Category: snivelry

(Friday, 15 February 1985, Oregon State University Barometer)

There is an implication in Burt Merritt’s latest column (“Phony elections,” 13 February) to the effect that there was no difference between the bipartisan candidates in our last election.  Surely there are zealous bipartisan supporters who would take issue with such a thesis.  They may be right. The verity of the bipartisan position that there is a world of difference between the Republican caucus and the Democrat caucus rests upon the coherence of your values.

If you believe that every taxpayer has an obligation to provide free abortions to every American woman who needs one, there is a distinct difference.

If you believe that the federal government should spend more stolen money on national defense, and less on mass-transit, there is a distinct difference.

If you believe that young American adults have a duty to sacrifice two or three years of their lives (or face imprisonment) to serve their communities in the name of Universal Slavery ( — er — “Service”) there is a distinct difference.

If you believe that the Drug Enforcement Agency has a moral duty to break down the doors of peaceful pharmaceutical entrepreneurs, confiscate their property, and shoot them in the back as they attempt to preserve their liberty, then… Wait a minute, poor example, better scratch that one.

But I did come up with three distinct differences. How substantive these are is for you to decide. As George Harrison said, “It’s all in what you value.”

As Patrick Henry said…

update 180131: I’m still not going to finish that ellipsis…
(I’m leaving it as an exercise for advanced students.)
Burt Merritt is an alias for correspondent JM.

Like many the partisan Libertutionist, Constitarian, Commie, or Greeniac, I will invoke the Bane of the Bipartisan Blur over and over. On my 2002 campaign website I said: “It’s a mistake to claim that there are no differences between Republicans and Democrats. Of course there are. Just as there are differences between hanging and the firing squad. Between electrocution and lethal injection. Sometimes even as vast as the difference between cast iron handcuffs and the nickel plated variety. One set will chaff a little more than the other, but both will keep you securely bound.” There are lots of differences, great and small, and it probably helps our credibility to avoid using absolutes, even over partisan distinctions. Surely there are differences between Repucrats and Demoblicans. Strictly speaking, shit-on-rye and shit-on-whole-wheat are different sandwiches.

“Democratic” (Friday, 24 February 1984, Barometer)

Correspondent RA’s proposal to abolish the Electoral College would likely not come to fruition by November 6th. Nor do I think that it’s a very good idea.

RA’s objection is that the Electoral College is “undemocratic.”  That is its purpose.  The Electoral approach diffuses any concentrated popularity that candidates may possess in population centers or among special interests.  This induces candidates to address issues of national scope and gives voice to the hinterlands.

North Dakota, with about a quarter per cent of the US population has 3 out of 538 electors or about a half per cent voice in the selection of a president. California, with ten per cent of the nation’s population only gets an eight per cent say. This is terrific for North Dakota and Alaska, and not too bad for California and New York.

The principle of democracy (“rule of the crowd” vs monarchy, “rule of the crown”) indicates that California should overwhelm North Dakota, as majorities are democratically “entitled” to impose their wills upon minorities. The function of a republic, however, is to insure the representation of all interests, even the unpopular and the unnoticed.

update 180109: I am still very much grateful for the protections of the Electoral system, as it has saved us twice since the above was written. First from HALGOR 9000 starring in 2001, then from President Pants-Suit today. Prior, it also favored Hayes over Tilden, and Harrison over Cleveland. I didn’t have a lot invested in Sam Tilden, but I am partial to Cleveland, and think that Benjy interrupted what should have been a glorious three terms!

“Do we want theism?” (Wednesday, 23 May 1984, Gazette-Times)

I appreciate that correspondent BH (of the Concerned Women for America) is dissatisfied with the government schools (“not neutral” May 17th). I support all parents’ rights to determine the philosophical content of their children’s education.

Toward that end, the state’s oligopoly on education must be broken through pro rated tax credits for private tuition, education vouchers, or any other step away from statism. As long as education is controlled by the state, the curricula will be determined by the democratic will of the zealous. It is tax-funded education which is the true danger, not some new dogma the School Board may be embracing.

