The Parable Of The Farmer And The Nerd

by Kirby Ferris

The Coastal Post - January 1997

While being virtually computer illiterate (pun intended), I am attempting to understand a book by Robert Cringely called "Accidental Empire". It's about the personal computer revolution that has taken place in this country in the last 20 years. The overwhelming message conveyed within its pages is just how damn smart guys like Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates actually are. The author's premise, oftentimes expressed with wry humor, is that Woz did it for fun, Jobs did it to prove himself, and Gates just wants to rule the world.

I can't help wondering through the whole story where the hell we are going with these frigging machines. And a week ago Intel announced a computer that cranks out one trillion calculations per second! Who the hell invented that thing? Is there a computer programmer eugenics experiment going on somewhere in the Nevada desert? Is it bootleg space alien technology?

So now we've got this "Big Bertha" computer that, according to one excited nerdy guy I heard on the radio, is going to make decoding DNA information a "slam dunk". Unraveling the secret to life on earth, a "slam dunk"? Oh boy. And, according to Cringely's book, computer technology is doubling in speed and capacity every 18 months.

Is this the hubris of Greek Mythology? Or, is the Biblical Tower of Babel really a parable regarding the computer?

In the Tower of Babel story mankind has a single language. God gets a bit irked at the arrogance of these upstart hominids building a tower that was going to reach right into Heaven. God red-tags the tower, gets ignored, and then knocks it to the ground. He then punishes mankind by giving all the pesky critters different languages.

With this in mind, I'm going to spin a wild yarn. Pure fiction. But maybe it contains the glimmer of some sort of genetic survival mechanism, like baby chimps being afraid of rubber snakes even if they are raised in captivity.

Imagine, if you will, the world of 2020 (if we make it that far). I've got a Big Bertha on my desk and you've got one on your desk. More likely, they'll be laptops. We all speak the same language. I mean the whole world. Because the computers automatically translate English into Japanese or Ebonics, and vice versa. So it's like we all speak the same language. You be gettin' it, homies? At this point, all the world's nerds decide to build that tower to Heaven. (Arthur Clarke has some cool ideas about an elevator system that goes up into the zero gravity of outer space, but I'm tending to think that this tower is symbolic.) If we climb this computer tower, we will really screw things up. Just like in the Babel tale.

I think this tower leads to time travel. Imagine Bill Gates going back and buying up IBM stock in 1955. Pretty scary.

So the tower has to come down. God can't let us mess up the whole universe, can He? Okay, so here's the catch: Electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An atom bomb exploded 10 miles in the air over Denver would wipe out all the electrical circuitry in the Western United States. The military guys know all about this. EMP fries transistors, microchips and magnetic information storage devices.

Now imagine a Divine Cosmic Blast of EMP pummeling Earth. It wouldn't necessarily kill anyone. Might even help the ozone layer. But it would kill every computer on Earth that wasn't deep in some cave somewhere. So there goes 99.9% of all our computers. And radios and telephones, and television sets (so it for sure has to happen during the Super Bowl).

Zap! We can't communicate with each other! The translators are splorked and gone. Can't understand each other no more! And your bank balance? What's that?

Doncha see? Mankind is in a pretty dicey position at this point, because we've put our eggs in the almighty, computerized Big Bertha Basket. And she's giga-crashed, dude!

So who are the big shots now? Culturally speaking, I mean. It's the guys and gals with the dirt under their fingernails. The farmers. You can't eat a floppy disk, pal. But they told us in school it was the "information age" this, and the "information highway" that. And that we had to adapt and become a "service society"!

Wrong, Buckwheat. Now it's the food providers, the farmers, who are the big shots. They really always were, but the elite intellectuals just thought of them as knuckle-headed hayseeds who got drunk in pickup trucks and listened to Merle Haggard tapes.

And now, after the Divine Cosmic Blast EMP, the entire global food distribution system is caput. It can't run without the computers. So the only people who don't starve to death are those who have access to local agriculture. Remember, part of this global monkey wrenching is that all the airplanes and trains and trucks have fried electrical systems also. So if you can't sail a boat or ride a mule or walk to the farmland, you are going on a diet, Jack.

