Mask Slippages Dept.

     Consider Sundance’s observations:

     Why are state and local officials still shutting down businesses and the media still pushing the overall narrative of fear? Recently the highly manipulative left have stated that even after a person receives two vaccine shots, they must still wear a mask, remain socially distant, adhere with lockdowns and comply with all of the rules and restrictions….

     If there is no life benefit, then why get vaccinated?

     What many fail to realize is the purposeful deployment of COVID-19 was weaponized to achieve an objective. Those who are using COVID to create the great societal reset they desire are not going to let up. They need COVID-19 as a justification for the expansion of government and the fundamental changes they are attempting to initiate.

     Please read it all. He’s right in all particulars.

     The image of a mask slipping is unusually poignant just now. Yet masks are slipping all around these United States. Some of the faces being revealed look a wee bit abashed at having been found out. Others are tight with fury.

     It’s not about the disease. It’s about control. It was always about control. They knew it, we didn’t...and they did their level best to keep us from twigging to it.

     Fear was and is the key. A government that can instill unreasoning, paralyzing fear in its subjects can do whatever else it likes to them. But the fear must be fear of one another. Merely fearing some nebulous threat is insufficient. We must be made to fear those around us, perhaps even our most intimate relations and our closest friends.

     They had the media as allies.
     They intimidated our pastors and rabbis.
     They forced our traditional gathering places to close.

     They have atomized and confined us as thoroughly as it’s possible to do to Americans. If it weren’t for the Internet, many would be completely incapable of communicating with anyone outside their own homes. And it wasn’t just Democrats doing it.

     I stole the following from Free North Carolina:

     Reflect on that.

---

     The next question is always “the next question:”

What can we do about it?

     And the answer is always the same:

Whatever you personally can do.

     Are you paralyzed with fear? Are you afraid to walk into your office, your local grocery store, or your preferred pharmacy without a mask? Afraid to shake the hand of some friend or acquaintance you haven’t seen in a while? Afraid to post a sign on your business’s front door that says No one shall be admitted WITH a mask and tell the regulators and their myrmidons to stuff it where the moon don’t shine?

     They only have the authority we give them, you know. If enough of us tell them that their farce is over, then it’s over. What can they do? Imprison millions of Americans, when they’re already letting thousands of convicts out of the jails and prisons, supposedly to keep them from getting the WuFlu? Besides, aren’t we somewhat imprisoned already — and without the free food and medical care, at that?

     As a self-employed person who works out of his home, I’m in an anomalous position. I can’t be hurt, so I have nothing to lose. You might feel that you can’t take the risk of defying the “authorities.” You might feel that it would be improper to go shopping, or to church, or wherever without a face diaper. Inconsiderate of the feelings of those around you. But how much consideration do you owe them – and how much of it are they showing you?

Free men do not ask for their rights and freedom.
They take them.
Verbum sat sapienti.

     “Art dogs,” he thundered, “or men? Ball-less wonders, castrates all? Hear me! Form ranks!”

     [Frank Yerby, An Odor Of Sanctity]

     Have a nice day.

We’re Almost There

     You need to read this Julie Kelly column:

     Dave Morris was fed up.

     As a gainfully-employed television news reporter aired a live segment outside a small café to tell viewers that Morris was keeping his business open despite a government order to close it, the Portage, Michigan restaurant owner confronted him. The Kalamazoo Health Department had issued a warning to Morris on December 1 for allowing indoor dining against the wishes of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; he was instructed to shut down his business immediately or face a fine imposed by the government.

     The local journalist was on the scene, however, to tattle.

     “Everyone needs to stand up,” Morris told WWMT-TV reporter Tavarious Haywood on Wednesday. “This isn’t an order . . . this is tyranny. Wake up, stand up, this is America, be free.” (Haywood later tweeted about his own bravery in the face of an “angry business owner” who “interrupted” him.)

     Morris, who has owned D&R’s Daily Grind Cafe for 12 years, said he’s lost $100,000 in business this year and is going broke. “I can go down quietly or I can go down making some noise so people understand what’s going on,” he said.

     Dave Morris is an American hero, one I’d be proud to know personally and to stand beside. Anyone who reads the rest of the column without his blood pressure grazing 200 should check his pulse: you may have died and not noticed. A living American should be incensed to the point of violence.

     So why aren’t we?

