Poverty, Christianity, and Freedom

It’s not often, lately at least, that I decide to promote a book here at Liberty’s Torch, so take note—especially those of my Gentle Readers who are Christians.

True Charity—Replacing Flypaper with Freedom

Mike Melin makes a brilliant, Christian case for casting off the veil over our eyes as it concerns poverty, for “poverty” as the world defines it is a mirage. True poverty is poverty of the mind...the identity...the soul.

One way to summarize the message of this indispensable little book is that the world, in assessing “what we’re doing to help the poor,” resolutely totes up material inputs while ignoring characterological outputs. But “help” of that sort literally imprisons the poor in true poverty. It does nothing to make the poor man other than poor, and gives him additional reasons to remain so!

The legions of Hell sing a seductive song in our ears: “Help the poor! Don’t trouble yourself about their characters. Just cut them a check.” And as Reverend Melin writes, it will be their acolytes among us who’ll howl loudest when we turn from that path and resolve instead to free the poor man from his true poverty: the conviction, whether conscious or not, that he cannot or should not try to help himself, and must become comfortable in his dependence upon other men.

With God, all things are possible...but look: God is no longer welcomed at the charity-kitchen table! And we wonder why, with all the largesse our society showers upon the “needy,” their number always grows.

Highly recommended! Thank you, Reverend Melin.

Banking as a Rent-Seeking Enterprise

A little bit back, Gene Callahan favorably quoted economist Hyman Minsky in support of the argument that the banking/finance industry benefits from market instability ... --

Why Investment Banks Like Having Booms and Busts

"In an unstable economy, speculation dominates enterprise." -- Hyman Minsky, Stabilizing an Unstable Economy, p. 17

... the veracity of which was questioned by commenter Prateek by pointing to a break-down of operating profits at Goldman-Sachs --

Investment banks largely earn their revenues from underwriting IPOs, helping stabilize IPO prices with a stabilizing mechanism, and arbitrating negotiations between merging companies. These are activities that directly channel funds to the real economy, rather than just shift funds between financial assets. So they are very vulnerable to the state of the real economy.

The last time I checked Goldman Sach's financial statements, I saw that their revenue breakdown was 40% deal-making, 40% wealth management advisory, and only 20% trading in the markets.

Gene stood by his assertion, but declined to elaborate -- I suspect mostly because he didn't feel like it at the moment, not because he actually couldn't.

I think Prateek raises an interesting objection, though.  If trading only accounts for 20% of revenue, then how much can Goldman-Sachs really be profiting from unstable markets -- which would presumably put a big dent in the sectors of their business that actually make most of their money?  Since Gene declined to take on this objection directly, I thought I'd take a stab at answering it myself.

***

In general, when someone persuaded of the Austrian take of things says something like "banks are parasitizing the economy," he will be talking about inflation, and how extending credit through expansion of the money supply allows the bank access to what is effectively 'free income.'  They get to collect interest on money which they printed themselves -- nice gig if you can get it.  I won't go into the details here, as you can find them a million other places.

But a bank like Goldman is not really a money-issuing bank.  It is an investment bank, not a commercial bank (though, as I recall, it temporarily re-designated itself a commercial bank in order to qualify for bailout money back in '08...), so it does not really profit through this mechanism.  I contend that it does profit, however, from many indirect effects of this process -- for one, market instability -- and that this is mostly a matter of reaping a rent-seeking profit.

Maybe the best way to see how this works is to think in terms of a similar market that is intrinsically unstable and therefore has come to incorporate a great deal of financial risk-mitigation -- agricultural commodities.  Farmers generally use two main financial arrangements to mitigate risk:  insurance and futures contracts.  Crop insurance allows the farmer to protect himself from the vagaries of weather and other matters of chance that might have the effect of destroying large portions of his crop.  By purchasing an insurance policy, he ensures that he will at least receive some income, come what may.

Futures contracts allow the farmer to sell his crop far in advance -- before the crop is even produced, and before the price of his crop at harvest time is known.  Many crops are highly perishable, and nobody knows for sure just how much will be produced until the time to harvest comes.  At this point, if the market is glutted with his particular crop, he will not get a good price and will probably be faced with tremendous losses.  By selling his crop in advance with a futures contract, he will know ahead of time exactly how much he will make -- again, come what may.

I go through all of this to show how the arrangement has a real effect of contributing actual utility to markets.  People employed in insurance and futures market speculation perform a valuable service by inquiring into and researching possible future conditions, providing valuable information to markets.  This allows farmers and other agricultural workers to plan their production strategies to better optimize their efforts and use of resources and avoid waste -- such as by producing way too much of one crop and not enough of another.

Contrast this with, say, your own experience buying groceries at the grocery store.  When you go to the store, you probably do not spend too much time worrying about how much prices will change from one moment to the next, or from one location to another.  You pretty well know that prices are generally uniform from one place to the next, and generally stable over time.  You probably do not employ people to track the prices of things to try to get a better deal, because this would be a waste of your money and the employed person's time. 

But suppose that prices were somehow artificially made quite volatile, from place to place and time to time, and in a manner that was rather complex and not easy to predict.  It might actually make sense for people to get together to employ someone to spend all of his time studying the 'grocery market' to get the best deals while his clients were away at work or spending time with their families.  When things are straightforward and simple, people are mostly able to take care of themselves without too much additional effort.  But when things get hairy, they must resort to the division of labor, employing labor and resources to deal with the instability.

Enter Goldman-Sachs.  To the extent that its activities profit its clients by mitigating real risks inherent to a market economy, it is generating income for itself by performing a valuable service that contributes utility to the marketplace.  But to the extent that the 'risks' they are mitigating are merely a creation of a dysfunctional financial system -- which is to say, they are artificial and not intrinsic to the market itself -- their efforts are actually a waste, but necessary to their clients who must deal with the system as it is.  It would be more efficient overall to have a functional financial system and less labor and resources spent trying to cope with all the chaos. 


To the extent that this is the case, Goldman-Sachs is like a tire repair shop located right outside the nail-and-screw factory.  There may be some necessary repairs in any event, but it is not helpful that the drivers for the factory deliberately strew some of their cargo about the road.  90% of the repairs -- and the income derived from them -- are actually just 'make work' and wasted resources.

***

The other money-making activities could be subjected to a similar analysis, with similar results.  Certainly, there is utility to be derived from public issue of stock, mergers and acquisitions, and the like, but only under a limited range of conditions.  To the extent that these conditions emerge naturally, intrinsic to the market dynamics in play, the services of an entity like Goldman-Sachs are providing real utility in return for real income. 

But to the extent that such conditions are produced artificially -- such as through the centralizing effects of inflation -- these incomes do not represent contributions to the economy, but mere rent-seeking in response to conditions which are the product of dysfunction.  And again, such volatility is going to be centralizing for the reasons described above -- it encourages an elaboration of the division of labor, much as convoluted regulatory structures encourage larger company sizes so that compliance costs can constitute a smaller share of revenues.


So, even though very little of Goldman-Sach's revenue derives from actual trading, I would suspect that market volatility contributes very heavily to their ability to 'earn' income.

Flusterment

The Republicans in the House and Senate appear flustered over the fact that King Obama won't sit down and negotiate with them in a reasonable way to resolve a fiscal dilemma.

Charles Krauthammer, though, saw it aright when he replied that Obama hasn't the slightest interest in negotiating. He's trying to destroy the Republicans instead.

How can he do that when, obviously, the Republican Party isn't going to simply dissipate and fade away?

King Obama knows that whatever disasters occur, fiscal or otherwise, all he has to do is blame Republicans for everything and the Media will comply in spreading the message far and wide over and over.

Republicans are flustered right now because they're tired of always getting the blame. It's no fun being the national bad guy, even if it's their duty to oppose the king's insane policies.

As Francis mentions in the post below, when you lack principle, everything gets more complicated, there are more choices, options, and appeals to consider the greatest one being -- what's in it for me?

King Obama, though never negotiated in his first term, so why should he bother in his second? And the Reps always came out smelling like turds.

The king is simply going to repeat his mantra, "I won" in spades (pun intended).

****

We already know how little our king cares about consequences to idiotic policies. Dinesh D'Souza pretty much nailed Obama's indifference to the freedom, prosperity, and general goodwill of the USA in his movie, 2016: Obama's America.

I recommend that documentary because for whatever flaws or omissions, it best captures who Obama is at heart. There is not an ounce of human compassion, wisdom, or understanding flowing through his veins.

Politicians are generally soulless people because as people of "action" their focus is solely on themselves. We often think of artists who are obsessed with excellence as being self-absorbed, even navel gazers, but it's my experience that people who pride themselves on being "men of action" are the least self-reflective individuals and the most absorbed on their current status and well being vis a vis their ambitions.

But such men (and women) politicians, soulless as they are, don't set out to be traitors (even if their actions betray their people). King Obama, though, set out to bring America down a few pegs. (A few? More like every rung of the ladder.)

He wants to see Americans, especially white ones groveling in the dirt like his father's people in Africa, because it's all our fault there is injustice and poverty anywhere. We, and all our English cousins, are responsible for all the basic ills of the world. "White man's greed runs a world in need!" Indeed.

Obama's malignant narcissism and homosexuality combine to create an unbridgeable gulf between him and other people. Many on the Left and in media mistake his "coolness" as being cool. Like cool jazz, man. But it's his  detachment from humanity, is all.

Study Bill Clinton sometime when he's seated at some event waiting for his turn at speaking or afterwards. Does he look like a man who has a real friend? Has he ever had a real friend in the world except for a brief time when he may have cared for Hillary?

Obama is locked behind even thicker steel doors. He has no idea why he's doing what he's doing, why he's driven to have so much contempt for actual human beings when he has so much love for the poor and oppressed in general.

****

Things have been a bit quiet here since the election. I can't speak for the other contributors, but I'm a little at my wit's end in trying to rouse myself to comment on events.

What's there to say about the next four years? We're on a roller coaster on its way downhill about to crash. There is nothing constructive or even entertaining to discuss about it: this slow motion train wreck.

It's kind of funny, if you're that detached, but as I was saying about the Repubs, they don't seem to get that Obama is playing checkers while they think it's chess. And he just keeps jumping over them saying, "King me!"

****

A big thank you and hello to the Western Rifle Shooters Ass. that linked to and recommended my Tales of New America and brought an avalanche of hits. I hope I don't let you down as the series continues.

