" in their own mind, prey to monetized (mercenary) transactions, as opposed to filial associations of the folks fighting the encroachment of avarice-based structure of society.  It's the folks who accumulate arsenals who are least likely to commit them to constructive use (do weapons have constructive use?)  Anyhow -- non-governmental (or proto-governmental like Revolutionary Committees of Safety) militia is a worthy form for organizing the liberals and progressives among us whose ends are gracious, if not altruistic.  Though a militia with a central body on the order of an Occupy Movement General Assembly sounds like a circular firing squad.

The point being that Sons of Liberty type right-wing groups and Committee of Safety type centrist groups and SDS/Black Panther type left-wing groups all have reason to bear arms, and American ideals are served by the presence of such armed groups, but the Second Amendment supposes infantry, not commandos.  Weapons whose purpose is individual carnage are not part of what I cherish as a right of free-association.  Automatic and large magazine weapons are not infantry weapons -- they are commando weapons.  They are mass murder weapons.  They are terror weapons.  They are weapons for which I will support restrictions.  I do not support restricting persons.  Be it felons or psychotics or even sociopaths.  Especially psychotics.  Perhaps when the rights of psychotics to assemble in armed non-governmental well-regulated militias are established, other rights will be less vulnerable.  I will not be disarmed by being called Schizo.  I've been called that all my life, though have been repeatedly assured by doctors I'm not clinically such.  Or legally such.  But I still feel comradeship with those who share this label, and especially those for whom that label has deprived of society's respect and a citizen's privileges and immunities.

Counterpoint to illucid rants.

There was once a time when I feared, some say with Pope John Paul II, that George XLIII was the anti-Christ, poised to usher in the end of days.  Reading my stream of consciousness rants in these recent Open Letters, and knowing my correspondence with Silly Wobbert over his two years in office has been pretty much in the same vein, I thought I'd share something here a little more polished from back in 2005.  It could be more lucid, I'm sure.  But someone other than I need have taken it there.  Nobody stepped up to the plate.

Shanksville Address (Flight 93) 
 

Four sorely sullen years ago, Their fatwa brought forth Upon this continent A new outrage. Conceived in jeolousy And dedicated to the proposition That empire is inherent evil. Now we are engaged in a crass imperial war, Testing whether some nation Or some other nation Harboring such conception or dedication Can dare try to stop us. We remember today The provocation of that war. We have come to justify Our disproportional response to it, As a final resting place To liberties only hated by ourselves. And yet that day, heros among us Stepped up to call. Many died. We dedicate this day to those heroes And to the fallen innocent. It it altogether fitting and proper That we should do this. But in a larger sense, We cannot dedicate We cannot consecrate We cannot hallow this day. The brave men, living and dead, Who struggled with fists and flames To stem loss and destruction Have consecrated it, Far above our cynical ploys To add their honor to our own Or to detract eyes from our dishonor. The world will little note, Nor long remember, Their small and noble deeds, But can never forget the ignoble attack, And our ignoble response, Which dishonors these And all who have died Through twenty score years To bring freedom from imperial lust. It is for us, the living, Rather to be dedicated here To the forgotten ideals That inspired their valor. It is rather for us To be here rededicated To the faith that freedom and justice Conquers the force of arms And not by such force, Being dedicated to our brother And devoted to our neighbor. From our honored dead, We take increased devotion To that cause for which They have given The last full measure of devotion. That we this day highly resolve That those who died four years ago And in these last four hundred, Shall not have died in vain. That this nation shall abandon Imperial agression and the Ersatz entitlements of exceptionalism And dedicate ourselves once more To the truly exceptional. A new birth of freedom! That this government Of the People By the People For the People Shall not perish from the Earth. By Robert Corey © 2005 Robert Corey (All rights reserved)

Another open letter to Rep Hurt

I know that you and Leader Cantor have zero sincerity when it comes to debt reduction, despite your frequent protests.  Defense reductions and revenue enhancement are essential for any sincere proposal.  I'd like to see you move in a Constitutional direction.

First -- Stop these subsidies and favored treatment of big banking, fossil energy, and big defense.  TAX CARBON!  Don't fund the wall street casino with my retirement.