---

     If we don’t rear up on our hind legs and rebel, we will lose everything: our rights, our property, and our children’s hopes of ever living in a free society. The time for it is long past. It was already behind us when the “authorities” reacted to the Wuhan virus by quarantining the entire country.

     Do it Gandhi’s way: simply ignore the tyrants, their decrees, their “regulatory bodies,” and their threats. Gandhi knew the British authorities could not impose their will on millions of Indians who wanted only to see them leave. The same is true for these United States. A sufficiently large mass of non-compliant Americans and their businesses will bring the edifice of tyranny crashing down.

     If enough Americans simply refuse to comply, the “authorities” will lose their nerve. They won’t send in the troops and tanks; it’s too likely that half or more of those troops and tanks would turn and fire on them. That’s one of the beauties of a “citizen army.”

     I sense that we’re almost there. The renewed “lockdowns,” mask mandates with no exit criterion, isolating demands such as that we “cancel Christmas,” and selective enforcement of totalitarian decrees against churches, schools, and small businesses have brought us very close to the edge. But we won’t be there until you, Gentle Reader, are willing to stand forth, say “I shall not comply,” and stand with your fellows.

     For there’s another “almost there” to consider: the point of no return. Americans’ compliance with the tyrants’ decrees has emboldened them to the point where they think they can get away with anything. “Rights be damned! Constitution be damned! If we say there’s a crisis, then there’s a crisis and you’ll do what we tell you. We’ll mobilize the whole weight of social opinion against you. The media will pillory you. Your employer will cast you out. Your friends and neighbors will shun you. Maybe even your family will disavow you. We will use our traditional weapon against you, one that has seldom failed to get us our way: fear.”

     To rebel, you have to be angry: angry enough that it overwhelms your fear. So ask yourself:

     What do I fear?
     Is the threat fact or fiction?
     How highly do I value my freedom?
     How angry am I at the tyrants?
     Why am I waiting for permission to live and work like a free man from tyrants who won’t even comply with their own dictates?

     Measure your anger against your fear. Which is greater – and why?

---

     This is the last time I’ll address this subject. Dave Morris is showing us the way. His example is what we need, not more blather from an old crank on Long Island. Anyway, Julie Kelly has said all that needs to be said, and I dislike repetition.

     “This is how these things happen, Vladimir. You see all your peasants smile and look sleepy and they say, ‘Oh, this is our lot in life,’ and then something happens and they all say, ‘We will die to keep them from doing this to our children.’ All in a night it can happen, Vladimir.” – Steven Brust

     “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams

     Have a nice day.

     UPDATE: Add this from John Hinderaker:

     The totalitarian impulse has been loosed, and a dismaying number of Americans are on board with it. Californians are now ordered to wear masks in their homes and cars, which is stupid on any interpretation of the data. They also are forbidden to leave their homes to, for example, walk their dogs. On the other hand, there are lots of exceptions. For a “critical” activity–like participating in a podcast–you can go out. In other words, peons stay home.

     I grew up in a time when everyone took it for granted that America was a liberty-loving country. If one kid tried to boss around another kid on a playground, the standard reply was: “It’s a free country!” I doubt that our children say that anymore. We are divided 50/50: half of us want America to be a free country, and half of us don’t. How we can manage to coexist is an open question.

     It cannot be said better than that.

Gaolers

     The first freedom is not freedom of expression, but rather freedom of movement: to go where one pleases, when and how one pleases, limited only by the rights of others. The imperative necessity of that freedom is what has animated the inventors of the wheel, the saddle, the horse-drawn buggy, the automobile, the train, the boat, the airplane, the helicopter, and the spacecraft. If a man’s freedom to move can be taken from him – with emphasis on his freedom to elude those who wish to control him – he can be made a slave: helplessly dependent on those who have confined him.

     This is a large part of the reason why freedom has been steadily sliced away since the closing of the land frontier. How does one get away from the tyrants today? Unless you have an ocean-going vessel and considerable skills, it’s all but impossible. So – I’m tempted to say “needless to say” – the would-be tyrants have been working to impede our freedom of movement at least since the invention of the automobile.

     Now read this:

     In October 2020, NASA’s Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey committee received a manifesto from its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group (EDIWG). Written by NASA Ames Research Center public-communications specialist Frank Tavares — along with a group of eleven co-authors including noted activists drawn from the fields of anthropology, ethics, philosophy, decolonial theory, and women’s studies — and supported by a list of 109 signatories, “Ethical Exploration and the Role of Planetary Protection in Disrupting Colonial Practices” lacks technical merit. It is, nevertheless of great clinical interest, as it brilliantly demonstrates how the ideologies responsible for the destruction of university liberal-arts education can be put to work to abort space exploration as well.