Principles And Politics

A couple of days ago, Democrat pollster Pat Caddell, who has become a fairly frequent guest on various Fox News programs, decided to offer Republicans and conservatives his advice on how to get things turned around:

As Breitbart.com readers know, I have been extremely critical of the current Democratic Party, which I see as having fallen far from the ideals of Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Indeed, on a few occasions, I have even been willing to work against my party on certain selected issues....

I am a Democrat who thinks that the Democratic Party has lost its way. Badly. But again, if Republicans can’t heal themselves, the Democrats, warts and all, will continue to win. And yet if the Democrats stay as they are, the country will continue to decline.

But what substantive recommendations does Caddell offer?

[1972] was the year that my candidate, George McGovern, won just 37 percent of the vote against Richard Nixon. So McGovern lost. Yet he assembled a new vote-coalition--of the young, of minorities, of environmentalists and other activists, of post-industrial knowledge workers.

The McGovern Coalition was too small, of course, to win in 1972. But if we fast-forward 40 years to 2012, we can see that the same group gave Obama almost 51 percent of the vote. In other words, a 14-point improvement. Those 14 points spell the difference between a landslide defeat for Democrats then and a comfortable victory for Democrats today.

So how did the McGovern Coalition lose in 1972 but win in 2012? What was the difference, then and now? The difference, of course, is demography.

Demography, eh? That sounds to me like a prescription for pandering to identity groups. Are we about to read yet another claim that the GOP must alter its position on this or that issue to regain the majority?

Apparently not...or at least, not yet:

So let’s fight for an America that asks us for our values and our ideals--not for our price. And if we do fight for that better America--the one that persists brightly in our imagination, even amidst the dreary present-day--then I am confident that we can achieve that better America.

That's all Caddell has to say in what he styles the opening segment of a series.

It's to be expected that a pollster and Democrat operative would be more focused on winning elections than on making policy. It's to be expected that he'd look for the reasons for electoral defeats in the distribution of support among identifiable groups. It's to be expected that he'd make such distributions and their impact the meat of his commentary in a political forum.

But what of it? What are such a focus, and the analysis that follows from it, worth in terms of principles that should guide the policy makers and executives of our nation? The point of the electoral process is to put men into such positions, is it not? Does any sort of coherent vision of the policies and enforcement approaches appropriate to a free society emerge from an electoral / demographic approach?

Put a bit more bluntly: Why does anyone care which party holds the White House or the majorities in Congress? Why should anyone care?

Give that a moment's thought.

---

Politics is the pursuit of power over others, nominally by non-violent means. Why would free men -- men who want to be free and who think of themselves as free -- prefer one group of power-seekers over another? Why would they want anyone to have power over them? Freedom is the antithesis of political power.

The usual response is that even the most freedom-minded man will agree to tolerate a certain amount of political power -- a certain amount of government -- as a "necessary evil." A military to defend the country and protect its overseas interests; a penal code to enumerate offenses no one will be allowed to get away with; a judiciary to oversee prosecutions and civil disputes: these, if kept passive and prevented from expanding to elephantine dimensions, would be tolerable as "labor-saving devices." They obviate private armies and private justice, which most persons are inclined to distrust.

The Constitution of the United States expresses precisely this understanding: This far you may go, and no further. It does so in plain, unambiguous language that virtually all politicians, regardless of party affiliation, prefer to ignore.

But the Constitution is a series of words on parchment. How could it possibly be more authoritative than other writings, many of them by men of great wisdom and compassion, that differ radically from its prescriptions and proscriptions?

The answer is principle.

---

A principle is a rule that divides some subset of the universe of human actions into two non-overlapping zones. On one side are those actions that are acceptable regardless of anyone's preferences; on the other are those actions which cannot and must not be tolerated. The usual shorthand for this partition is right and wrong.

The marriage of the principle to the applicable subset of actions is critical. Few principles have unbounded, universal applicability. (The Ten Commandments do, but I'm unable to think of any others.) What principles are applicable to law and power is the question at the center of our contemporary political discourse -- a discourse in which politicians are disinclined to involve themselves, for fear of losing votes.

Few politicians, whatever lip service they give to the Constitution, are happy to be constrained by it. This is because by its very existence the Constitution expresses a small set of rules which together constitute the principle of republican government:

1. There must be a Supreme Law;
2. It must be easy to refer to and to comprehend;
3. All other law must conform to it.

Compare that to the principle of democratic / majoritarian government:

1. A majority can make and enforce whatever laws it wishes at any time.

...and to the principle of authoritarian government:

1. What the Fuhrer decrees shall be the whole of the law.

The typical politician who owes his office to a democratic process, and who wants to remain in that office for as long as possible, will chafe under the constraints of the Constitution. He'll seek ways to circumvent it in matters that permit him to pander to his constituency. If pressed, he'll make excuses:

• "This is something the Founding Fathers didn't foresee."
• "The amendment process takes too long and doesn't always work."
• "The crisis is far too urgent; we have to act now, regardless of Constitutional constraints."

Those are the most popular excuses. No doubt there are others.

The republican principle, of which the Constitution is the American expression, is the only protection Americans have from tyranny, whether majoritarian or autocratic. What freedom we still retain is ours because our politicians haven't yet worked up the collective courage to defy the Constitution in certain particulars. However, they get closer to discarding it completely with every passing day.

---

I'm massively uninterested in partisan politics. It exists; I must admit to that. Now and then it functions to retard some specific encroachment on freedom, or to remove some revealed scoundrel from office. But given the convergence of the two major parties around a principle-free, only-winning-counts ethic, I question whether there's any value remaining in either one.

It's true that the Republican Party platform expresses vaguely Constitutional ideas, and a general regard for the aims of that document, if not for its explicit constraints. But given that the platform is only of interest during its biennial conventions -- that GOP politicians raised to office are under no obligation to conform to its dictates -- why should I care that a particular contender for office is a Republican?

When one such as Pat Caddell deigns to tell us how to "do better," I immediately ask, "But what are your principles?" Don't talk to me about demographics. Voting blocs tell me nothing I want to know. Don't talk to me about "problems" and "solutions." Those things are purely subjective; one man's "problem" is another's golden opportunity. Don't talk to me about "what works." Such cogitations routinely omit consideration of costs and second-order effects. Worse, they require that you implicitly accept premises -- in particular, premises about the standards by which the outcome will be judged -- that are seldom articulated in full clarity.

If you won't make an unambiguous statement of your principles, I'm changing the channel.

---

Inasmuch as the entire political class of the United States has rejected the republican principle, I can no longer find a reason to support any particular gaggle of them over the rest. Perhaps Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is an exception, but I can think of no others. Presidential politics is notably principle-free. The Democrats have nominated only one principled man for the presidency: Grover Cleveland. The GOP hasn't nominated a principled candidate for the presidency even once in its entire history.

When I published a novel about a fictional presidential candidate who swore to abide by the Constitution as written, I brought the house down:

    Sumner emerged from Portland’s City Hall at exactly noon, as Louise Farrell had advised him. He strode to the lectern at the top of the steps, looked out over the throng before him, and staggered backward.
    The broad thoroughfare that ran past City Hall was packed with human bodies, in both directions for as far as the eye could see. He could not begin to estimate the numbers. It had to be a six-figure throng at least...and perhaps rather far up that range.
    “Dear God,” he breathed. His expostulation was barely loud enough for the lectern microphone to catch, but nevertheless it was relayed through a battery of speakers to the crowd below.
    “No,” someone near the forward barricades shouted. “He was just the opening act!”
    Sumner laughed helplessly, and the crowd cheered. They filled the air of their city with a din no celebration had approached since its founding.
    Sumner righted himself and returned to the lectern. Christine hung back half a pace, as if unwilling to split the immense crowd’s attention.
    “How many of you are there? Never mind, I don’t expect you to count your own noses. But are you here because you’re hoping a superhero has come to free you from bondage, or are you here for me?”
    The cheers redoubled. They might have gone on indefinitely had he not raised a hand in acknowledgement.
    “You know,” he said, “I’ve been giving one speech, over and over, with only the tiniest embellishments as I go from city to city. Your fellow citizens at my other campaign stops have all liked it, and it’s tempting to give it here, on the rule of not messing with what’s already worked. But I can’t get over the sheer number of you. I’m having a really hard time believing that you’re here to see and hear from me. Who am I, after all?”
    A voice near to the base of the steps immediately began the chant from Albuquerque. The crowd picked it up at once.
    “Sumner! Sumner! Sumner! Sumner! Sumner!...”
    He let it continue for a few seconds before he raised his hand again. The crowd immediately fell silent.
    “Maybe you should hold that for later. You might not want to cheer that cheer after I’ve told you what I’m about to tell you. It won’t be my usual speech.”
    He panned the crowd left to right and back again.
    “America is in bad shape.
    “Washington and the state capitals have spent us broke. Our credit is gone, our commerce is uncertain, our jobs are shaky–if we have jobs–and our confidence in the future is at an all-time low. Those of us who have children fear that we’ve had it better than they ever will. Those who don’t have children worry about aging alone in solitude and squalor, with no one to care for us as we grow feeble, or hold our hands at the end.
    “In large part, we’ve collaborated in it. We demanded freebies that we hoped someone else would pay for. We should have known better. Some of us did. But what we got suggests that far too many of us let our wishes do our thinking. So we voted for executives and representatives who were happy to encourage us to do so.
    “We should have known the bill would come due. Maybe we did. Maybe we just hoped we’d be safely and cozily dead before the time came to pay for our sins. But this sort of game can only have one ending: someone has to get stuck with the Queen of Spades. Turns out it will be us: the generation of voters you represent, to whom I have to make the bleakest campaign pitch in all of American history.
    “I’m going to tell you what I told a reporter in New Orleans,” he said. “You might have heard it already. It’s been made into a campaign commercial. All the same, I want you to hear it again, from my lips: I’m not here to kiss babies, to eat your signature dish, whatever it is, or to lie to you about my undying love of the Trail Blazers. I’m here to persuade you of two things: that a return to strict Constitutional fidelity is the only way out of our mess, and that if you’ll put me in the White House, I will see to that for you. If you want a candidate who’ll pander to your local pride, the other parties will happily supply you with as many as you can swallow.
    “You’ve been pandered to for decades, for more than a century. The panderers were experts. They knew exactly what to tell you to take your eye off what they really wanted to do. They promised you free stuff, free cash, freedom from care, and you chose to believe it. They told you that other people would solve your problems for you, even your completely local problems, and you chose to believe it. They told you to relax, kick back, let the good times roll, that the future could take care of itself, and you chose to believe it. And here you are. Your occupations are unstable, your savings are nil, your streets are unsafe, your futures are bleak, your profligacy has left your children neck-deep in debt, and your trust in government is down to zero. That was the price for disdaining uncomfortable truths in favor of oily smiles, unfulfillable promises, and comforting lies. You can still have all the smarmy deceits, if you choose. But you won’t get them from me.
    “I can’t promise you a miracle. I can’t promise a swift or painless return to security and abundance. In the words of a great Englishman who had to lead his own country through a terrible crisis, I can promise you nothing but blood, toil, tears, and sweat...hopefully, really light on the blood.
    “Other candidates for the presidency have campaigned as if the office itself would make them omnipotent. That they would acquire absolute and unbounded powers, powers that would enable them to cure all of America’s ills from sea to shining sea by the wave of a hand. By now you should know better. I think, by your presence here, I can safely assume that you do. But I want you to hear it from me.
    “I will not lie to you. You ought to be suspicious of such a promise. You’ve been given more than enough reason. Other candidates for high office have made that promise and have gone on to lie through their teeth, to say anything and everything they thought might win them a few more votes. So I’m nailing my pledge down by making the harshest, least pleasant campaign promises any candidate has ever made.
    “If you elect me president, I will put an end to every federal activity not explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. I will shut down as much of the federal government as that requires, consistent with my duties as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and chief enforcer of federal law.
    “This crowd is large enough that some of you probably work for the federal government. Nearly five million Americans do. Be sure you’re willing to take the risk that your job might not be really essential before you go into the booth and pull the lever next to my name.
    “If I can swing enough of Congress behind me, I will put an end to federal borrowing. I will put an end to the reign of unelected regulators. And whether Congress likes it or not, I will insist that the Tenth Amendment—the one that says that the powers not delegated to the United States are reserved to the states or the people—be observed strictly and explicitly.
    “You should think about that. Some of you will need new ways to earn a living. Some of you will lose subsidies or programs that have helped you to pay your way through life. All I can promise you in return is that from that point forward, you will know what federal law demands of you, and you won’t be expected to read the United States Code to know it. But that’s where my promises to you end.
    “It will be your job to discipline your state and local governments. They’ve raped you in their turn, often by conning you with the same lies and empty promises you’ve heard from politicians at the federal level. But unless they violate a constitutional restriction on their powers, I can’t help you with that.”
    He pointed a finger into the mass of the crowd. “You must call them to account. You must hold them liable. And some of you must put down the tools of your trades, possibly trades you love and have practiced for many years, and go on campaign, as I have done, to replace them.” He paused, gathered all his forces, and leaned close over the microphone. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Mark Butterworth's "Tales of New America" series is eliciting a comparable reaction, for similar reasons. Those are our recommendations for how "we can do better." Nodding to demographics -- to pandering for votes -- is not among them.

