America

  • Sunday, July 24, 2016
Some have said down through history
If you last it's a mystery
But I guess they don't know what they're talking about
From the mountains down to the sea
You've become such a habit with me
America, Ame-er-ica

Sammy Johns penned these words back in 1973. It was the end of a war or, more properly, a police action… a police action that cost the lives of 58,220 of our nation’s finest with another 153,303 wounded and 2,489 missing in action. His original release wasn’t very popular so he gave it to Wailin’ Waylon Jennings, who held onto it for a decade or better, tweaked it a little, then released his own version in the mid ‘80s.

On a recent road trip I was toodling along rockin’ to some tunes, getting my groove on when, right after Jim Stafford’s Cow Patty, Waylon’s America cued up in the music shuffle.
Gently rolling a just-lit fag between my nicotine stained fingers I ruminated, mentally not oro-gastronomically, about this grand experiment in government… this, the greatest nation ever to grace the face of Planet Terra, these United States of America.

The first Europeans to settle here were tough guys, Vikings. Living conditions were so harsh they packed their dragonships and split for home where they could again rape and pillage coastal fishing villages with impunity. Then came the company men whose job it would be to grow crops and send stuff back to Mother England. Nobody’s quite sure what ever happened to them. And then came several groups looking for the freedom to live their lives the way they wish, be it religiously or otherwise. Some were so desperate for freedom they willingly entered into indentured servitude hoping they could pay off their debt and then go for it on their own, their way.

It was on.

Adventurers and explorers hit the road for wide open spaces, but that isn’t quite correct is it. There were no roads, or even trails. They had to make their own. Farmers farmed. Shopkeepers kept shop. Black-smithies worked metal. Carpenters got wood. Hunters got game. Everyone did what they did best. Charity was the responsibility of the local community, not the federal government.

Sheepdogs kept watch.

Independence, individualism, self sufficiency… they worked well for us as a society for those first 150 years or so. Then what happened? I submit we, as a society, began giving these up to a government promising everything and politicians whose bloviation could be condensed to 6 simple, one syllable words.

I will buy you ice cream.

Listen to Congressman Chuck, esquire, in his ads bragging about three (3) Veterans’ clinics opening here in East Tennessee. Listen to his tone of voice, his claim of being instrumental in their authorization… the VA, the most expensive and wasteful, the most ineffective and fraud infused program of the United States Government on a per user basis and second only to the welfare system overall. Why not do away with it completely and send Vets to a local doctor of their choice? That former VA doctor isn’t any better. A guy who was part of the system should be perfectly capable of addressing the problems, but he does not.

We’re told the problems are complex, requiring complex solutions. Do they?

Love her or hate her, Ayn Rand was spot on back in 1957 with her novel Atlas Shrugged, especially John Gault’s speech toward the end. But it’s long. In my copy it’s 63 pages long. However, screenwriter Mr. Daryl Sroufe edited it down to less than 1,000 words that are well worth reading.

******************************

John Galt's Speech
Mini-version [962 words]
Text courtesy of Daryl J. Sroufe

For 12 years you've been asking “Who is John Galt?” This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?

Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your “brother-love” morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.

We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason – that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.

I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.

You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is “original sin.” That's impossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.

And then there's your “brother-love” morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.

You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.

To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.

If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

******************************


Think about that for just a moment.

The least productive, but most prolific, of our society would presume to tell the producers they don’t give enough… nor to the proper causes. Those who get up and go to work every day, no matter what their jobs, because all work is honorable, are told their duty is to support those who will not. Un-elected bureaucrats, the hired help of We The Peeps, presume to use our TaxBucks for their personal feel-good projects, whether they have the Constitutional authority or not, and often treat those who earned those TaxBucks as servants… and we accept their abuse in order to avoid conflict. We The Peeps are told we owe an obligation to the world to accept their poorest, most disease ridden, least educated, least able to produce, and we don’t have a right to demand they integrate into our society. Nay, we’re citizens of the world and have an obligation to the rest because of our prosperity, prosperity we’ve worked hard to earn but are told "You didn't build that."And when we pull down the curtain to expose those making demands on the producers? Do we hear, as we should, “Very funny Scotty. Now, beam down my clothes.”? Or do we hear accusations of being racists, bigots, homophobes, xenophobes, mean-spirited, or any of the other weaponized words intended to cause politicians to run for cover.

Yes… America, Ame-er-ica… one must wonder when We The Peeps are going to hold our elected officials accountable, demand they grow a set and do the jobs they swore to perform when they took their oaths of office.

It’s funny how we remember the very moment we hear some songs. The first time I heard Waylon’s ballad I was traveling down I-85 from Greensboro to home in Charlotte when the significance of what I’d just been told struck… that our company of 30-ish employees, somewhere between eensy and weensy on the corporate size scale, had just whomped on our competition for a contract... much, much larger competitors who, due to their bureaucracies weren’t able to meet customer requirements as easily as a small business operating in small, almost autonomous teams... sort of like the Fire-teams those SemperFi Dudes and Dudettes are trained to use.

And then there was that bright, sunshiny April day, sitting through a red light at Ashland Terrace and Dayton Boulevard in Red Bank, admiring the scenery when Mel McDaniel came blasting through the speakers.

Down on the corner by the traffic light
Everybody's lookin' as she goes by
They turn their heads and they watch her till she's gone
Lord have mercy, baby's got her blue jeans on
 
Kookookachoo.

Royce Burrage, Jr.
Royce@Officially Chapped.org



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