     With praiseworthy clarity as to their bias and intent, the EDIWG authors say that human space exploration must be stopped because it represents a continuation of the West’s tradition of resource development through free enterprise. “All of humanity is a stakeholder in how we, the planetary science and astrobiology community, engage with other worlds,” they say. “Violent colonial practices and structures — genocide, land appropriation, resource extraction, environmental devastation, and more — have governed exploration on Earth, and if not actively dismantled, will define the methodologies and mindsets we carry forward into space exploration....It is critical that ethics and anticolonial practices are a central consideration of planetary protection. We must actively work to prevent capitalist extraction on other worlds, respect and preserve their environmental systems, and acknowledge the sovereignty and interconnectivity of all life.”

     It can’t get any plainer than that, Gentle Reader. Please don’t dismiss it as a few cranks and crazies. These people have big resources behind them.

     Our would-be gaolers think their victory is in sight. Can’t let space travel actually mature to the point where people could flee this tyrant-infested ball of rock, should they choose. So they’ve mobilized one of their auxiliaries in an attempt to foreclose the option before it becomes practical – possibly to forestall the development of the technology that would make it practical.

     With that as the theme, allow me to present a segment of my novel Freedom’s Scion. It originally appeared as a short story, so you may have seen it already.

---

GAOLERS

     For fifteen months Liberty's Torch plodded onward at slightly over Michelson seven. The power from its fusion engine was insufficient to force swifter passage.
     Althea was near the limit of her endurance when the ship at last entered the cometary zone around her target star. She disengaged the permittivity drive, engaged the reaction drive, and activated the lidar scanners and broad-spectrum receivers.
     The receivers immediately caught a spread of multiply modulated signals in the microwave and higher frequencies. The lidar returns hinted at an artificial structure in orbit around the third planet of the system.
     Hope's first interstellar explorer had reached her intended destination. It appeared to be inhabited by a race as advanced as Man on Hope, if not more so. And she had no clear idea how to proceed.

* * *
     When Liberty’s Torch reached the outer margins of the K-class star’s system of planets, Althea slowed to 50 miles per second. The signals and lidar returns she had interpreted as evidence of habitation by intelligent life while in the cometary zone had grown far stronger. A large spherical mass with a visible-light reflectance of nearly 100% orbited the third planet from the primary. She corrected course minutely, slowed still further, and observed closely.
     The object was without detectable external features. Its orbit was coplanar with that of the third planet from the system’s primary. It appeared not to rotate around any axis. Its smoothness and spherical perfection spoke of high power sources and extreme craftsmanship flawlessly executed in zero gravity. It was all too obviously a space station.
     The station was emitting electromagnetic radiation in regularly spaced pulses, at a wavelength of 1215 angstroms. Liberty’s Torch’s receivers classified it as a probable attempt to communicate. Althea braked still further and activated the recorders, but made no immediate attempt to interpret the signal stream.
     Should I reciprocate? It might be no more intelligible to them.
     She activated the communications laser, set the modulation to unencrypted analog, and spliced in the voice output.
     “To the entity or entities aboard the space station,” she intoned, “This is Althea Morelon, mistress of interstellar vessel Liberty’s Torch. My people call our world Hope. Our system is about...” She paused for thought. “About as far from here as light will travel in eleven of your revolutions around your primary star. My intentions are peaceful. I wish to make contact, but I’m uncertain how to proceed. If you can interpret this message, please respond in kind with your rules for a visit to your system and for docking with your station. Liberty’s Torch will loiter here until I hear from you.” She disconnected the voice output and waited.
     Martin's exhortation to avoid what risks she could rose to her thoughts.
     If they can tight-beam Lyman-alpha radiation that I can detect from the cometary belt, they have to have one helluva power source aboard that station. I’d better play very, very nice.
     The answer arrived at once, in a musical alto voice.
     “Welcome to Loioc system, Mistress Morelon. We have awaited your arrival with much pleasure. Please brake to approximately 1/5 of your current velocity while we analyze your vessel’s hull and compose docking instructions.”
     Althea put a tight rein on her rising excitement and complied.