---

Though I yearn for principle in politics, I know it won't be returning any time soon. Too large a fraction of the country is addicted to government in one way or another. The fraction of the economy Washington controls, directly or indirectly, is staggering. And as I said above, our politicians are principle-averse...and almost unbearable to listen to.

But that doesn't make me any more interested in placating identity groups, or buying off "stakeholders" in the Omnipotent State, or listening to the vermiculations of a Pat Caddell about "an America that can imagine itself." I'd rather just clean my guns one more time.

Tales of New America #7

Previous TALES are found thusly: Tale #1, Tale #2, Tale #3, Tale #4, Tale #5, Tale #6.

Brinkmanship

"The President will see you now," he was told by Stormour's Chief of Staff and led into the Oval Office. As much as he had tried to prepare himself for this moment, he was deeply affected by the legendary room, the weight of history that seemed to emanate from the walls, and the impressive persona of the current President of the United States. Those words carried ancestral weight, almost holy as when a devout Catholic has an audience with the Pope. Jergen loved history, especially early American history and the Revolutionary War period.

There was a desk, of course, in the office. It was the famous Resolute desk. Built out of timbers from a British Arctic Exploration ship that was abandoned in the ice in 1852, found by an American whaler in 1855 and sent refitted back to England where Queen Victoria had a desk constructed from its wood and given as a gift back to the President as a token of friendship and goodwill.

And there it was with its ornate carved panels.

Jordan Stormour stood near a soft, brown leather sofa, offering his hand as Donald Jergin, chief liaison for the New American Republic in Washington, D.C. quickly closed the distance and shook it. Jergin was forty-five, the President, fifty-three.

Stormour gestured at the couch across from him separated by a coffee table.

"Would you like something to drink? Coffee or tea, perhaps?"

Jergen thought a moment and decided he wanted a cup of coffee very much. Such things, besides being tasty and welcome, could also serve as props in one's deliberations, a means of offering moments of reflection and strategizing while engaged in having something to sip.

"Coffee, please. Black and sweet."

The Chief of Staff pressed a button on the desk and said aloud, "Three coffees, all black, one sweet. Thank you."

Jergen laughed inwardly as he knew from past experience that his coffee would be under-sweetened. Not deliberately, but because others never correctly guessed that he preferred more sugar, so he learned to accept and drink it as given without correction. It made one look weaker for complaining, or autocratic and supercilious if insisting something be done exactly according to specification.

Which was a weird and funny thing. If he asked for a Coke, a soda loaded with sugar, no one would have given it a second thought, but he recalled many times in the office, fixing himself a cup of coffee while someone next to him, doing the same, would observe him pouring four spoonfuls of sugar into his mug and commenting, "Want a little coffee with that sugar, huh?"

Jergen was always ready for that. "Since when did my intake of a substance become your primary concern? I had no idea you were obsessed about the personal tastes of others." That usually shut them up permanently.

That was one of the funnier things about people, about a lot of men. They had no mental censor, no inhibiter for stopping stupid comments before they spoke them; of not minding other people's business out loud like the guy in the office who had to tell the secretary how hot she looked in a sweater, how good her legs were. They couldn't help it. It just automatically spewed out. Cretans everywhere.

He didn't want be annoying and have Stormour ticked off at him. He would soon have a lot to be ticked off about.

Jergen had a tablet with him. It had been cleared and found to be free of explosives or nasty chemistry. Prior to that search, other devices and papers had been given to the White House for examination that were germane to the discussion about to unfold.

The USA did not formally recognize the New America Republic, but it couldn't ignore the reality of it, either; thus both maintained pseudo-embassies. The US in the capitol of the NAR in Laramie, Wyoming.

Jergen knew the NAR was about to invade western Washington State, and that Stormour had promised the governor he would go so far as to use nuclear weapons in retaliation if they did.

Stormour knew the NAR was staging an army in eastern Washington in preparation of invasion. He knew that his promise to the governor of Washington had been rashly given, yet he could not bear the idea of the NAR proceeding in its almost genocidal manner.

Stormour had previously been the governor of Pennsylvania. In that position, his scope and powers remained nearly the same as they had for hundreds of years, and he was an effective leader, administrator, and manager of the state given its current resources and population.

Once elected president, he realized the office he inherited had lost considerable prestige, power, and range. His effective zone of influence and control remained the Northeast, Midwest, and east coast to Northern Virginia. All other States and regions were outside his jurisdiction. The west coast, ostensibly, belonged to the USA, but no taxes came from it. Those States had become poor and bankrupt. The Southwest was overrun with illegal aliens beyond government control, a bizarre frontier, nearly lawless, a highway for illegal drugs, prostitutes, aliens, guns, and warring gangs in many areas.

The Deep South now included Tennessee, Kentucky, and even West Virginia, and formed a Region of its own, not as developed in government and industry, nor with as aggressive a military, nor as federalist as the NAR, but definitely separate.

He knew that Jergen knew exactly how many soldiers, tanks, artillery pieces, airplanes, helicopters, sailors, ships, submarines, drones, nuclear warheads, laser and missile systems he had at his command. The diminution of his forces was humiliating. The budget was draining forever with Entitlements to keep the Welfare Society functioning.

The NAR greatly outnumbered them on the ground and in the air. Being landlocked, they lacked ships and submarines, hence their push to the west coast, and their annexation of northern Minnesota with access to Lake Superior. Soon, no doubt, they'd gain cities on the Mississippi.

The US Navy was reduced to two aircraft carrier groups, one for each coast. There were four mothballed nuclear carriers in California alone. Would they end up in NAR control and refurbished? That was one of the things they war-gamed. Scuttling them was useless. They could be easily raised, regardless of depth. Blowing them up could result in retaliation such as the NAR destroying their last two functional platforms.

Stormour had quickly realized as president that the job was no longer about presenting a vision to the people, and then attempting to implement it through Congress, full of promises about how these measures, this new agency, this subsidy would result in lifelong benefits and goodness.

His job now was plugging dikes springing a thousand leaks, robbing Peter to pay Paul, pleading with States to deliver revenue. His great idea and election message had been a program to re-establish tariffs as they once had during the mercantile period of history. It would protect domestic manufactures and goods while taxing foreigners underselling Americans. It might have worked in a robust economy, but now it only made people that much poorer without increasing wages.

The coffee arrived, and Jergen was both surprised and delighted to discover it was exactly to his taste. Perhaps someone had been studying up on him? He was impressed, and that much more wary.

"Mr. President," Jergen began, it is both an honor and a privilege to meet with you. I wish I could convey to you just how deep a feeling we of the New American Republic have for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the connection we feel to the United States of America, of 'our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave'," he said.

Stormour recognized the quote from Lincoln, but wasn't sure where to place it. It was the first inaugural address.

"I appreciate that Mr. Jergen, but it pains me to mention that just as Lincoln was in conflict with the South, we are in conflict with your Region of the country. You are on a course to do great harm to other Americans. The United States stands firmly against your objective. It must not happen. We will oppose you."

Jergen nodded. "Sir, I won't waste your time explaining our reasons or our Constitution. You are a conscientious leader, no doubt well briefed on our politics and culture. What I have to tell you pains me, also. It is simply this -- you cannot, must not, oppose our actions in the west (or anywhere else for that matter)."

Stormour drew back slightly at the affront of being told what he could and must not do.

He wanted to clench his teeth, but relaxed his jaw and replied instead, "How do you intend to prevent the defense of our country?"