Did you know that Bill Gates has a huge vegetable garden in the backyard of his Seattle compound? Yep. That's what I hear. So maybe Mister Bill really has seen the future. No! Hang on a second! What if his computer was deep in a cave in 2020, and only he figured out how to... Nah. Can't be. Nobody is that smart!

Who Owns These Hands?

by Kirby Ferris

The Coastal Post - August 1997

Lift your hands up in front of your face and look at them carefully. If there was ever something that might qualify as private property, those hands in front of your face should fit the bill. They are yours; they belong to you and to no one else. Can we agree on this basic fact? I hope so, even if you happen to be a socialist.

If someone comes up to you and says, "Give me your hand," you might think he wanted to shake hands with you. But what if he really meant for you to give it to him? He actually wants you to cut your hand off and give it to him! How do you answer that person? Can we assume that you would firmly declare that he can't have your hand? Would you be selfish if you loudly said, "It is mine. You cannot have it."? I doubt that even socialists (who love to rail against "selfishness") would consider this a selfish act. In fact, to chop off one's hand and give it to someone under such circumstances could properly be called insane.

Let's take this a step further. We can logically acknowledge that the muscular energy that moves your hands is also your private property. That energy is exclusive to your hands, and therefore to you. You own the actions of your hands because you own your hands. Suppose someone comes up to you and says, "Take your hands and carry this sack of concrete for me." It is a blunt command, not an offer of employment. Are you selfish if you tell the guy to get stuffed? I don't think so. And the law agrees. Slavery is the theft of someone else's labor. Slavery, involuntary servitude, is illegal in America.

The next step is the realization that there are two basic types of able-bodied, adult people in the world: producers and thieves. At first this may seem simplistic. But if you examine this declaration carefully, you will see that it is a precise, accurate observation.

An honest government should protect the producers (owners) from the thieves (non-owners). A dishonest government empowers the thieves at the expense of the producers. Which form of government do you think we live under today? The next question is: How far are we going to let this go? To answer that question we must examine how far it has already gone.

Now, in that previous theoretical situation, you boldly told off the obnoxious guy commanding you to carry a sack of concrete. But when you are taxed by a SWAT team-armed government at an effective rate of 50 percent, it is the same as though you carried five sacks of concrete for yourself (for some form of compensation that you have previously agreed upon), and you were then forced to carry five sacks as a slave.

The key to this trickery is the subtly seductive nature of theft by proxy. If you are the beneficiary of any sort of government program, are you not guilty of receiving stolen goods? After all, the money or benefits you are receiving were literally stolen via armed threat. In case you didn't know, the government enforces tax laws at gunpoint.

This is not a comfortable realization to accept. For instance, your children are able to attend free "public" schools because other people have had their money stolen by the government. You may have been taxed as well, but if the education of your child costs a single dollar more than your "fair share" of taxes that are directed towards your local public school, are you not effectively in receipt of stolen goods? And, therefore, are you not, in a subtle, morally significant way, a thief?

On the flip side, if the amount of money from your taxes directed towards public schools is greater than the cost of your child's education, are you not a victim of theft?

I can hear the indignant liberal socialists sniveling now. After all, every child has a "right" to a free education! Oh yeah? Who the hell made that one up? Seriously, folks, where did that idea come from? And where does the concept end? Does every child have the "right" to free food, free medical care, free tricycles, free Nintendos, free Nikes? You expect your kid to get a free education, so why don't you send him down to the shoe store and tell him to pick up his free pair of shoes?

The obvious fact that we are ignoring here is that nothing is free unless it is freely given. If I steal a car and give it to someone, and get caught doing so, I will be punished for theft and the recipient of the "free" car will, at the least, have to return the stolen property to its rightful owner.

Can't you see how socialism, also known as "democracy" or "mob rule," allows the enshrining of dishonesty (theft) as something virtuous? It is morality by consensus. If the majority one day declares that something intrinsically evil (theft) is in effect good, is it then okay to steal?