However much I may otherwise agree with BH, I must differ with her assault on atheism. (“Secular humanists are open in their antagonism toward traditional family values and their use of the public school system to teach a new religion of atheistic humanism. Secular humanism is a religion and has been declared such by the Supreme Court. When you send your children to school they are being taught religious values, the values of atheistic humanism… Humanists have declared that America will be atheist by the year 2000… Do you really want to live under atheism? Let Marx and Stalin be your answer.”) As an atheist father of two, I care deeply about individual freedom for the present and for the future. There is no necessary alliance between atheism and socialism; rather the contrary. The bulk of my atheist acquaintances are avidly pro-market, pro-choice, and pro-life, with a profound distaste for socialism, Marxism, statism, or any other selfless scheme for the subordination of the ego to some amorphous “greater good.”

It is theism which teaches self-abnegation, that only through the surrender to gods can we have any value. Theism and statism both appeal to that selfless reflex which is characteristic of insects, but a discredit to man.

Do we really want to live under theism?
Let Torquemada and Khomeini be your answer.

update 180109: I’m not usually hostile toward religion. The fact is, I envy the faithful their belief in immortality, I suspect it’s an enormous comfort. I don’t go looking for fights with folk, but when they attack (“above and below us”) I get to strike back. Rabbi Yeshua may have been talking to me when he admonished us to “turn the other cheek”, but I wasn’t listening.

In my eagerness to defend my “faith,” I neglected to point out to BH the error of her argument (appeal to authority) wherein she cites the Supreme Court as the arbiter of what is or is not a “religion.” Seems to me they’ve also been cited in the matter of what is or is not a “person.” (When it comes to their moral authority, I say, “Tell it to Dred Scott.”) Trickster Penn Jillette pointed out years later that describing atheism as a religion was a lot like describing not collecting stamps as a hobby. Theism, archism, and hobbies are all affirmative positions. Not having them is simply not having them

Fortunately or otherwise, “humanists” seemed to have missed the mark in their projection of an “atheistic” twenty-first century. The “War on Christianity” goes on, and Christianity continues to keep pummeling us. General Lee‘s followers may have thought it ennobling to struggle so valiantly for their “Lost Cause,” but I just find it frustrating.
Yeah, and ennobling.. How great I art.

“Choose Memorial Well” (Saturday, 15 January)

Tom McCall’s family has suggested that any intended memorial be contributed in his name to either the Nature Conservancy or the 1000 Friends of Oregon. Such contributions would be altogether fitting, since these organizations represent two of his widely disparate passions.

It is important, though, that we understand the fundamental differences between the 1000 Friends and the Nature Conservancy, so that we can adequately decide how we would like to remember Governor McCall.

The Nature Conservancy is a private organization which purchases tracts of land so that they may be removed forever from the threat of development. This is laudable; individuals, including corporations and organizations, have the right to control their property as they see fit. The Nature Conservancy is an excellent way for committed environmentalists to put their monies where their mouths are.

The 1000 Friends of Oregon, on the other hand, is a cheerleader group for the state Land Conservation and Development Commission, which is dedicated to restricting the peaceable disposition of private property.

So choose well. How shall this stellar figure of Oregon’s history be commemorated? As an advocate of voluntary cooperation, or as a champion of government interference?

update 180109: Thomas Lawson McCall, Oregon’s Governor from 1967 to 1975, remains dead. I never spoke to him, but I did see him once, and cooked his lunch. I was working the grill at Herpy’s (“When you’re a whole lot more than a canker sore!”) late morning in autumn of 1974 when I saw a sleek road cruiser with Oregon plates reading “1” pulling in to our lot.

Counter Lass said, “Is that…?‘

I said, “Yeah. Look’s like the governor’s limo is in our parking lot.”

Manager SS raced out from the back, and just about wet himself as he fawned over The Gov. Since Counter Lass and I were simply going about our jobs, she taking orders and calling them back to me, and me filling them, we acted like he was another customer in our crowded lobby. “They don’t recognize you, sir!” simpered SS. Then he came back and supervised my work, making sure that the Holy Hefty Gut Bomb was not being sabotaged before it reached the Exalted Palate.