"It is our understanding that the USA maintains something close to 350 nuclear warheads. We know for a fact that you told the Governor of Washington you would use nuclear weapons against us if our forces invaded them in the west." He paused to study Stormour's face. It was impassive, but clearly a tacit acknowledgement of the fact.

"Mr. President," he continued, "I want you to briefly study a few matters."

He presented his tablet computer to Stormor's view, tapping a few places on the touch screen. "This is a replica of a nuclear weapon we presented your people with a few days ago. This is a prototype of a rejected design; one of many, but instructive in that it's a design that clearly works. We also furnished all the schematics for this. Are you confident that we know how to build functional nuclear weapons?"

The President glanced at his Chief of Staff at the end of the sofa way from him. He nodded.

"Yes. I understand you know how to build nuclear weapons."

Tapping on the screen again, Jergen pulled up a picture of an area of Utah.

"This is an area of Utah well known for its uranium deposits. Through Canada, we've also been able to import quantities of yellowcake from Africa. You can check with Canadian authorities on that. You may not recall, but Arco, Idaho was one of the first processing labs for plutonium in developing nuclear submarine power plants. This satellite picture shows how extensive that laboratory and processing plant has become since it no longer worked for your Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Go ahead and bomb this place if you like. We have others."

The President grimaced. He knew he was being set up. Jergen was running a dog and pony show that somehow, inexorably was going to make him impotent. Make his job futile.

"Continue," he said.

"Standing by in a secure location in Wyoming is your liaison to my country, and a team of your nuclear scientists." He again pressed a few glyphs on the tablet. A group of men appeared in a bright-lit room.

The Chief of Staff had moved over to observe the tablet screen, and spoke, "Mr. Washington (he was a black man chosen deliberately for that reason to be liaison there), do you hear me and see me?"

"Yes sir."

"The President is standing by."

"Yes sir."

"Mr. Washington, what is your report?"

"Mr. President, this team of scientists from the NRC has examined the material here in the NAR and they all conclude that they have sufficient fissionable material to construct a great many atomic, hydrogen bombs. There is no doubt, no possibility of deception. Our instruments have not been tampered with, and the material reacts with other elements in ways that can't be faked."

"How much material were you able to test?"

"More than the United States possesses at this time."

"Thank you, Mr. Washington," Stormour said ending the conversation.

"Even so," Jergen added. "Your weapons could utterly destroy us if you launched them. Our having plutonium and devices to explode it are meaningless unless we can either launch missiles or deliver the bombs directly. Here are three co-ordinates in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia you must send police or federal agents to immediately. They will discover three lead lined containers holding a small amount of plutonium in them (to be returned to us when they're done). Undetectable by sensors."

"This demonstrates out ability to both penetrate your security, and destroy your major cities, too, without the need of missiles. But we do have missiles as you can observe here, if your satellites haven't already observed."

Jergen showed on the tablet videos of missile launches by the NAR in the Utah desert.

He then spoke about their missile shield and defense system, far more advanced than anything the US had after cutting the program decades earlier, having lured their most knowledgeable scientists to Wyoming to develop their ideas and engineering.

He didn't mention their EMP drones, pilotless airplanes capable of destroying electronic systems by means of electro-magnetic pulses. Nor did he demonstrate their laser weapons capable of destroying projectiles from artillery shells, guided missiles, ICBMs, and Cruise types.

The capabilities of both defensive and offensive weapons easily exceeded that of the USA. Stormour's heart sank as the reality of the situation settled in.

A call came into the office and the Chief of Staff answered it.

"Mr. President, three containers as Mr. Jergen described have been found in the locations given."

"Mr. President, I hesitate to say it, but you should consider the possibility that we have placed other containers in the same cities or elsewhere with active nuclear weapons and are ready to activate them should we be attacked in any way by your country."

"My country?"

"Yes sir. That's how it falls out. The USA is dead as far as we're concerned. Beautiful while it lasted until the 50's or so, but no longer a viable entity for human beings."

"By God, just who do you people think you are!?"

"The descendants of Celts, Saxons, Angles, Germans, Vikings, Pilgrims, Puritans, Scots Irish, and others who refuse to go gently into that good night. Just who the hell are you?"

Stormour didn't answer. He had no answer. He was a man of motley peoples. A conjuror at building coalitions, pulling disparate groups and separate agendas together. He was a man who'd built his house on sand, but was certain he had good will toward everyone, every person in his jurisdiction: the black woman having babies at fourteen, never getting a job, living on welfare; the illegal Mexican having a baby at no cost in the emergency room and suddenly eligible for federal benefits; to the poor Somali in a cab mutilating his daughter's genitals and refusing to transport a blind man and his seeing eye dog.

Stormour pretended to love them all. It was his duty. The Statue of Liberty proclaimed his creed -- the wretched refuse, the tempest tossed -- they were all supposed to find a place in America, to melt into one race and people, the American race that knew no color, religion, sex, culture, ethnicity except baseball, mom, and apple pie. Damnit! People were supposed to get along and not have petty differences like food, music, clothing, beliefs, or tribalism. Everyone was supposed to be transformed into an average white man of northern European sensibility. It stood to reason. To differentiate by ethnicity, by color, by race -- well, that made you a racist; the most evil of the evil; a monster. Everyone was the same with the same needs, same desires, aspirations, abilities, and concerns. Everyone had the same intelligence. To say otherwise was to be a Nazi.

It wasn't that all these thoughts flew through Stormour's mind, just that they'd occurred before and were referenced in passing.

"Mr. Jergen, you're telling me that any act on our part will result in Mutual Armed Destruction."

"Yes sir, but worse than that. You can't destroy us while we can surely destroy you."

"You're willing to bet on that?" he stared him down.

"Absolutely. If we're wrong, most of us believe we're going to a better place anyhow. If you're wrong, everything's finished."

"The United States will stand down so long as you do not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances on this continent. Do I have your word?"

"You have our word. We do not wish to kill anyone and will do all we can to preserve lives. Our main objective is to restore, not destroy."

"I don't believe that's true."

"Here is what I believe. It was written by John Jay in the Federalist Paper number 2. He wrote 'Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.' What a shame so many like you have abandoned those principles. They're good ones."

Jergen was shown the way out and soon relayed the outcome to Laramie and their president.

The Time Is Now Part 3: The Critical Battlefields Part 2

In the previous essay, I commented on the thrusts freedom lovers must undertake in the field of education. Educational efforts are inherently long-term efforts; they bear fruit only as the newly enlightened rise to their majorities and to political power. But our next topic is one with a nearer-term effect.

Today, let's discuss communications.

---

Americans are accustomed to an ease of communication unprecedented in world history and unknown practically anywhere else on Earth. We have a wide variety of ways to reach and talk to one another. All of them are private or can be made so, with a small number of exceptions under the law.

It's unlikely that those many routes toward one another will be legally foreclosed in an absolute fashion. (Imagine the reaction were cell phones to be declared illegal, or perhaps placed under a may-issue licensure regime!) But a regime determined to protect itself against organized resistance needn't do anything that drastic. Its principal need is to engender atomization: that is, to make it harder to each of us to find kindred spirits, and to trust them.

In this regard, consider the parallel case of the barter club. At one point such clubs were on the rise, and dramatically so at that. They appeared to be the next big weapon for the resistance of oppressive taxation. Yet not long after they began to become popular, the trend reversed, such that today organized barter clubs are almost extinct. Why?

The reason, of course, was infiltration by tax agents and their boughten collaborators. When Smith doesn't know who's listening to his attempt to barter his eggs for Jones's time-share, he can't be certain he won't be betrayed and prosecuted. Even the suspicion of such surveillance was sufficient to put a severe damper on the re-emergence of barter in the underground economy.

The barter club's fatal weakness was an open door. There was no need for a new participant to "make his bones," such that he would be legally vulnerable to the loss of others' good will. So for Smith to observe that Davis, with whom he isn't personally acquainted, is paying a shade too much attention to his dickering with Jones will create a significant risk in Smith's mind.

Another example comes from the way the Left strove to insert racial agitators into TEA Party rallies. Once they were identified as such, they had to be removed, lest the group and the larger movement be tarred with the stain of the infiltrator. Attempts to degrade communications among opponents of the Omnipotent State are likely to use similar tactics to prevent resistance groups from forming and to undermine the cohesion of existing groups. Of course, the possibility that a new, unknown participant is a paid agent of the State must not be discounted either.

---

The communications problem may be decomposed into these elements:

• Finding sincerely like-minded persons interested in collaborating on specific topics;
• Organizing for whatever action is appropriate;
• Preventing unwelcome exposure and infiltration by persons opposed to the group's agenda.

Let's imagine that our old friend Smith is interested in assembling a group for mutual aid via barter -- e.g., "I'll fix your furnace if you'll resurface his driveway so he'll mow my lawn" -- such that the increments to the participants' well-being wouldn't register as taxable income:

• His first problem would be finding suitable others to join in the arrangement.
• His second problem would be setting the rules of the association, including who may invite others to join it and under what conditions.
• His third problem would be contriving a defense against unwelcome attention.

Of course, it would be best if the solution of these problems were a group effort, such that all the members contribute insights and efforts. However, at this point we confront the "80-20 Rule:" 80% of the work of any given organization is done by 20% of the membership. In organizations composed of "volunteers," the ratio is often far worse. Still, let's imagine that Smith gets such enthusiastic buy-in for his concept that everyone who elects to participate agrees to help with the burdens involved, at least by adhering to the rules that are agreed upon.

Clearly, Smith cannot profligately broadcast his intentions and activities to the world; he must seek out those persons he thinks would be suitable participants and address them privately. He and his fellows would then have to agree on how the exchange of mutual services would work: e.g., what each service is worth in comparison to others. They would also have to agree on constraining exposure to outsiders, such that anyone subsequently invited to join could be trusted. Finally, they would have to allow for the possibility of unwelcome exposure and plan how they would react to it: how the discoverer of a "mole" would confirm his discovery, inform the others, and plan a response. None of these things could be made to work if their exchanges could not be kept private.

An oppressive regime would be aware of this, as well. It would strive to open all communications pathways to its surveillance, rendering it impossible to have confidence in their privacy. It would create incentives for the betrayal of confidential arrangements "detrimental to the State." And of course, it would attempt to insert its agents into any organization that tries to keep its internal operations private.

Given the accelerating oppressiveness of Washington under either party's control, the effort to create secure communications pathways that we can defend must begin at once.