Second -- Don't push growth-killing measures that place burdens upon individuals that have been traditionally (or more importantly, recent measures upon which our prosperity depends) a shared social concern.  Potholes that I must fill, don't get filled.  That's not because I'm lazy.  All my neighbors are equally disincentivized.  Cantor's bogus budgets have been based upon the proposition that rich people wanting to be richer people are the engine of the economy.  What I think is the engine of the economy is a spirit of enterprise which is not deprived of rewards which ought justly come.  Be that public service (police, fire, teachers, groundskeeping, trash collection, etc) which is robbed of it's stature when collective bargaining and craft/profession based association (yes, even compulsory) is thwarted.  Be that innovators who discover that, when bohemoths make spurious intellectual property claims, the government charged by the Constitution to foster innovation, becomes allied with the forces poised to kill it.  One could go on and on identifying growth-killing measures in Cantor's bogus budgets.  Measure that leave us ill prepared to sustain a future consistent with our aspirations.  Consistent even with our present conditions.  And, appealing to Reagan's Lasker Curve, which affirms to right of government to maximize revenue, and points to how, I am certain, the CBO is certain, and everybody whose paycheck doesn't originate in Wichita is certain --- we are not past the cusp of the Lasker Curve.  It's not Voodoo economics which drives Cantor.  It's ubermensch objectivism -- it's letting the engine of economy run full bore, uncoupled from the drive mechanism.  It's a John Galt fairy tale of perpetual motion.  It's not a principle upon which prosperity will be achieved or sustained.  TAX CARBON.  Failure to tax carbon is the biggest obstacle to sustained prosperity.  I know -- Brazil, India, China -- what good for us, if not for them?  SILLY WOBBERT, that's what taxes are all about.  I scoff at appeals for Warren Buffet to hand over what he believes is just compensation to a government which enabled him to prosper so much as he has.  He alone.... I SCOFF.

Anyhow -- number 3 -- get back to Constitutional civilian oversight and participation in the military.  BIENNIAL review of defense needs.  Militia being the backbone of military preparedness -- for training and domestic/boundary mobilization, but only regular National military units available for foreign adventures, those units peopled by recruiting among members of a well-regulated militia.  NOT WHOLE UNITS.  NOT COMPULSORY FOREIGN SERVICE as a penalty for good citizenship.  And recognize that equipping and protecting soldiers is the object of defense procurement, not the distribution of Congressional pork.  And recognize that hostility is often the most expensive and least effective option to achieve global interests.  And hostility is often, perhaps always, inimical to national values.  TAX CARBON -- that will address more thoroughly than military mobilization the forces poised to violently challenge the status quo.

Of course Health Care is something that needs to be addressed, constructively.  Constitutionally.  A state-administered program to supply services that are agreed to be fundamental to our neighborly concern.   Things we cannot NOT do.  The discussion of where to draw that line has not been forthcoming.  The emergency-room as first-option has been a crippling approach to primary indigent health care.  I wish Gov. Vaginal Probe and the Cooch were doing their job.  And Viginia's legislature.  Instead they're intent up new Gerrymander, ala Texas 2002.  It's unfortunate that remedies have had to become national.  But having become so, DON'T FUND THE WALL STREET CASINO WITH MY HEALTH.  TAX CARBON.  Let us walk more, find value in natural places which serve as carbon sequestrators.  Let our industrial agriculture subsidies no longer feed unnhealthy habits.

Mostly -- TAX CARBON is the best way to assure America's prosperity.  Cantor's bogus budget is the best way to further the encroach of anti-American kleptocracy.

Open letter to Rep Robert Hurt (VA 5th)

The Gunpowder Incident of April 20, 1775

Of all the revered figures who lived and died in the 5th district, I've only ever seen you pay tribute to Patrick Henry.  Should I ever visit Red Hill, I hope to find the opportunity to see Booker T Washington's nearby birthplace.   [note... searching 'Booker' on Rep. Hurt's website, I found a trip album with one picture of a BTW visit, along with 4 of a nearby UPS store]  I don't know if Booker T wanted to arm his people, but Marcus Garvey and Sutton Griggs likely did.  Malcolm X most certainly did.  And I bet there are people ready to repeat Oklahoma City and other atrocities in the name of keeping their guns, while keeping them out of the hands of Booker T and Malcom X's people.  And out of my hands, too.  I'm seeing these people crawl out from under their rocks and imagine you being wholly sympathetic to their fears of black helicopters and fluorescent light bulbs.

But while unsympathetic to their tirades, I am sympathetic to their arsenals.  Hunting is not the purpose the the second Amendment.  I don't really think private arsenals for protection in the Zombie Apocalypse or whatever these people are afraid of is the purpose of the second Amendment either.  When the NRA talks about good guys with guns, my thoughts immediately turn to George Zimmerman, a self appointed good-guy with a gun.  My biggest fear is not of bad guys, but of such good guys.  All those 'good guys' ranting on Fox News and EIB radio about being robbed of Christmas and whatever else by the advance of society to places unfamiliar to them.