The sustaining energy behind government-sponsored theft is most often plain envy. I look at you and I covet the wealth you have earned. I want some of it for myself. The easiest way for me to get it is to steal it. So I hire professional thieves known as politicians to plunder you so I don't have to stick my own neck out. Now I don't like to think of myself as a thief, so I have to demonize you, my victim, and characterize you as "greedy," or "corrupt," or "exploitive," or "filthy rich." Now you very well may be all those things, but what if you are not? What if you are just a hard-working, bright, ambitious, inventive, honestly wealthy person? Well, that's just too bad, isn't it? Because those positive traits don't get anybody a tax exemption, do they?

Intrinsic to the deception of this theft called socialism is the phrase that "we vote to tax ourselves." This is a huge lie. If a tax scheme is approved by 60 percent of the voters, there is a minority of 40 percent that will be plundered against their will. Has anybody ever wondered if it might be possible to tax only those who vote for the scheme and let the others off the hook? (Of course, it is only right that the nay-saying minority would then be denied the "benefits" said tax scheme would allegedly deliver.) I hear it all the time: "I'm willing to pay for public schools!" Well, good for you! Go for it! Dump you money into those government-run brainwashing centers, those idiot factories, those institutions of inculcated collectivist passivity. But why, fellow citizen, must you coerce others to bear the financial burden?

Whose hands are those in front of your face? Are you looking at the hands of a producer or the hands of a thief?

Violence Solves A Lot

by Kirby Ferris

The Coastal Post - January 1998

One of the more insidiously deceptive lines of the socialist-liberal agenda is the banal phrase: "Violence doesn't solve anything." How much retrospection is required to understand that Hitler wasn't stopped by peace marches, negotiations, or "conflict resolution" sessions. It is a horrible, disgusting task, but evil acts, whatever shape they take, must eventually be countered by a superior, violent force.

The liberal doesn't seem to understand that the threat of counter violence is perhaps the most effective preventative of actual physical conflict. Liberal pacifists in modern times mocked the phrase "peace through strength" as though the pragmatism contained within such an idea were rooted in some atavistic, macho, testosterone-poisoned psychosis that had been propagated by alpha males throughout history.

Can't the liberal understand that bad people are prevented from committing evil acts by their fear of punishment? Perhaps at a childhood level, the threat of adult disapproval or the disapproval of one's schoolyard peers keeps the behavior of the youngster in some kind of conformity to morality. But it doesn't take long for the criminally-minded teenager to realize that he really doesn't care what other people think. Crime pays. Evil is profitable. Bullying works. Unless, that is, you are harshly confronted with the realization that your malicious behavior will be rewarded by a beating, a bullet, or a prison cell.

A peaceful, free society, of which America (even with its flaws) is the most outstanding example in all of recorded history, is preserved by the willingness of its people, either singly or as a group, to commit decisive acts of righteous violence to counter evil activity.

Hebrew experts now declare that one of the Ten Commandments has been mistranslated. "Thou shalt not kill" is more accurately translated from the ancient Hebrew as "Thou shalt not murder." The punishment for murder in ancient Israelite communities was stoning. Murderers were killed by the citizens. They were executed. And stoning was the most effective way to spread the responsibility for the execution through the mass of individuals who were willing to pay the price for living in a peaceful, moral society. Because of its face-to-face horror, the compassionate individual would, one might imagine, actually cast the first stone...to make sure it knocked the murderer immediately unconscious, in much the same way the ethical hunter or fisherman puts his quarry out of its misery as quickly as possible. The ancient Hebrews forced personal responsibility on each individual via the group act of stoning.

It comes down to individual responsibility. It comes down to the individual being willing to act with violence when confronted by certain criminal behaviors. How many of your would idly stand by and watch a man torture a helpless pup? You would first yell at him to stop. If he continued, you might grab at him or throw yourself between him and the bleeding, cringing animal. What if he slaps you aside and continues his barbarity? You look around and see a two-by-four on the ground. How many of you would not take that two-by-four to the man with a clear conscience? Sorry, there are no phone booths around. You can't call the cops or the Humane Society. You have to act now! What do you do? Are you really going to stand by and watch the travesty, all the time telling yourself that "violence doesn't solve anything"?