It was all very sad, mostly, but a little bit funny, too. Counter Lass and I just smiled and shook our heads sadly, Mr Tom politely endured it, and his aides cringed at manager SS’ performance.

As far as I know, I’ve encountered three of Oregon’s governors. The above mentioned Mr McCall, Mark Hatfield (when he was Oregon’s delegate to the US Senate, at which time we actually spoke a little as I shook his hand and thanked him for his valiant but futile effort to block draft registration), and Vic Atiyeh (at the Oregon State Fair, where we merely made brief eye-contact and said “Howdy,” or “Salaam,” or “Some Such.”)

“We are no threat” (Friday, 9 September)

In an Associated Press story buried on page 21 of the August 7th Gazette-Times (“Marijuana hunting lawmen upsetting residents”), state and federal goons attempt to justify their siege of Trinity County (California) by insisting that “their methods are both legal and professional.”

“Legal and professional.” That description can just as easily be applied to the Soviets’ recent shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007, or to the Nazis’ slaughter of European Jews. A profession, after all, is what we do to pay the rent, and the law is simply the will of the local government. There is ever a yawning gulf between law and morality.

If an appeal to decency won’t cut it, let me put it in practical terms.

Dear taxpayers: Last year you spent over two hundred mega-bucks in your desperate attempt to stop me from smoking marijuana. It didn’t work. Next year you’ll spend even more; your hired muscle will harass my suppliers, confiscate his property, and possibly kill him as he tries to preserve his liberty and livelihood.

You might even catch me and put me away for a few years. I still won’t stop, any more than you gave up your beer during Prohibition. Just how long do you plan on slamming your head against this particular brick wall? To paraphrase the bumper sticker slogan, “I’ll give up my roach clip when it’s pried from my cold dead fingers.”

Imagine for a moment that the above was written by your son, whose children could be orphaned when he is abducted by the law, or by your workmate, whom you would never suspect of this “vile deed.” Better yet, pick one of your five nearest neighbors. He smokes pot. Shall you condemn him, too? Whose hedge clippers will you borrow while he’s in prison?

Give up this senseless crusade, neighbor. Not only do we surround you, but we are no threat to you or your chosen lifestyle.

update 180109: correspondent ST (GT 9/23) asks, “How does one surround five? Must have been sucking on one of his pot joints when he figured that one.” [heavy sigh] Pot joint? First of all, the proper term is Jazz Cigarette. Get hep to the scene, ST! And now for a little math (sorry drug warriors, I know it’s not your forte.) One doesn’t surround five. One in five doesn’t mean that one surrounds five. In a village of, say, a hundred, one in five means that, if they’re very careful about it, or they just happen to be standing in the right place at the right time, twenty CAN surround eighty.

ST’s seven paragraph screed includes advocating the death penalty for “drug pushers” (me at the Quikk Stopp) and an indictment of humanism, pornography, and the Supreme Court. And he imagines that I smoke reefer as an expression of “‘civil disobedience’ as it is called by the felons who vandalize industry and are idolized by ‘fifth column’ peace marchers.” To the extent that it compels people to bother me I care what they think, but as long as they’re willing to leave me alone I don’t give fuck all for their tender sensibilities. “Civil disobedience”? Please. I smoke it for fun.

“Campaign of corruption” (Friday, 21 October)

To what new depths of depravity will the Gazette-Times descend next in its seemingly endless quest for sensationalism? Last spring we were assaulted by a full-page profile of a local (gasp… shudder) homosexual. This summer it went even further when actual photographs from a nudist convention were published. As if those weren’t disgusting enough, last month the front page was given over to porno king and pot-tax advocate “Spliff” Haschoiel.

Having sufficiently softened up this pure thinking and self-righteous community with its insidious subversion, the GT delivered it coup de grace when, on October 14, a full page glorification of the “pleasures” of gambling was printed. The poor misguided dupes who were pictured probably thought they were having fun as they invited organized crime, narcotics, and prostitution (which everybody knows goes hand in hand with gambling) into Hoskins.