---

The Internet has been a mixed blessing. The opportunities it offers for anonymity and "identity management," while cherished by some, endanger anyone who seeks collaborators in an underground of any sort. He whose identity is concealed simply can't be trusted, nor can he whose bona fides can't be reliably established. So in the search for participants, the Internet will not be useful. It must be conducted by more secure means, with personal acquaintance being strongly preferred.

Once a group has coalesced, the problem changes somewhat. Public-private encryption schemes such as PGP can provide adequate security to email exchanges, with some caveats:

• Messages must be kept short,
• The keys must be changed frequently,
• The exchange of public keys must take place in the flesh rather than over any communications medium.

Other approaches are all too vulnerable to trust.

Finally, the problem of unwelcome attention and infiltration by would-be traducers is principally a matter of not becoming visible. Good approaches to the first two problems will reduce the probability of a breach. However, it's unwise to trust to good fortune, especially given that the State will create incentives for the venal to infiltrate and expose such groups. Thus, the group must arrive at a means by which trusted members can be informed of a suspect member, and the suspect member can be isolated without further damage to the group. Unfortunately, in a situation such as the one proposed, a presumption of innocence is not prudent.

---

Communications is arguably the most immediately urgent of the freedom movement's challenges. The above is mainly an exposition on "why;" it's light on "how." But in this connection that's a virtue; with many groups pursuing individual approaches, we're more likely to come up with some good ones than if a single approach were imposed, top-down, on all.

More anon.

For The Feast Of Christ The King

[Today is the Feast of Christ The King, which falls on the last Sunday before Advent. It’s a unique holy day for several reasons, and one that I find particularly personally significant. I was casting about for what to write about it, when I remembered the Rumination below, which first appeared at Eternity Road on January 6, 2008. For the purpose of illuminating the import of this day, I find that I cannot improve upon it. -- FWP]

---

Let's talk about...Zoroastrianism!

***

The ancient creed called Zoroastrianism predated the birth of Christ by about a millennium. Its founder, Zoroaster, laid down a small set of doctrines:

• There is one universal and transcendental God, Ahura Mazda, the one uncreated creator and to whom all worship is ultimately directed.
• Ahura Mazda's creation — evident as asha, truth and order — is the antithesis of chaos, evident as druj, falsehood and disorder. The resulting conflict involves the entire universe, including humanity, which has an active role to play in the conflict.
• Active participation in life through good thoughts, good words and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep the chaos at bay. This active participation is a central element in Zoroaster's concept of free will, and Zoroastrianism rejects all forms of monasticism.
• Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail, at which point the universe will undergo a cosmic renovation and time will end. In the final renovation, all of creation — even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to "darkness" — will be reunited in Ahura Mazda.
• In Zoroastrian tradition, the malevolent is represented by Angra Mainyu, the "Destructive Principle", while the benevolent is represented through Ahura Mazda's Spenta Mainyu, the instrument or "Bounteous Principle" of the act of creation. It is through Spenta Mainyu that Ahura Mazda is immanent in humankind, and through which the Creator interacts with the world. According to Zoroastrian cosmology, in articulating the Ahuna Vairya formula, Ahura Mazda made His ultimate triumph evident to Angra Mainyu.
• As expressions and aspects of Creation, Ahura Mazda emanated seven "sparks", the Amesha Spentas, "Bounteous Immortals" that are each the hypostasis and representative of one aspect of that Creation. These Amesha Spenta are in turn assisted by a league of lesser principles, the Yazatas, each "Worthy of Worship" and each again a hypostasis of a moral or physical aspect of creation.

I find nothing objectionable in the above, except that only God, by whatever name He might be known, is worthy of worship; the most a lesser being is entitled to is veneration. But the word "worship" has had many meanings and subtleties over the years, so I'm inclined to let it pass. More important than Zoroastrianism's harmless mythos is its ethos, which Zoroaster himself encapsulated in a unique and memorable command:

Speak truth and shoot the arrow straight.

Unlike the overwhelming majority of other pre-Christian creeds, Zoroastrianism was -- and is -- rational, humane, and life-loving rather than life-denying. It emphasized human free will, moral choice, and the need to defend truth and order against lies and chaos. These attributes made it the dominant religion of classical Persia and environs, though Zoroastrians' numbers are far reduced today.

(No, I haven't converted to Zoroastrianism. You can all relax.)

In the Western world, the Zoroastrians were the first practitioners of the pseudo-science we call astrology. They reposed a fair amount of confidence in it, for the creed had had its own prophets, beginning with Zoroaster himself, and among the prophecies were several tied to events foretold to happen in the night sky. The Zoroastrians therefore took great interest in the stars, and made careful records of occurrences therein, for comparison to the utterances of their prophets.

One of those prophecies involved the birth of God in mortal flesh.

The Magi of the Incarnation story were three esteemed nobles of Persia, wealthy in gold, wisdom, and the admiration of their societies. In contrast to the pattern prevalent among the nobilities of later times, these three, whose names have come down to us as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, were deeply religious men whose involvement in the investigation of the Zoroastrian prophecies was sincere. When they spied the famous "star in the east" -- quite possibly a nova in Draco now known to have occurred at about that time -- they resolved to follow its trail, to find the divine infant and pay him homage.

I shan't retell the whole of the story. It's accessible to anyone reading this site, in both secular and liturgical versions. The most salient aspect of the story is that these three exalted nobles -- kings, in the most common accounts -- of a faraway land came to pay homage and present tokens of vassalage to a newborn infant.

Of course! What else would be appropriate, before a King of Kings?

***

I will pause here to draw an important distinction: "King of Kings" is not the same as "Emperor." "Emperor" is a title appropriate only to a conqueror; that's more or less what it means. Atop that, an emperor is not necessarily concerned with justice, whereas a king, of whatever altitude, is obliged to make it the center of his life:

The saber gleamed in the muted light. I'd spent a lot of time and effort sharpening and polishing it.

It was a plain weapon, not one you'd expect to see in the hand of a king. There was only the barest tracing on the faintly curved blade. The guard bell was a plain steel basket, without ornamentation. The hilt was a seven inch length of oak, darkened with age but firm to the touch. There was only a hint of a pommel, a slight swell of the hilt at its very end.

"What is this?"

"A sword. Your sword."

A hint of alarm compressed his eyes. "What do you expect me to do with it?"

I shrugged. "Whatever you think appropriate. But a king should have a sword. By the way," I said, "it was first worn by Louis the Ninth of France when he was the Dauphin, though he set it aside for a useless jeweled monstrosity when he ascended the throne."

Time braked to a stop as confusion spun his thoughts.

"I don't know how to use it," he murmured.

"Easily fixed. I do."

"But why, Malcolm?"

I stepped back, turned a little away from those pleading eyes.

"Like it or not, you're a king. You don't know what that means yet. You haven't a sense for the scope of it. But you must learn. Your life, and the lives of many others, will turn on how well you learn it." I paused and gathered my forces. "What is a king, Louis?"

He stood there with the sword dangling from his hand. "A ruler. A leader. A warlord."

"More. All of that, but more. The sword is an ancient symbol for justice. Back when the function of nobility was better understood, a king never sat his throne without his sword to hand. If he was to treat with the envoy of another king, it would be at his side. If he was to dispense justice, it would be across his knees. Why do you suppose that was, Louis?"

He stood silent for a few seconds.

"Symbolic of the force at his command, I guess."

I shook my head gently.

"Not just symbolic. A true king, whose throne belonged to him by more than the right of inheritance, led his own troops and slew malefactors by his own hand. The sword was a reminder of the privilege of wielding force, but it was there to be used as well."

His hands clenched and unclenched in time to his thoughts. I knew what they had to be.

"The age of kings is far behind us, Malcolm."

"It never ended. Men worthy of the role became too few to maintain the institution."

"And I'm...worthy?"

If he wasn't, then no worthy man had ever lived, but I couldn't tell him that.

"There's a gulf running through the world, Louis. On one side are the commoners, the little men who bear tools, tend their gardens, and keep the world running. On the other are the nobles, who see far and dare much, and sometimes risk all they have, that the realm be preserved and the commoner continue undisturbed in his portion. There's no shortage of either, except for the highest of the nobles, the men of unbreakable will and moral vision, for whom justice is a commitment deeper than life itself."

His face had begun to twitch. He'd heard all he could stand to hear, and perhaps more. I decided to cap the pressure.

"Kings have refused their crowns many times, Louis. You might do as much, though it would sadden me to see it. But you could break that sword over your knee, change your name, and run ten thousand miles to hide where no one could know you, and it wouldn't lessen what you are and were born to be." I gestured at the sword. "Keep it near you."

[FromChosen One.]

Note further: a mortal king cannot and does not define justice; he dispenses justice, according to principles drawn from a higher authority. The King of Kings, from whom the privilege and obligation to mete justice flows, is the definer. In the matter of Law, all lesser kings are His vassals.

The Magi conceded this explicitly with their gift of gold.

***

The pre-Christian era knew few, if any, rulers who claimed their jurisdiction solely on basis of might. Nearly all were approved and anointed by a priesthood. In that anointment lay their claim to be dispensers of true justice, for God would not allow a mortal to mete justice that departs from His Law. Let's leave aside the divergence between theory and practice for the moment; it was the logical connection between Divine Law and human-modulated justice that mattered to the people of those times.

But the King of Kings would need no clerical approval. Indeed, He would be the Priest of Priests: the Authority lesser priests would invoke in anointing lesser kings.

The Magi conceded this explicitly with their gift of frankincense.

***

We of the Twenty-First Century are largely unaware of the obligations which lay upon the kings of old. They were not, until the waning years of monarchy, sedentary creatures whose lives were a round of indulgences and propitiations. They were expected not merely to judge and pass sentence, but also to lead the armies of the realm when war was upon it. The king was expected to put himself at risk before any of his subjects. Among the reasons was this one: the loss of the king in battle was traditionally grounds for surrender, after which the enemy was forbidden by age-old custom to strike further blows.

The king, in this conception, was both the leader of his legions and a sacrifice for the safety of his subjects, should the need arise. He was expected to embrace the role wholeheartedly, and to lead from the front in full recognition of the worst of the possibilities. Not to do so was an admission that he was unfit for his throne:

"We have talked," he said, "about all the strategies known to man for dealing with an armed enemy. We have talked about every aspect of deadly conflict. Every moment of every discussion we've had to date has been backlit by the consciousness of objectives and costs: attaining the one and constraining the other. And one of the first things we talked about was the importance of insuring that you don't overpay for what you seek."