If you would club the animal torturer with a two-by-four, how much quicker should you come to the defense of a human victim? I grew up in the Marxist-Socialist, namby-pamby Bay Area, and I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard some pompous person tell me "I could never kill anyone!" I even said it a few times myself during my naive teens and 20s. It felt so good to utter that unctuous homily. But I don't feel that way anymore.

I would kill another human being. I would do it to save my own life or the life of an innocent victim. The act would probably make me physically ill. I might have to live with it in my mind for the rest of my life, but I pray I would have the courage, yes, courage, to stop consummate evil with whatever means became necessary.

And it is for this reason that I am a fervent advocate of the right of the law-abiding and sane individual to possess and carry a firearm. The right to self-defense is not only a right guaranteed to us by the Constitution, it is a duty, a command of "Nature and Nature's God" (to quote Jefferson) that each of us must confront if we are to preserve freedom and moral civilization in our communities and nation.

Modern-day "gun control" is not something invented in America by Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Adolph Hitler used firearms and ammunition registration to create the paper trails that facilitated the eventual confiscation of the firearms of his opponents in Nazi Germany. The Nazi German law bears such an amazing resemblance to America's Gun Control Act of 1968 that every school child should be made aware of the similarity. Or perhaps we should all think about a very simple fact: slaves can't own guns.

Perhaps the world isn't the way we wish it would be. We all might wish that evil men could be persuaded from their vile behavior with bleeding heart entreaties, a kiss on the cheek, or proper toilet training. But it ain't that way, folks. Pacifism is a sickness, an actual moral perversity, when its effects spread to anyone else beside yourself. You may choose to walk to the cattle car, but damn you if you let your children be led up the ramp. You must never allow any group or government to steal your right to exercise armed lethal force in a just situation.

One of the greatest instructors in the defensive use of firearms used to say to his graduating classes: "May you never have to use what you have learned here." And in that spirit I would like to see an American citizenry that is armed to the teeth and as skilled in the use of pistols and rifles as we are in the driving of automobiles. Am I insane? Somehow, looking at the tragic lessons of history, I don't think so.

Fusion Confusion

by Kirby Ferris

The Coastal Post - October, 1997

A few years back, I advised readers to check out the Art Bell Show, an eccentric late-night talk radio program that ranged far and wide in subject matter. At that time, Art was on only a single station that we in the Bay Area could pick up. Now, from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. you can't miss his program, as it comes in on at least a half dozen stations.

Art Bell has interviewed many so-called psychics and remote viewers. Several of the darkest of the bunch have, for quite awhile, been predicting disastrous (mostly climatic) changes over the next several years. This end-of-the-world stuff comes on strong as we approach the millennium. The fundamentalist Christians have their interpretations of the Book of Revelations, the tree-huggers are howling at melting ice caps, and anyone with an ounce of foresight can guess that somebody is going to pop an A-bomb suitcase off somewhere.

In short, and certainly just to be safe, we could do with a serious change of behavior on spiritual, environmental and political levels. So here I sit, pretending I'm one of the Illuminati. I'm realizing that the fecal matter is going to hit the fan pretty soon. Here's how I, as one of the Illumined Ones, one of the Global Plantation's Overlords, might view the coming situation:

1. I and my ilk have controlled the economics and politics of this planet for several hundred years. We are the Royal Families, the Old Money, the International Banking Priesthood. We have controlled the money supplies (we print the stuff), the political structures (we own the armies), and the wheres and whens of our very profitable wars (think of it as an NFL with tanks and bombers). No, it's not a conspiracy. It is simply a form of coercive collusion. Our hierarchy and minions go along to get along. Keep your mouth shut and profit, or start talking and we'll kill your children and grandchildren. Morality is not a hangup with us. We invented Communism as part of the dialectical materialism that hid our growing international corporate monopolism behind a carefully orchestrated global fear of thermonuclear war. Our socialist, Pavlovian experiments upon the psyches of the Soviet people taught us much about how to control the minds and emotions of the herd, you our cattle. We now employ these techniques, in a diluted form, upon the so-called free people of America, using television mind control, news manipulation, and hypnotic sedation via the boob tube. These brainwashing techniques have allowed us to instigate and perpetuate massive vote fraud, because the boobs in front of their tubes are too ignorant, naive, or wishful to ever understand that computerized ballot deception can be surfed as easily as the internet. First, we tell you how you're thinking with our opinion polls, and then we produce elections that, by gosh, by golly, reflect your opinions. Isn't democracy neat? And you wonder how these blatant idiots and liars called politicians keep getting elected?