“But wait!” you say, “It’s just bingo!” Just bingo indeed. Now do you see how effective the GT’s campaign of corruption has been? It has actually made people think that organized gambling can somehow be respectable.

What next, GT? Wine tasting? Free speech? Free enterprise? Living peacefully and minding your own business?

Please do not cancel my subscription; I’m having too much fun being outraged.

update 180110: Cards and letters and calls, oh my! Sometimes my comments would touch a nerve. Once, in response to my criticism of official thuggery in the prosecution of The War on (some) Drugs, a local cop and former classmate of mine (taking no pains to disguise his voice) called the house to advise me to think hard about who’s protecting my family.  (“That would be me, Sean.”  -click- )

My favorite response (outside of abject fawning praise) came from an apparent fan of church bingo who opined that if I was “speaking tongue in cheek” then I ought to “bite [my] tongue.”

“An Immodest Proposal” (May 1982, OL)

Much has been made of Central America’s violent conflicts — the confrontations between “fascist right-wing dictatorships” and “communist inspired left-wing terrorists”. The proposed solutions for these American nations runs the gamut of emotion and ideology — from propping up the military regimes in power in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to recognition and economic support for socialist Nicaragua and the struggling revolutionaries.

The most palatable course of action for the United States to take that I’ve heard so far is inaction. That is, we provide (the Union, that is, individuals may do as they please) no support for any actions and let matters take their course. This “course of inaction”, however, provides little hope for those Americans caught in the middle. All they have to look forward to is more of the same from the status quo, or, as in the case of Nicaragua, an exchange of despots.

While it may be too late for Nicaragua, and nearly too late for El Salvador, the problem of the remaining states just may be solvable by the same method used for the former republics of Vermont, Texas, California, and Hawaii. Annexation would insure Central America against (external) communist subversion and would free the people from (relative) despotic abuse.

The major obstacle within Central America to annexation, beyond strident nationalism, would be the reluctance of the generals and the aristocracy to exchange their authoritarian fiefdoms for a free democratic state government.

The people of Central America would also be less reluctant to accept absorption into the United States if we were to give a concrete demonstration of our belief in political equality. Therefore, prior to any consideration of annexation, statehood should be proffered to Guam and Puerto Rico. For too long, the Puerto Ricans and Guamanians have been disenfranchised Americans. Once done, we can invite the seven states of Central America into our republic with a clear conscience.

update 180108: While I remain an enthusiastic expansionist, and proponent of Puerto Rican Statehood, I also have plenty of sympathy for secessionists. Seven billion plus sovereign entities by latest reckoning… But, as long as a confederation remains a voluntary union, I’m in!

“Off with its head” (Wednesday, 20 October 1982, GT)

It is inevitable, during an election year, to hear the contenders argue about how best to reduce spending and save tax dollars. Republicans claim that Democrats are too fastidious with their scalpels, and Democrats charge that Republicans are too reckless with their cleavers.

They are both right as they insist that the other is using the wrong instrument. To cut bureaucratic fat you need neither a scalpel nor a cleaver, but a guillotine.

“Concern irrelevant” (Tuesday, 14 December 1982, GT)

“Those who deal and sell drugs (like beer, coffee, tobacco, and whiskey), and other hard drugs, care not for the person they sell to. Their only aim is to make easy money for themselves.”

Sound familiar? It should; with only a change of specific drugs, it is the same irrelevant statement as that made by your correspondent DM in your December 9 edition.

Does it really matter if a merchant cares about his customers? It may to some, but as for me, when I patronize Snarfway, BulkMart, or my friendly neighborhood marijuana connection, all I want is high quality merchandise at a competitive price. Genuine personal concern is not for sale at any price.

DM invokes “lack [of] respect for the law” as an indictment of the entrepreneur’s character. When the law violates our basic human rights to life, liberty, property, privacy, and the pursuit of happiness, then the law is unworthy of respect. As Frederic Bastiat taught us in 1850, the safest way to make sure that the laws are respected is to make them respectable.

There is no moral requirement for us to obey unrespectable laws. I would caution everyone against indiscrete disobedience, the state is more heavily armed than we are, and there are still plenty of zealous informers who would sell out your liberty.