She kept silent and listened.

"What if you can't, Christine? What if your objective can't be bought at an acceptable price?"

She pressed her lips together, then said, "You abandon it."

He smirked. "It's hard even to say it, I know. But reality is sometimes insensitive to a general's desires. On those occasions, you must learn how to walk away. And that, my dear, is an art form of its own."

He straightened up. "Combat occurs within an envelope of conditions. A general doesn't control all those conditions. If he did, he'd never have to fight. Sometimes, those conditions are so stiff that he's compelled to fight whether he thinks it wise, or not."

"What conditions can do that to you?"

His mouth quirked. "Yes, what conditions indeed?"

Oops. Here we go again. "Weather could do it."

"How?"

"By cutting off your lines of retreat in the face of an invasion."

"Good. Another."

"Economics. Once the economy of your country's been militarized, it runs at a net loss, so you might be forced to fight from an inferior position because you're running out of resources."

"Excellent. One more."

She thought hard. "Superior generalship on the other side?"

He clucked in disapproval. "Does the opponent ever want you to fight?"

"No, sorry. Let me think."

He waited.

Conditions. Conditions you can't control. Conditions that...control you.

"Politics. The political leadership won't accept retreat or surrender until you've been so badly mangled that it's obvious even to an idiot."

The man Louis Redmond had named the greatest warrior in history began to shudder. It took him some time to quell.

"It's the general's worst nightmare," he whispered. "Kings used to lead their own armies. They used to lead the cavalry's charge. For a king to send an army to war and remain behind to warm his throne was simply not done. Those that tried it lost their thrones, and some lost their heads -- to their own people. It was a useful check on political and military rashness.

"It hasn't been that way for a long time. Today armies go into the field exclusively at the orders of politicians who remain at home. And politicians are bred to believe that reality is entirely plastic to their wills."

[From On Broken Wings.]

But the King of Kings, intrinsically above all other authorities, would obviously be aware of this obligation. More, His sacrifice of Himself must perforce be for the salvation of the whole of the world -- indeed, the whole of the universe and every sentient creature in it. Nothing less could possibly justify it.

The Magi conceded this explicitly with their gift of myrrh.

***

Today, Christians celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, called the Theophany by some eastern Christian sects, when the Magi prostrated themselves before the Christ Child and made their gifts of vassalage to him. A vassal is a noble sworn to fealty to a higher authority: a higher-ranking noble or a king. The obligations of the vassal are to enforce justice as promulgated by the vassal's liege, and to support and defend the liege's realm by force of arms as required. To the King of Kings, God made flesh in the miracle of the Incarnation, every temporal authority is properly a vassal, obliged to mete justice in accordance with the natural law and to defend the Liege's realm -- men of good will, wherever they may be -- against all enemies, whenever the need might arise. To do less is to be unworthy of a temporal throne, palace, official office, or seat in a legislature...to be unworthy of Him.

He took on the burdens of the flesh to confirm God's love for Man and to open the gates of salvation. He went to Calvary in testament to the authenticity of His Authority. The Magi knew, and in their pledge of fealty to Him, made plain that He had come not merely to succor Israel, but for the liberation of all Mankind.

May God bless and keep you all.

This Must Go Viral

Yes, we lost the election. In large measure, we lost it by nominating candidates who are afraid to stand by our supposed philosophy.

Bill Whittle tells us all how it's done -- and he's right in all particulars.

Spread it around.

"Preppers"

"All my friends are trying to make me paranoid, but I'm onto them, and I'm not going to let them!" -- a college buddy.

(This compulsion to write can be really annoying, especially on an overfull stomach.)

Bob Owens's PJ Media series ridiculing the persons portrayed in NatGeo's "Doomsday Preppers" series has drawn sharp criticism, and some condemnations, from his commenters. I shan't speculate on how many of those commenters are themselves preparationists -- "preppers." But I do find it amusing how near to absolute the commenters' verdicts are against Owens's supercilious snarkery.

I should mention, in the interests of full disclosure, that:

1. I'm closer to agreement with the commenters than to Owens on this subject;
2. In some sense, I, too, am a "prepper," as you might deduce from the following discourse.

---

An article such as Owens's leaves me thinking about an old semi-humorous quip:

What if the purpose of your life is merely to serve as a warning to others?

It's not impossible -- and it should give pause to anyone who's tempted to make a single, barely possible future calamity the focus of his existence.

That having been said, being reasonably well prepared for certain kinds of disturbances and dislocations -- events that, while not certain to occur, are both more than barely possible and foreseeably destructive -- is difficult to criticize. Let's consider a single example: an acceleration of inflation, caused by the Obama Administration's ceaseless borrowing and spending.

When inflation hovers around the 2% to 3% level, few people give it much thought. The pot is being heated slowly enough that the frog won't become alarmed and jump out. But as we who experienced it remember from the Carter inflation, when it rises to 7% or more, the effects are sufficiently compressed in time that Americans will react specifically to it:

• Some will go on credit binges;
• Some will spend their deteriorating dollars at once;
• Some will begin to speculate in the equities market;
• Some will belatedly buy hard assets that have a chance of keeping up with the inflation;
• Some will do all the above, and perhaps more.

Now, at this juncture in history, we can foresee that at some difficult-to-predict point in the near to intermediate future, there's likely to be a sharp -- perhaps even convulsive -- increase in the prices of consumer goods. The huge cash balances in the accounts of major American financial institutions seem to me to guarantee it. Is it a lead-pipe-cinch, bet-the mortgage-money certainty? Not quite, but it's beginning to look much more likely than not. He who reads the tea leaves this way has only two plausible reactions:

• "Well, there's nothing I can do about it. Besides, there's still a chance it won't happen."
• "I'd better brace for impact as best I can."

The more probable one thinks that future convulsive surge in prices, the more likely he is to adopt the second attitude. He'll put an appreciable fraction of his savings into precious metals. He'll eschew credit exposure, particularly to variable-rate obligations. He might build himself a pantry and stock it with nonperishables, to hedge against the possibility that the supports of life might become hard to get at any price. He will become, in the broad sense of the term, a "prepper." Those who differ with him about the likelihood of the financial upheaval he foresees will deem him a bit silly about it, perhaps even mentally unbalanced. Probabilities being what they are, the disagreement won't be resolvable by argument.

The whole thing is about probabilities. Just how likely is that inflationary surge? Opinions vary widely -- and those at one end of the distribution consider those at the other end paranoid or imprudent. This is the attitude I take toward preparationism. I can't predict the future with absolute certainty; I can only try to assess the probabilities from what I can see, and from my knowledge of history. So I shan't attempt to prepare for a global nuclear war, but I most certainly will brace myself and my family against calamities that seem to be likely enough to be worth some effort and expense: accelerating inflation; a rise in racial violence and gang-related predation; sharply reduced availability of medical services; consumption quotas or price controls on oil, gas, and electric power; and the too-awful-to-contemplate possibility that the NHL might never have another season.

I'd consider anyone who fails to take the appropriate measures against those developments excessively optimistic about the American future. I don't trouble myself about what they might think of me.

---

But let's put a somewhat sharper focus on that NatGeo series and the persons it chooses for its subjects. I must admit that those folks do strike me as unbalanced, in the strict sense of the word: that is, they're putting the lion's share of their efforts and assets into bracing for calamities that seem highly improbable. What is NatGeo's aim in spotlighting such persons?

It could just be about entertainment. We do like to laugh, and when the object of laughter is someone to whom we can feel superior for some reason, it adds an edge that many people enjoy greatly.

It could be about the range of possibilities these out-of-the-mainstream people have considered: calamities many of us would never have conceived of on our own, such as the sundering of North America into two continents by a fracturing of the tectonic plate. People who enjoy imaginative fiction might get a kick out of such speculations for themselves, whatever they might think of the wisdom of trying to prepare for such an event.

Or it could be that NatGeo has a darker motive: a desire to spread the attitude that "preppers" of all sorts are really too ridiculous for us "sensible" types to consider their contentions at all. I don't think that's terribly likely, but just as I must admit that North America might "tear along the dotted line" some day -- Pangaea, anyone? -- I must admit that it's at least possible that NatGeo has some sort of institutional interest in defaming preparationism to the larger American populace. A number of Owens's commentators have broached that possibility.

Whatever the case, I'm not a big TV watcher, but I think I might start watching the show. Who knows? I might pick up some good ideas, if not for my sub-basement survival bunker, then perhaps for my next novel.

Calhoun on terminal madness.

We [Americans] think we may now indulge in everything with impunity, as if we held our charter of liberty by right divine—from Heaven itself. Under these impressions we plunge into war, we contract heavy debts, we increase the patronage of the Executive, and we talk of a crusade to force our institutions of liberty upon all people. There is no species of extravagance which our people imagine will endanger their liberty in any degree. Sir, the hour is approaching—the day of retribution will come.

~ John C. Calhoun, speech to the U.S. Senate, 1/4/1848.

Most people I know believe in fairy tales when it comes to matters of liberty. To them, our vastly diminished liberties, such as they are, are there like oxygen or green buds on trees in the spring. Liberty happens and no one's pet projects or sure-fire nostrums will ever singly or together work to undermine liberty and, if they do, well, so what?

Asinine, treacherous Supreme Court opinions that relentlessly destroy federalism are a matter of indifference. As is our first president who despises traditional America. As is our Congress that can only decrease the rate of increase of spending and spend only because of the willingness of the Chinese to lend us money.

As the Cuban woman I quoted a few months ago said. She never saw a people who are so willing to give their country away.

In what way can it be said that we deserve our liberty? When we say our troops have fought for our "freedom," to what freedoms does that refer exactly?

Americans simply aren't up to being free. American exceptionalism? Puleez. I just ate.

"A Message From A Renowned War Hawk To the “War Parties” of Today: Peace Out!" By Frank Weathers, Why I Am Catholic 1/10/12.

Whirlwind courtship.

Married on the 12th, inst., by the parties themselves, the Rev. J. D. Maxson, and Miss Elizabeth Maxson, after a long a tedious courtship of about one hour.

"Marshall County Illinois Marriages." Extracted from the Henry Courier, 12/18/1857.