2. We have mastered societal compression via our shock testing techniques. We know how, in a given social situation the vast majority of people will react. We know how far to push our luck before we back off slightly and allow reform to occur. The present hearings on the IRS are just an example of the pablum we feed you. You don't like the IRS, do you? Alright, we'll reform those wretched hooligans and give you the same thing with a different name. However, can't you see that with each compression and decompression, we actually strengthen the finances, resources, technology, and military might of the secretive, elite, feudal civilization we have been fostering in your very midst?

3. As long as it was business as usual, our plans have played out harmoniously across the decades. But of late, our models have been suffering the slings and arrows of anomaly. I speak herein of...El Nino. Ah, we Illumined Ones would like to take credit for that, but sadly we cannot. So we fall back to Plan B.

4. As the winters of '97 and '98 progress, the Pacific jet stream will be forced far south over the northern section of Baja California. Visualize a band of incredibly heavy rainfall, storm after storm, marching through all of Southern California, across Arizona, Texas and into Florida. See huge waves pounding the California coastline from the more vulnerable directions of the west and southwest. Erosion from sea and rain will cause an erosion of the social fibre within a society that is, even now, rather fidgety. Other problems will arise as the vast agricultural areas of the Central Valley are flooded and food supplies diminish. The highway infrastructure will suffer from the three to four times normal rainfall, and communications will sputter fitfully because of downed power and utility lines.

Southern California and the Southern U.S are just isolated examples of the general confusion that will be experienced. Now we Illuminated Ones profit from a bit of stress and strife, if properly managed. But this thing is going to be more dicey than we'd like. So we're gonna be nice guys. We're going to allow cold fusion to rather abruptly put our petro-chemical fuel system out of business. We are going to centralize the fusion technology so that we can meter it and make you pay us for it. We aren't going to let you get energy independent from our benevolent, addicting teat. But we are going to cut you poor bastards some slack and appear to be heroes at the same time. Trust me, you'll take whatever you can get when the going gets sloppy.

We've been warming you up to this idea with a couple of Hollywood movies of late. And that fellow Art Bell had an interesting interview with a highly-respectable scientist who knows the skinny on the actual cold fusion situation. We also let you get a glimpse of the technology on Good Morning, America. That's why there's fusion in confusion.

Deceptions Defined

by Kirby Ferris

The Coastal Post - December 1997

Here are some of the deceptive words used by socialists today. Read or listen to the brainwashing, leftist media, and you'll be bombarded with these examples of sedition by syntax.

"Affirmative action": This really means state-sponsored racism and sexism. We've had two, and in some cases three, generations of this egalitarian trickery. Ask yourself if this is really necessary today. A business owner is going to hire the person (black, yellow, brown, white, female or male) who is going to make him or her the most money. Michael Jordan could be a green-skinned transvestite and he'd still have a job as the highest-paid basketball player in the world. Bill Gates could be a black, lesbian Jew and the world would beat a path to her doorstep with offers of employment. Gee, Tiger Woods's race sure has been a handicap for him, hasn't it? That little golf ball looks up and gets extra crotchety when it realizes there is an African-Chinese American swinging at it, doesn't it?

Why can't the socialist liberals out there realize that the cash register is color and gender blind? The scoreboard is color and gender blind. If I am a business owner, an employer, I simply want talent and drive from my employees. And can you really claim that any modern school, at any level from first grade to college, purposely holds back a student in any subject because of sex or race? Give me a break.