“Valiant filibuster fails” (Monday, 27 December 1982, GT)

I never thought I’d find myself in bed with the North Carolina Senators  Jesse Helms or John East, but politics is passing strange.

Like Mark Hatfield’s valiant stand against Jimmy Carter’s draft registration, Helms’ and East’s ferocious filibuster to protect the innocent from an omnivorous federal government proved futile, and the gasoline tax hike, in the midst of recession, has been inflicted upon the hapless American consumer.

“Intrusion” (Thursday, 28 January)

Once again the Barometer has swallowed the statist line and endorsed yet another intrusion into Oregonians’ personal lives. In this instance managing editor RR applauds the legislature’s proposed “one-time” five per cent income tax surcharge. Of course, he applauds with the proviso that the state realize that this is a one time good deal and that the government get its act together for the future.

What RR fails to realize is the historical fact that any temporary acquiescence on the part of the people is always interpreted by the state as permission to exploit in perpetuity. The fact of the matter is that the current “budget crisis” is a cruel and cowardly hoax. There would be a quarter of a billion dollar deficit only if spending were accelerated as planned. Our meek acceptance of “necessary” tax hikes only invites escalated deprivations by our beneficent civil masters.

“Waste” (Monday, 8 February)

On January 30, Senator Mark Hatfield said government waste was too narrowly defined. Too often we worry about waste, fraud, and abuse (WFA) within a program, but fail to question the usefulness of the program itself. The Drug Enforcement Agency comes immediately to mind. The DEA epitomizes WFA; it wastes tax funds to defraud the public into believing it is necessary to abuse that large minority who use drugs (other than caffeine, alcohol, or nicotine) for recreational purposes.  Other wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive government activities might include the EPA, INS, ICC, FCC, and all extra-national military aid and activity.

“Obscene effort” (Friday, 26 February)

It’s preposterous that an administration that was swept into office on the basis of getting government off our backs plans to prosecute those young American men for the “crime” of noncompliance with mandatory registration for selective slavery.  The “Justice” Department intends to pour our taxes down a rat hole in an obscene effort to disrupt the lives of as many as they can nail.  Since our Constitution clearly prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime, it must be a crime in America to be young and male.

“Property rights” (Monday, 1 November)

It’s not at all surprising that “larger economic interests” would oppose the Measure; they’ve already made it through the land-use maze and are now in the catbird seat.  Just as cabbies and Teamsters don’t want their respective preserves deregulated, “them that’s got” don’t want “them that’s not” to have too easy an access to the market.

All regulations of the economy (whether that be land use or petroleum distribution) are purported to be, when they are first proposed, for the protection of the “little guy” or for some other presumably desirable social purpose.

In fact, the history of economic regulation (professional licensure, intracity transport, dairy price supports) shows that the regulation actually protect the few from competition and cost society in higher prices and lost opportunity.

 

 

“End draft sign-up” (Tuesday, 12 January 1982)

Aspiring Generalissimo Secretary of State Alexander Haig fears that if Mr Reagan puts the kibosh on the draft we would be sending a “message of weakness” to the Soviet Union. Haig is absolutely wrong. An American rejection of involuntary servitude would send a clear message to the world.

Foremost, it would be a message of confidence in the traditions that Americans are supposed to embrace: freedom of choice, freedom of association, and freedom to live our lives. It would be a message of the strength of our convictions, and a sign of the strength of our national character, to state that a free America will never send slave troops to foreign misadventures in Vietnam or Afghanistan or El Salvador.

I have two young sons, and while they are not yet of draft age, as long as it is considered “natural” and “proper” for the government to do such things to our young men, there may very well come a time when they will be faced with a choice of induction, imprisonment, or emigration.  For now I can only wish that Mr Reagan had stood firmly by his pledge to let draft registration die the whimpering death that it deserved.

update 171227: Thirty-five years on, my sons are approaching middle age and are statutorily safe, but my grandson (and, if the Axis of Lefties and Neocons gets its way, my granddaughter) may yet be exposed to potential induction. Also, Leviathan has indeed finally ventured out to squat over “The Graveyard of Empires.”  Imperium delenda est!