Anyhow, despite their evident insanity, and profligate hostility, I don't advocate you are anybody else vote to restrict their ability to -- a line I love from "Fog of War" [ I misspoke.  The movie I have in mind was Path to War] -- "jump the White House fence and lynch their President."  I'd have done exactly that should George W Bush have made unilateral WMD attack on Iran or anywhere else -- and I announced that intent and wished others would.  American hegemony is accountable to no external force, and restraint can only come from a citizenry whose outrage of actions taken in our name provoke "Second Amendment Remedies".  And tolerance of private arsenals by the McVeighs of the world, who I fear 100 times more than the Aziz's of the world, is part of that restraint.

But, what is lost in discussion centered upon sportmen's rights is "A well regulated militia."  What made America work, when anti-royalist and anti-colonial and other revolutions descended into turmoil?  It was Committees of Safety, in my mind.  It was organization of communities under ad-hoc purposeful service organizations.  It was Patrick Henry in Williamsburg and the Minutemen of Concord.  Would that we could nurture similar genius within and outside our borders today.  We crush that genius, it seems, and nurture wackiness.  Yours has certainly been nurtured.

Anyhow -- bottom line --- Article I Section 8 of the Constitution authorizes Congress...

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress

I'm aghast that nobody has challenged Congress or the President on exceeding this authority by sending National Guard units on foreign adventures.  I'm aghast that the very name "National Guard" robs States of autonomy over their military arms.  I'm aghast that regulation of militia is not appropriately practiced at either a state or federal level, whereby private arsenals might be, as the Constitution not only provides, but demands, confiscated, with due process and reparations, to public purposes.

That's the Constitution.  You pay it lip service when it serves your ends. but in a matter of well-regulated Militia, you're with the McVeighs of the world.  Enemy of the State.  A bad guy with a gun, like Zimmerman.

Struggling here

Nothing to say. Plenty to say. Politics has me concerned. I don't know why Bush got elected in 2004. I don't know why so many Democratic representatives are in trouble in 2010, including my own, Tom Perriello. It's like in the days of Reagan, when I liked the guy, but couldn't vote for him because his supporters scared me. Now both the supporters and the candidates scare me. They hate America. And accuse me of the same.

I keep thinking of the Sinatra song -- covered by Paul Robeson, among others. The House I Live In. But I live in the Nativist district which Virgil Goode represented for 6 terms or so. They have fun here with Obama/Pelosi/Perriello -- names that end in a vowel. Not our kind of people, that's for sure.

Meanwhile, predictions of people seeing and recognizing benefits from economic stimulus and health insurance reform have not panned out. Remember a year ago -- folks were saying, it hurts politically now -- but have courage -- events will vindicate our efforts. No courage left. Only accusations and apologies. Actually, I didn't much favor either. I thought infrastructure investment and Clinton-style federal support of state intitiatives in public health and insurance reform were the ways to go. Think TANF and Medicaid and Clinton-era waivers. Think TVA and Interstate highways. I was a Republican when Republicans took these initiatives. It's the Hoover Dam, after all. In fact, infrastructure development was the Whig way -- the Republican way... when did my party go all Know-Nothing Nativist?

I don't much care for either alternative given me -- the Democratic way, the RHINO way, and the Tea Party way. I wish someone was out there pushing the Republican way -- the John Warners, the Christine Whitmans -- the ones the RHINOs call RINOs. The real Republicans.

waiting

I lent my van to Erik, my son, so he could move last month. Last night he brought it back. He's sleeping now. I'll wait for him to wake. I think I'll be sleeping at the store tonight, and set up for tomorrow. I've been lax with the listings. Sales are slow. I'm pondering a mid-week book sale with ads, taking place under the veranda. Need to ask Danny.

Watching an old episode of It Takes a Thief. Pretty lame. I just finished that Forsyth novel I've been reading. Lame-O too. Honorable Schoolboy not holding my interest. Just got to the end of section 2, and next to read is "Shaking the Tree." Book on superstrings not so thrilling. I need to read what physicists write, not journalists. They repeat some dumb analogy a physicist has fed them, and pretend it's meaningful.

I've not been taking meds or suppliments since before my trip. Been home 10 days now. Took suppliments this morning. No meds. I'm pretty disengaged. Straw grabbing. Not finding any long ones, really. That accounts for starting the blog, in a sense.