"Democracy": The true meaning of this word is mob rule. If we had real democracy in America, blacks would still be sitting in the backs of buses and gays would be so deep in the closet they'd need flashlights. You don't want "democracy," friends. It means that 51 percent of us can decide to rip off the other 49 percent. As much as I like the results of voter initiatives that have reined in property taxes in California, busted taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens, and crushed affirmative action (racial quotas) in this state, I am firmly against mob rule "initiatives." Because what happens when the initiative to take away my guns or limit my freedom of speech ("hate speech laws"), or allow me to smoke a cigarette if I so choose, passes by "majority rule"? Legislation means creating laws. Laws control our lives. We've got way too many laws as it is, and hundreds more are laid upon us year after year. Legislation should be a slow, deliberate and ponderous mechanism. Remember that Lenin called the murderous monster he created a "social democracy."

"Equality": In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson claims that "all men are created equal" and have an innate right to "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." The word "pursuit" implies that you might not succeed (no matter which lying politician you may vote for). Michael Jordan and I are not equal when it comes to basketball. No matter what training I was given in my formative years, I could never, ever leap from the top of the key and slam dunk a basketball. Steve Wozniak and I are not equal when it comes to math. I can't even begin to fathom the numerical wonders he mastered to create the first personal computer. Think of the absurdity of making Michael Jordan play basketball with his feet hobbled so that I could have a "level playing field," or of keeping Wozniak drunk as a skunk so I could think that I was as smart as he is.

"Gun control": This really means gun confiscation. From the beginning of recorded history, tyrannical governments have sought to keep personal weaponry out of the hands of commoners. The ancient Israelites at one time weren't allowed to have swords. The Scottish peasants weren't allowed to have swords (see Braveheart). The American colonists rose up and rebelled when the British Army attempted to confiscate their muskets and powder. It wasn't about tea or even taxes. It was about "gun control". "Gun control" advocates have an insane trust in the fickle beneficence of government. Look what governments have done to unarmed civilians in just the 20th century! Stalin's goons murdered at least 20 million. Hitler's goons murdered at least 13 million. Mao's goons murdered 60 million. Pol Pot's goons murdered nearly 2 million. Idi Amin's goons murdered half a million. Guatemala, Rwanda, Zaire, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Argentine, Chile, Indonesia...the rivers of blood flow because evil cannot be challenged by righteous individuals who have been robbed of their most fundamental right to self-defense. There has never been a more pragmatic saying than "Trust in God, but keep your powder dry."

"Illegal immigrant": This one is absurd on its face. An "immigrant" is someone who has legally applied to live in a nation in which he was not born. The proper phrase is "illegal alien." Yes, alien. This doesn't mean a bug-eyed space creature. For centuries it has just meant someone who was not born in the nation in which they are visiting. Every time you see the phrase "illegal immigrant," you are being manipulated, because "we all came from immigrants." Yeah, okay, but our immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents most likely came to America, legally applied for residency, and then passed the citizenship examinations. We can give this nation away overnight if we want. Let's just let every foreigner (alien) who wants to come here come on in. But you should think about what that will really mean for your own children and grandchildren, Mr. and Mrs. Bleeding Heart Liberal.

Socialism is like cancer. It is unhealthy for the body politic in any stage of its development. Socialism is a lie. Its use of the English language is dishonest, and its proponents are, in the depths of their souls, either naive idiots, lying parasites, or calculating thieves.

The Cure For Tax Trickery

By Kirby Ferris

The Coastal Post - July, 1998

The right to lawfully acquired private property is a prerequisite of human freedom. Even birds stake out territory during nesting season and, in quite a few instances, the progeny of a mating pair return to nesting sites. Anyone who has ever raised aquarium fish understands the territorial imperative. Human beings call the exclusive use of land or materials "private property". Even the socialist liberal believes in a certain amount of private property, or else he would ethically have to let you sleep in his house whenever you so wished.

The importance of private property to human life and liberty is so fundamental that life and liberty are absolutely impossible without some level of recognition of private property. The food and water that goes into your mouth to sustain your life must be owned by you at the moment of ingestion. That food and water is exclusively yours. Once it is in your guts it isn't going to do anyone else's body a bit of good until it has been shat out upon the ground and fertilized a tomato plant that the next guy eats.