 

“Inadequate defense” (Tuesday, 2 February 1982)

While otherwise masquerading as a penny-pinching president, Ronald Reagan has proposed a rearmament program with a price tag of thirteen hundred gigabucks ($1.3 trillion). The Reagan plan is wasteful, dangerous, and perhaps worst of all, inadequate.

To assume that threatening millions of civilians will deter a foreign power from striking first is to ignore the historical evidence that irrational and bloodthirsty governments have formed around irrational and bloodthirsty men (Abraham Lenin, Woodrow Stalin, Benito Delano Rooselini ). If such men were to rise to power in the USA or the USSR again, then the Russian and American people would have great and legitimate cause to fear.

The only rational defense against such a contingency is the barrier provided by an anti-ballistic missile system. The US abandoned its ABM program under the false premise that Mutually Assured Destruction provides a sufficient psychological barrier. This assumes that men are sane. The Soviets, meanwhile, have since improved their ABM capability.
Realistically, the only policy we can pursue is one of rejection of our role of world policeman, and unilateral rearmament.

If we are genuinely concerned about national security, we must:
— Deploy the ABM at once.
— Return the bill (about 50% of our “national defense” budget) for defending Western Europe and Japan to the Europeans and Japanese.
— Repudiate SALT and desist further capitulation to the Soviet Union.
— Remove all economic sanctions and lift trade restrictions from private and corporate enterprises, but let them insure their own risks.
— Kill the MX, B-1, Stealth bomber…

update 171227: Like most of the rest of The West, I overestimated the Soviet Union’s strength and longevity. In retrospect I guess I was a little too modest in my advocacy to cut US “defense” spending. On the other hand, efforts to “keep up with the Amerikanskis” may have contributed greatly to the final Soviet disintegration. We’re not allowed to conduct controlled experiments with history, so we can’t be sure.

 

“Opportunity and freedom” (Thursday, 18 February 1982)

Correspondent DI, in his February 4th letter (“Growth limits freedom”), has mistaken opportunity for freedom and privileges for rights.

To reconstruct his scenario of the lone pioneer, when the first settler reaches an uninhabited area he has the opportunity to exploit the natural domain to the full extent of his talents. When others settle in the neighborhood they recognize, through peaceful negotiation, the rights of the first settler to the property that he has developed. They too have a (diminished) opportunity to develop the free natural domain; it is their conditional privilege of having arrived sooner than others. They have no right, however, to invade previously claimed territory. The first settler’s opportunities are also diminished. He cannot now expand his territory as widely as he had once hoped, but he retains the right to conduct himself and his already established property as he sees fit.

Perhaps a simpler analogy will clarify the matter. We are all free to find gold nuggets in the wilderness, but only a few of us will have the good fortune to get to them first. Once found, they may be kept, spent, or given away as the finder chooses. The owner of property has the sole right to decide its fate.

The state Land Conservation and Development Commission and its cheerleaders, the 1000 Foes of Oregonians, seek not to regulate the acquisition of wealth from unclaimed property, but to restrict the peaceful, private pursuits of rightful property owners. The land is already claimed and lawfully held by the people. If a landowner chooses to subdivide and sell his property, it is his right. It is his property. He seeks not to trespass on others’ rights or freedom, he only asks that his be respected.

DI is quite correct if he suggests that overpopulation requires us to be more careful of our neighbors’ rights. Overpopulation deprives us of certain opportunities, but only aggression can deprive us of our freedom.

 

 

 

“Irony” (Thursday, 18 June 1981)

Oh the delicious irony, to see the stories, “Officials ponder packed prison problem” and “Marijuana bust nets 4” on the same page of your June 16 edition. It is either a too appropriate accident, or someone on your staff shares my sense of the absurd.

While I don’t know exactly how many inmates in our state penal facilities are victims of Oregon’s victimless-crime laws, it does seem to me that releasing them would go a long way toward relieving our current calaboose congestion.

“Impractical” (Saturday, 8 August 1981)

Correspondent MB’s suggestion of August 1st that [as a dissuasive measure] all of us who support the freedom of abortion personally participate is impractical logistically, professionally, and ideologically.