A Pre-Thanksgiving Assortment

1. Attack of the Highway Totalitarians.

Among the less tolerable nuisances of this age are the self-righteous who arrogate the privilege of running your life for you. Not all of them work for the government...yet. Some can be found on Long Island's major highways, every weekday morning and afternoon.

Some drive Priuses or Smart ForTwos, but not all of them. Some sport revealing bumper stickers about saving the Earth, but not all of them. And some stay strictly in the rightmost lane...but not all of them.

Some of them insist on driving in the leftmost lane -- the fast lane -- at 40 or 45 mph.

This is unacceptable, especially during commuting hours. Our road system is strained to its breaking point; the slightest disturbance from bad weather or an accident can lock up the Long Island Expressway for hours. As for New York City "gridlock days," please, let's not go there. That seems to bring all the crazies onto the roads, contrary to what the warnings are hoped to elicit.

In his arrogance and supercilious self-righteousness, the Highway Totalitarian presumes to limit others to the speed he deems most suitable for the advancement of his chosen Cause. Preventing "climate change?" Opposing "waste of resources?" Undermining "predatory capitalism?" All these Causes, and many others, seem to require slowing the rest of us down to his preferred rate of travel.

Such persons have no idea how many accidents they cause, by provoking poor behavior from drivers who have to get somewhere.

The only countermeasure is to get ahead of the Highway Totalitarian somehow, and then slow down still further. Eventually he'll become irritated with you and move to the right, freeing the lane of his autocratic rule. Sometimes it's only temporary, but that's better than nothing.

Given that most automobiles these days are "drive by wire" -- almost completely software-controlled -- a remote-control of some sort that would compel the Highway Totalitarian's car to speed up, change lanes, or explode spectacularly as a warning to others would be a big seller. Perhaps America's favorite marketer could come up with something along those lines. It really would make a fine Christmas gift, though it's too late for this year's holiday shopping and max-traffic season.

---

2. Insights Of Great Value.

The worthy Ace of Spades has written a column of unusual insight and value, which I exhort all Gentle Readers to read and absorb. Like Andrew Breitbart before him, Ace has grasped one of the central truths about conservative political outreach: It's too explicitly political.

The haymaker:

One of the problems with the right's attempts at media is that it is always -- or almost always -- expliclity political, and ergo argumentative (argumentative in the "good" meaning, but also often in the bad one). We're always trying to persuade in conservative media. Thus, conversion can only happen when people tune into us when they're in the mood to be persuaded that everything they used to think is wrong, and these other people have been right all along.

You know how all often people tune in to discover how wrong they've been about everything? Rounding off to the nearest integer, zero. Zero percent of the people tune in zero percent of the time to be told how very wrong they are about everything.

Taking it to three significant digits like Nate Silver, The Model projects that zero point zero zero percent of the populace searches for websites and magazines to tell them they are 100% wrong about everything zero point zero zero percent of the time.

The left doesn't do it like this. The left infiltrates non-political media and stuffs them full of political assumptions.

We say on the right we have better arguments. We do. Guess what? It doesn't matter. Because an assumption -- something you've grown to believe without even realizing you've been programmed, by dint of repetition, to believe -- will beat an argument every time.

Ace is dead on target. We're swimming against a cultural tide in which political messages -- left-leaning ones -- are subtly embedded, and so pervasive that they've descended into the unquestioned-assumptions stratum of most Americans' minds. Unless and until we take the initiative to assert a pro-freedom, pro-responsibility culture as the normal and preferred social matrix -- and learn to do it as subtly as the Left has done it to us -- we'll be trying, if I may borrow a phrase from John Hersey, to "beat bullshit with buckshot."

Ace's column is must-read stuff for anyone serious about wanting to help return the United States to a regime of freedom.

---

3. Killer Robots?

This piece at Fox News got me giggling at first, owing to the obvious "Terminator" reference...but I soon sobered up:

The government should ban autonomous, gun-wielding robots before it’s too late, Human Rights Watch is warning.

The group, which is dedicated to protecting human rights against oppression and discrimination, issued the warning in a 50-page report titled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots .” It argues that bans are needed against fully autonomous drones and sentry robots under development in China, Germany, the United States, Israel, and more. Such robots lack human qualities needed to keep them in check, the group says.

"Giving machines the power to decide who lives and dies on the battlefield would take technology too far,” said Steve Goose, arms division director at Human Rights Watch. “Human control of robotic warfare is essential to minimizing civilian deaths and injuries.”

Grant, first of all, that giving a machine "the power to decide who lives and dies" would indeed be a frightening thing. But inasmuch as such machines don't yet exist, I see this as an entering wedge, aimed at the U.S.'s current arsenal of armed drones under the control of human pilots at a distance. Such drones keep human beings off the battlefield, and as such are life-preserving devices. If we have to go to war, I'd greatly prefer that we fight that war with machines to the maximum possible extent, rather than with fragile human flesh and bone.

If Human Rights Watch's true agenda is to inhibit the U.S. from going to war at all -- it's a notably left-leaning group, so that's not much of a stretch -- I'd bet heavily that this protest against completely autonomous war robots, which don't yet exist and might never exist, is nothing more than a stroke indirectly aimed at further crippling American military power. We're already so casualty-averse that the prospect of major combat terrifies us almost into immobility. Removing one of the most promising devices for minimizing casualties would paralyze us still further...at a time when the enemies of freedom are on the march literally around the world.

---

4. A Reprise From Long Ago.

Have a pure Thanksgiving thought from a more reflective moment:

Time is the ultimate gift.

Time is the medium within which we temporally bound creatures must work. Time is the dimension within which we plan, and execute our plans, and reap the rewards or the lessons they generate. But time is not ours to command....

This is the forward edge on the sword of time, the somber face of the ticking clock, that two-handed engine which will one day strike, and strike no more. We cannot bottle time. We are forbidden by the laws of the universe to know how much time we'll have. Though memory suggests otherwise, the only instant we can be sure of is now -- and it slips from our grasp before we can even finish pronouncing its name.

Your Curmudgeon is growing old. The sense of time running out has been weighing heavily upon him lately. He's been reviewing his goals, especially the ones that seem to be moving out of reach, and straining to make some sense of the things to which he's given his life. It's not a uniformly pleasant enterprise. It involves confronting a lot of utter folly and wondering how he could have been so stupid, as he was at Aunt Lil's dinner table three decades and more ago.

But it also involves appreciating how many opportunities he's had, how every pain visited upon him carried with it a lesson that would enlarge his understanding and prove valuable later in his life, and how even his worst failures were occasions for a great deal of hope and joy. This is the rearward edge on the sword of time: the ability to look backward over one's life and say, despite any and all regrets, "an ill favoured thing, but mine own," and therefore precious.

And so, on this Thanksgiving Day in the year of Our Lord 2003, your Curmudgeon will give thanks simply for having lived. For having survived to laugh at his own stupidity. For having learned how much there is to know that he will never know. For having loved, often unwisely but never unwillingly, and having been loved in return. For all the failures, all the pain, all the triumphs and all the joys. These things are inextricably bound in the thread of time, whether Clotho spins it coarse or fine, whether Lachesis weaves it loose or dense, whether Atropos lets it run luxuriantly long or hacks it cruelly short. It was all pure gift, as is whatever portion remains to come.

Like any other sort of thread, this gift is what one makes of it.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I'll be back after the holiday weekend. Stay safe.

Tales of New America #6

Previous TALES are found thusly: Tale #1, Tale #2, Tale #3, Tale #4, Tale #5.

As Slow as Molasses in January

One star General Patrick Robertson sat across from the Bellingham city manager, John Devries, at his desk.

"Where is the mayor?" the general asked.

"Probably at his law office. That's where he usually is most days," Devries replied.

"I'll send for him," the general said as he rose, opened the door, summoned one of his officers and gave him the errand.

Settling back down, the general added, "We'll need to reset the biometrics. Between you and the mayor, that's all we'll need for full access of the city computer system, I'll bet."

"And if I don't co-operate . . . ?" Devries let it hang.

"What do you think will happen?" Robertson asked.

Devries frowned in looking at Robertson's immobile and implacable visage. He pursed his lips at the realization of the answer.

"Something very bad which I will not like at all," Devries allowed.

The general neither confirmed nor denied his speculation.

"Are you a religious man, Mr. Devries? (He'd glanced at the brass nameplate on the desk facing him.)"

"Not especially," he said wondering what Robertson was leading up to, and why he was having this conversation at all. What did he need him for? To co-operate? To inform the public? To act as a liaison of some sort? Or did the general merely want to flex his muscles? Just what the hell was going on? So he added, "Why do you ask?"

Robertson smiled slightly at Devries expression, "not especially" that meant, "not at all."

"A little faith might carry you a long way through your present difficulties and those to come," he informed him.

"Why are you here? What do you want? What did we do to you?"

"Have you ever been the victim of a violent crime or knew a loved one who'd been brutally violated by force?"

"You mean apart from what you and your men seem to be doing now?"

"You're not a victim, yet. You've only been threatened with violence."

"Uh huh, yes, you could put it that way, but no, to answer your question," Devries told him.

"My parents were the victims of horrendous crimes when I was five years old. They were murdered by MS-13 gang members in Virginia. Raped and murdered by illegal aliens. My parents were young and naive Christians who thought they were being Good Samaritans on a country highway where they saw a woman pulled over with car trouble.

It was a setup for the initiation of a gang member that usually entails finding some random, innocent gringo to kill. Here were two, and one an attractive female.

Of course, the illegals had been in the country and state for years. Often stopped by the police for traffic infractions, drunkenness, DUIs, fighting or abusing girlfriends, but neither the federal, state, or local governments cared to remove them; deport them.

When they caught them for the crimes against my parents, they avoided the death penalty because that was barbaric and a waste of time. Lawyers and judges made sure it was never enforced. In fact, those men and their woman eventually got out of jail. Laughing no doubt in the way the famous American terrorist did when a judge let him get out of being prosecuted on a technicality. He said, 'Guilty as Hell. Free as a bird. What a country!'"

Devries said nothing. Why should he feel sorry for this Nazi in front of him? Nor would he taunt him with asking, "What has all that got to do with me? With us?"

"I mention this because you want some idea of why the people of New America are being rude to our neighbors in Washington State. You're aware of the fact that Bellingham declared itself a sanctuary city decades ago, and that Seattle and Tacoma also did so."

"I'm aware of that."

"Are you also aware of the number of your fellow citizens who've been robbed, molested, raped, murdered, crashed into by the illegal aliens, Mexican and Asian, that you've harbored through the years?"