Government costs money. To expect someone to protect your life, liberty or ability to pursue happiness for free is to expect the person doing the protecting to be your slave. Taxation is how government generally gets the money to pay for the essential tasks to which it has been assigned. We expect government to help protect our bodies (cops and soldiers), and our property (cops and soldiers and courts that enforce contract). Now it seems proper that the poor person has a right to the same protection of his life that the wealthy person deserves. No more, no less. Bill Gates's life is no more important than yours (although Bill might argue persuasively about that). But Bill Gates places a much, much greater burden upon the available resources of government when he expects his vast amount of property to be guarded and protected by the cops and soldiers that are also appointed to watch out for your property. Yes, Bill Gates should pay a lot more taxes than you.

An important question arises when we ask ourselves how this is to be accomplished. The Marxist socialist advocates a progressive income tax. The progressive income tax is one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. The federal income tax was launched with the catchy phrase "soak the rich". This is the politics of envy. Too often it has been wielded by the non productive to steal from the productive. (And herein lies the parable: That not all the rich are productive and not all the poor are non productive).

Think about it. How can the phrase "the redistribution of wealth" actually mean anything other than common theft? The dope addict who hits you over the head and takes your wallet is just "redistributing" your wealth, isn't he?

Bill Gates should be taxed, not on what he earns, but on what he spends (as should all the rest of us). His vast estates require more police protection than your humble apartment, so he should pay more. And that greater payment should be extracted at the point of purchase. While Bill Gates' money is in the bank the bank has been given the responsibility of protecting that money, and Gates pays for that service by allowing the bank to lend out his money at interest. But once Bill takes his money out of the bank and buys a new Mercedes and a private jet the government (with your tax money) is now expected to protect the newly acquired private property of Mister Bill. As things exist now, you are paying an unfair proportion of that protection fee.

For the life of me I can't understand why we cannot abolish all income taxes, all property taxes and all inheritance taxes and run the whole damn show with point of purchase taxation (also known as sales taxes). We built the most extraordinary highway and road system on the face of the planet with just the sales tax on gasoline. Heavier, more ponderous vehicles break down roads and bridges more than lighter economy cars. They also use more fuel and are therefore automatically taxed more heavily. Why can't we see that the disparate amounts of private property of the wealthy and the poor also strain the legitimate resources of government in exactly the same proportional way?

I am not an economist or a mathematician, but it seems that a single sales tax of ten percent on all goods and services would fund the essential activities of our local, state and federal governments (with the feds last in line, of course). Even God doesn't ask for more than ten percent (the tithe). When I buy the services of a plumber I would pay sales tax. When the plumber buys a tool with the money I paid him he would pay the sales tax. When the toolmaker spends the money the plumber gave him to buy a magazine he would pay the sales tax. Each time the amount of private property (or its value, i.e. my repaired plumbing) in our society increased the increase would provide for the government resources and manpower needed to protect that property.

Sales taxes have been called "regressive" taxes because they place a so-called "unfair" burden upon the poor. Okay, if you really believe that then let us exempt from the sales tax all unprepared food items, medical expenses, educational tuition, health insurance premiums, and the expense on one's primary housing. The poor guy (and the rich guy) gets to buy untaxed food, untaxed medical care, untaxed education, untaxed medical insurance, and an untaxed roof over his head. The poor could exist at a modest subsistence level without paying a single penny in tax.

What would change is that the very rich would start paying a far greater amount of tax because they spend so much more than you or I. And they don't want to do that. And that is why they bribe the corrupt, fecal brained scum known as politicians to keep the insidious income tax alive while they, the mega wealthy, cry crocodile tears and play the loopholes that you and I can't play. All the while the mega wealthy sucker you into believing that they fear the income tax. They use your envy of their prosperity to fuel your own ignorance of the actual reality. They are like Brer Rabbit begging not to be thrown into the briar patch! Can't you see and understand this? Here is the final piece of the puzzle: Socialism was invented by, instituted by, and is enforced by a cabal of banking and corporate monopolists who call themselves "free market" capitalists but are not, because they are ravening, bloodsucking thieves. Let he who has ears hear. You know who they are.