The logistical considerations are perhaps the most compelling. As all of us who advocate the execution of capital offenders could not feasibly take part in that act, all pro-choice proponents could not practically participate in preempting pregnancies; there are just too many of us per clinic. Assuming, of course, that we would be permitted to assist. Very few of us are qualified to practice medicine.

Even so, it would be inequitable. I, for one, would resent it, because I, like many who are pro-choice , am also anti-abortion. Being pro-choice, I choose not to participate, I choose not to support, and I choose not to interfere with those who choose otherwise.

(A fairly good Darwinian argument, with which I imagine MB would take issue, can be made to support the pro-choice position: those who abort not only proliferate less than those who do not, but also expose themselves to the statistical mortality that all surgery entails. Ultimately, natural selection will put the abortionist out of business.)

update 180101: Describing myself for decades as both pro-choice and pro-life has been occasionally thorny, as zealots on either side of the issue will assail us for our lack of commitment or conviction.

My commitment is to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.

My convictions are these. The rights of the host supercede the interests of the parasite. An organism that feeds off of another acts as a parasite. An “acting parasite” that confers some sort of benefit to the host (joy, hope, photosynthesis?) is considered to be in a symbiotic relationship. In the matter of pregnancy, only the host is qualified to distinguish between parasite and symbiote. (On a personal note, I remain grateful to both Busy Body and Drama Queen that they considered my own beloved spawn to be symbiotes rather than parasites.)

Here are some more facts. There is no such thing as a risk free medical procedure, and there is no such thing as a risk free physical condition. History teaches us that pregnancy kills women and abortion kills women. To the extent that most pregnant women are most of the time in their “right minds” they are the only parties qualified to select from risky options.

“Thrilled” (Thursday, 10 September 1981)

Concerning the dilemma of Duke University:

I should think the administration, faculty, collective alumni and student body would be thrilled at the prospect of a presidential library on their campus. Richard Nixon is, after all, a national hero; he’s done more than any other figure in recent history to revive that great American tradition of distrusting government.

update 180102: Not having mentioned his having ended the draft, Tricky continues to figure large in my life. Compliments of Drama Queen, a favorite cat, Milli Kalikimaka, ended up with his middle name.

“Devalued” (Tuesday, 20 October 1981)

Well, there goes another fantasy [shot to hell]. I had thought that I would write to the Treasury Department (or the Director of the Mint, or whomever is in charge of such things) and suggest that, to commemorate the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, the image of Ms Liberty be struck upon the bronze cent, beginning in 1984, the actual date of her centenary. Now, however, the big news (numismatically speaking) is that our copper penny is soon to be devalued (the same dirty trick they pulled with our dimes, quarters, and half dollars in 1965). It would be a miserable mockery now, to imprint the image of that great bronze monument on a copper-plated coin.

On the other hand, it just might be sadly appropriate. In 1884, when the people of France presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States, it was a vivid, graphic symbol of what America represented to the world community. Freedom of expression, freedom of opportunity, and unlimited freedom of admission. The inscription at the base of the statue admirably embodies this philosophy.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore… I lift my lamp by the golden door.”

Today, official American policy no longer permits unlimited immigration; the sacred symbology of the statue has itself been devalued.

update 180104: editor TM would exercise his prerogative and remove a bit of my prose now and then. [I restore from memory.] I thank Emma Lazarus for her contribution, and apologize for my clumsy edits.

I remain an open borders kind of guy, and think that a border wall is a bad idea whose time has come. I do recognize that open borders plus a massive plunder funded welfare magnet equals the EU. I don’t endorse spending more stolen money on a Great Big Beautiful Wall, I endorse spending less stolen money on The MIC and The Privileged Poor.

update 190911: I recently sent this file to correspondent Al Assassid, citing my enduring gratitude for editorial’s forbearance She responded:
“Chances are editor TM placed Packed Prison Problem next to Bust Nets 4. He was a fan of humor, both obvious and subtle. Not always one to exert forbearance, I‘m glad he practiced it on you.”