"I have no recollection of such a number."

"Would you be surprised that even in western Washington that hasn't got an especially large number of illegals, that tens of thousands have been robbed, thousands, including children, molested and raped, hundreds murdered -- often by drunk drivers, and many more crippled as a result. Are you surprised?"

"Not especially."

Robertson smiled a little more grimly. There was that "not especially" again.

"Who do you think should be held responsible for all those crimes against citizens by people who had no business being in the country to begin with? If your neighbor kills your kid, what can you do? He lived here by natural right. But if someone who could have been prevented from ever being here kills your kid, who's to blame?"

"No one."

"No one?"

"Things just happen. Bad things happen. Who's to say that if a drunken Mexican hadn't run someone down that his, his neighbor, as you put it, might have done the same? It's just bad luck everywhere."

"Like now?" Robertson pressed.

Devries stared blankly back at him, and then a shadow descended over his face. The irony wasn't funny at all. God, how he suddenly hated the man in front of him with a fury he'd never quite known. He wanted to scream, "Not like now, you god damned bastard from hell!"

Devries had a revelation, an immediate vision of what was to come for him and his family, one injustice piled upon another, cruelty after cruelty because this bastard was sending them God knows where and into what kind of storm? Or storm after storm. New America was going to come down hard on him and others with both feet. Exiles, refugees, driven across the world until they had nothing, were nothing, were broken and shorn of comfort and humanity. Oh, God help us! He wanted to cry, then bitterly recalled that he was not especially religious.

There was a knock on the door. It opened and the mayor was delivered into the room by the general's adjutant. Robertson stood up.

"Captain, get the Signalman to reprogram access. The mayor and city manager will co-operate. I suppose we might as well set up in the mayor's office and this department. In the meantime, I'm going to check in on the mobile headquarters and catch up on reports. That's all."

"Yes sir."

The general left the office and began crossing the department to leave city hall when Dolores Harris boldly stepped across his path to confront him.

"Yes, ma'am. What is it?"

"You have no right to be here. No right for what you are doing. Who do you think you are? God?"

"Ma'am, did you really want to be the tall poppy?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Sorry, I'm in no mood to pardon anyone. Lieutenant Baxter, General Order Forty-five for this woman. At once," he told a young officer who had been following him out. The general turned his way past Dolores while Lt. Baxter informed her, "You're under arrest ma'am." He clasped her arm, exposed her wrist and snapped a single, wide, dark bracelet on her while she remained momentarily shocked.

"What are you doing?" she demanded when she gained the sense of being manhandled.

"Come with me, ma'am."

"I will not!"

"Owwww!" she cried as the bracelet delivered a powerful electric shock. Baxter released the button quickly, and gestured for her to precede him out of the room. She complied with his suggestion. Another woman came quickly forward with Dolores' purse and coat and gave it to her. The soldier did not object.

****

Dolores was passed on to an MP who escorted her out of city hall and into the rear of a military police van. She was driven to a large, empty warehouse near downtown that had been rapidly converted into a prison with two large areas encircled by chain link fences with areas set apart for port-a-potties, an area for changing and showering privately draped, a main area for sleeping on hard cots, and a processing point of entry.

Evidently, Dolores was the first beneficiary of the NA prison camp since there was no one else in what she assumed was the women's area, and none she could see in the other large area.

Her personal effects were examined, recorded, and stored. She was given an orange jumpsuit and told to change. She could keep her under garments for the time being, but substitutes were being arranged. Her clothes were then stored.

Transferring to the common area of the prison, the toilets and washroom were pointed out to her. She was given no shoes, handed a wool blanket and a small pillow. That was it.

Dolores attempted to get information out of the soldiers, women in her case, but they said nothing about why she was there, for how long, or what about her cats. She tried to be as tough and detached as the women processing her, but once released into the common area, she retreated to the washroom and sobbed.

Never in her life had she been treated so abominably. Like she was nothing, a mere body, an animal; like people might treat a cat if they cared nothing for them.

She looked at the wristband on her arm. It was made of Kevlar, though she didn't know that. Only that it was very tough. Teeth did nothing to it. She also knew that it was a shock device, but had no idea that it did a number of other things such as monitor her heart, pulse, respiration, blood sugar, stress chemicals, a myriad of other conditions, and relayed them all to a computer AI that kept tabs on her.

If the NA had truly wished to be cruel, they could have done away with any fences and simply painted lines where the prisoners could not cross, otherwise shock would commence. But fences gave the prisoners a sense of security. They were restrained by physical means, not mental ones. They were being held, and not teased with freedom . . . just over there . . . right across that line . . . maybe the system is down . . . should I try it and see? Ahhhhhh!

Dolores laid down on a cot with her little pillow and blanket, trying to forget where she was, not worry about her cats while hoping some neighbor would look after them.

She had nothing to do, though. No phone or tablet with their multiple uses and amusements. No book, radio, or music player. Nothing but her own thoughts, which were annoying and disturbing. Like many women, she kept herself busy all of the time.

She got up and approached a soldier on the other side of the fencing and asked, "I don't suppose you might have anything I might be able to read while I'm here, do you?"

"Yes, ma'am. There are a couple of books for prisoners if they want them."

"Could I get one?"

"Yes, ma'am. Go ahead and approach the entrance area. I'll tell them what you're wanting."

The young woman tilted her head to the side and pressed a button, telling the soldier at the processing area what was requested.

Another female soldier met Dolores at the pass through area, a place where food or other items could be transferred to prisoners without having to open gates.

"You currently have a choice of two volumes, ma'am. This one is The Holy Bible, and this one is entitled, The Proper Roles of Men and Women in a Modern Christian Society by Reverend Orem Hayes."

She involuntarily barked, "Ha!"

"I must warn you that the books are to be treated with care or there will be consequences. Do you still wish to read?"

She grimaced. This was not a joke. Did she need to read and take her mind off her situation or didn't she? Thinking the second volume might be good for a laugh, she requested it and it was given. She retreated to her cot, opened the book to its Preface:

In the absence of holiness we muddle our way through the many stages of life. We seek guidance from The Bible, our parents, teachers, and pastors, but what often seems so easy for them to advise, we find impossible to follow in a straight and narrow manner. We pray for understanding, but it does not come until after tough events and sad facts, it seems.

I don't know if I can make the journey any easier, but perhaps I can offer signposts that help the reader better understand what he or she has been going through, and may serve them in good stead for what may come next.

What a load of crap, Dolores snorted to herself, and gave up on the book. Holiness? What crap. Who believed this sort of bull anyway?

That was as far as Dolores' thoughts would carry. In her entire life, it had never occurred to her that 1) she might be fundamentally wrong about anything, and 2) that she had never thought deeply about any particular subject. Dolores had no idea that she was all surface and no depth. Her education had consisted of merely relaying information back to a teacher or professor. As a result, she had always been a B minus student, bad at math and science, mediocre in liberal arts and humanities. Her parents had been equally vapid and shallow-minded. The kind of people who found TV episodic dramas, police procedurals, or situation comedies as engrossing and fascinating at seventy-five as they had at fifteen; people who never noticed or tired of the recurring formulae and manipulations no matter how many times they saw the exact same story with different faces.

Dolores lay on her cot trying to avoid thinking about anything, staring up at the ceiling of the warehouse, watching dust motes in various shafts of light. After a period of time passed, a flurry of new noises occurred signaling to her that company might be coming. She sat up and saw a small group of men in lavender jumpsuits enter the men's common area. There was the mayor, the city manager, a few other department heads and managers, a couple of city councilmen.

Just then, too, the gate to her area slid open and a city councilwoman, Mary Ramirez, a well kempt woman in her early forties, entered. She had the now common deer-in-the-headlights look. Why is it that so many people never expect the worst and are shocked when it happens? Lifelong insulation from personal disaster, perhaps.

Dolores was ripe for conversation and tried to get one going with Mary, but it was useless for the time being. Then more people were processed through in both the male and female sides. The noise in the warehouse grew with charged and animated conversations, expletives and outbursts. On the perimeters of the enclosed areas, robots were deployed to patrol or stand guard. Soldiers were no longer seen, making it impossible for the prisoners to abuse them as they desperately desired.

John Devries, the city manager, assessed the situation after studying the two common areas filling with people of Bellingham. All were elected officials, managers and supervisors, union leaders, the chairmen of all the major political parties, heads of city and county departments, administrators and deans from the various universities, principals from schools, numerous professors and people notorious for political activity in radical causes (but hardly controversial for Bellingham).

He thought he understood. "They're decapitating us." No leaders or organizers. No one to lead the sheep, direct, or guide them. A chill suddenly passed through his body as the thought that they might all be murdered came to mind. Like rats in trap, he thought, and shuddered. Oddly enough, pictures from the Nazi Holocaust didn't occur to him. Well, it was a historical event that hadn't gotten much play for many decades. People knew the word Nazi well enough, and Fascist, but couldn't Commie or Marxist as seriously. You could still find posters of Che on college campuses or pictured on T-shirts worn in leftist protests.

Thinking about his wife and children, he wondered how this could be happening. Would he see his family again? He heard some man singing and looked up. It was a union guy he knew, always trying to be the clown, singing, "Hail, hail, the gang's all here. What the hell do we care; what the hell do we care . . ." It petered out. No one was in the mood for gallows humor.

Having met General Robertson, a few of his officers and soldiers, he was struck by how American they were, people just like himself, but now it was beginning to seep in that maybe he had no idea who these people were. They were foreign to him. Apart from language, he supposed they might as well be Martians operating out of a different book of rules, codes, and customs.

How do you appeal to their humanity when they're bloodless?

It never occurred to him that Robertson had appealed to his humanity concerning monstrous injustices visited upon his fellow citizens by true aliens. He found nothing bloodless about his own indifference. He didn't even notice he'd always been and remained indifferent. Nor did he notice that after his initial burst of violent anger, how passive he'd become. It seemed to be the default position not only for himself, but most others.

It was something Robertson had noticed, though. It made him think about the way the Arab marauders had found the Levant and North Africa such easy pickings. Decadence, passivity, love of comfort, and lack of faith formed a royal road to slavery.

Devries heard a new sound and looked up as did all the others. Music was coming in over a speaker system. It took a moment to recognize what it might be. A man nearby said, "It's Gregorian Chant, I think."

It was. The piece was called Puer Natus Est. Many more would follow.