Talkin' 'Bout Their Constitution

by Kirby Ferris


The Coastal Post - August 1996

There are few voices of dissent in our nation today that seem as logical and persuasive as that of Bill Medina. He attacks an issue like Copernicus telling his peers that, despite appearances, and despite everything they had been taught, the sun does not orbit around the Earth. An exploration of Medina's thought challenges many of one's most deeply ingrained (programmed?) beliefs.

Our lives in America are being hugely controlled via an immense government that was created by a contract to which none of us are signatories. So it is not really "our" Constitution. The Founding Fathers promised that they would limit their exercise of power to carefully prescribed venues. They created a limited government for themselves and their posterity (which, it should be pointed out, they had no right to do without their posterity's power of attorney). No part of their Constitution can be shown to operate upon "We the Other People" (versus the now dead men who got together in Philadelphia and called themselves "We the People"). So, on its face, it is "their" Constitution, not ours.

Now, one can effectively become a party to their Constitution, and place oneself under its authority, when one swears an oath to uphold and obey that Constitution. Every cop, politician, judge and soldier is bound by the restraints of their Constitution. They join the government and promise to play by the rules. They promise to let us: worship as we see fit, speak to one another freely, arm ourselves, face our accuser in a court of law, and on and on. Fundamental to this arrangement is that none of "We the Other People" have made any promise to perform to those in government. (Unless the "Pledge of Allegiance" is that promise to perform. Medina explains what those words really mean. Yipes!)

Bill Medina sometimes hears: "Why, you're an anarchist!" And, if I'm understanding him correctly, he would agree with the label if one is using the word correctly. Medina is a stickler for the actual, etymological definition of the word "anarchy." The word means "no arch," "nothing over," or, in human terms, "nothing over me." And he would remind you that it also means "nothing over you." And that includes him. His rights end where your rights begin. Get it? This isn't that complicated. You don't need a law degree to understand this.

So what rules would apply in the form of civilization that Bill Medina envisions? Would we still have laws? Yes, the Common Law. One is in violation of the Common Law when one trespasses upon another man's or woman's property. Since your body is your property, you have a recourse at Law when you are assaulted. Since your possessions are your property you have recourse when you are robbed. Since the air you breath is your property when it crosses your lips you have recourse at Law when that air is polluted by another. Assault, robbery, burglary, and air pollution are all Common Law trespasses.

The Common Law civilization that Medina advocates would be immensely self-reliant. The courts would be much simpler. Each man or woman would have to become a plaintiff if his or her property is trespassed upon. Therefore, no one would be breaking the law unless an injured party came forth and filed suit. You've heard it before: "No victim, no crime."

So, I can't sue you for smoking pot. But I could sue you for growing it on my property without my permission. Or blowing it in my face if I can prove to a jury of your peers that you have exposed me to some danger. Gone would be all government created statutes, codes and regulations that pretend to lawfully operate upon "We the Other People." Government created statutes would either disappear completely or be converted into defined trespass against an individual. A sound ordinance makes sense. Noise of a certain decibel level is either dangerous to one's ears (a trespass against your body) or it is deleterious to your peace (which is also a trespass against your body). "Turn down the damn music! I can't sleep!" would be a perfectly legitimate complaint in a Common Law court. What would be the penalty? That's up to the accuser to argue and for a jury of the accused's peers to decide (knowing, that in all likelihood, those twelve men and women also appreciate their own sleep).

Governments don't like the Common Law because the penalty (short of court costs) is made in the form of a monetary reward to the victim. This doesn't fatten the bureaucrat's coffers. Government cannot repeal the Common Law without repealing the 7th Amendment of their Constitution. This has not happened.

The Common Law is easy to understand. The guilty party compensates the victim for injury. A dangerous criminal who breaks your arm in an assault would have to pay your medical expenses, compensate you for pain and suffering and time lost from the earning of your livelihood. Certain heinous crimes would carry with them a tradition of imprisonment, or, in the case of murder, a life of hard labor with the proceeds going to the victim's family. The criminal wouldn't just sit in a cell with a television and three meals a day at taxpayer expense. These are old, old concepts that embrace centuries of wisdom. Again, the Common Law has not been declared obsolete. Repeat: If it had been, their Constitution would not now contain the 7th Amendment.