* * *
     The Loioc were bipedal and humanoid. Unless the pair that awaited Althea in the station’s docking bay were non-representative, they stood somewhat shorter than Earth-derived Man. The more closely she focused on either one, the more apparent were the subtle deviations that marked their departures from Terrestrial humanity. Their proportions were slightly different, possibly owing to having adapted to a stronger or weaker gravity. The resting angles of their limbs diverged slightly as well. Their faces were exquisitely beautiful, as human as anyone could wish, with smiles as welcoming as any she had ever seen.
     She doffed her helmet and took her first breath of their air. It was rich with oxygen, and carried a subtle hint of sweetness.
     “Yes,” the one on the left said, “our respiratory needs are a good match for yours as well. Welcome to our home, Mistress Morelon. How may we make you comfortable?”
     “Well,” Althea said, “for starters, you could tell me how to address you.” And maybe fill me in about how you learned to speak English.
     The one on the left nodded. “I am called Efthis. My husband,” she said, turning to her left, “is named Vellis.” She took his hand, and he gazed at her in evident affection. “No doubt you are curious about my mastery of the English language.”
     Althea chuckled. “Well, yes.”
     “These past thirteen hundred years,” Efthis said, “Hope has emitted radio signals of sufficient variety for us to deduce virtually the whole of your tongue. Indeed, we have watched your race from well before your ancestors’ flight from Earth. We have long looked forward to meeting you.”
     “Is yours a spacefaring race,” Althea said, “apart from this station?”
     “It was once,” Efthis replied. “No longer. In fact, this is the only offworld presence our race maintains.”
     Althea frowned. “Why?”
     Efthis’s gentle smile acquired a hint of world-weariness. “Let us say we saw all that we wished to see, and somewhat more.” She glanced at her husband and nodded toward the interior, and he nodded in response. “Come, let us refresh ourselves together, and I shall tell you whatever you might wish to know.”
     They turned as one, and Althea followed them into the depths of the station.

* * *
     “I don’t believe it,” Althea said.
     Efthis cocked a hair-thin eyebrow. “Surely your people enjoy a warm bath after a day of exertion?” She swiftly divested herself of her coverall. Vellis followed suit, and the two climbed into what was plainly a large hot tub.
     “Well...yes.”
     But in company with a couple of aliens? All right, they seem to be very nice aliens...so far, anyway.
     Oh, what the hell.
     She unzipped her vacuum suit, stepped out of it, groped for her gunbelt and realized, to her displeasure, that in the excitement of first contact she’d forgotten to arm herself.
     Probably wouldn’t matter anyway. A race that could build this station and give it nearly a gee of gravity without spinning it would laugh at a Wolzman needler.
     She removed her coverall, tossed it aside, climbed carefully over the side of the tub, and took a seat facing her hosts.
     Vellis’s eyes immediately fixed upon her, wide in undisguised fascination. He looked pleadingly at his wife. She studied him for a moment, then turned to Althea with a faintly mysterious expression.
     “Vellis would like to touch you,” she said. “Would you permit it?”
     “Uh...” Oh, why not? They’re probably puzzled that I’m not just as curious about their bodies. “Sure, okay.”
     Efthis nodded to Vellis, who flowed across the water between him and Althea so swiftly that he was upon her before she realized it.
     “Upon her,” indeed. The Loioc male wrapped himself around Althea, arms and legs both. He squirmed against her in a powerfully erotic fashion. His erection probed for her vagina with no pretense to the contrary. The surprise of it paralyzed her.
     “Efthis,” she croaked, counter-squirming to keep Vellis’s phallus from finding the orifice it sought, “just what is Vellis doing?”
     Efthis frowned. “He’s trying to merge with you. I would have thought that was obvious. Are you offended?”
     “Uh, no, but...” Are you? “Why?” And why hasn’t he said a word since I arrived here?
     “You’re very beautiful,” Efthis said. “Wouldn’t a male of Hope want to merge with you? Or is it not permitted for some reason?”
     “Well, uh, yes, it’s...permitted,” Althea said. You think I’m beautiful? Vellis’s squirming was becoming frenzied. He had begun to whimper. “But this is...a bit sudden.”
     Efthis shrugged. “It’s up to you. Enjoy him as you wish, and for as long as you wish.” She smiled. “If you’d like to test whether he can impregnate you, I have no objection to it.”
     “Uh, not just now, but thanks for the...hospitality. Maybe later.” She forced her arms between her and the squirming Loioc male and thrust him forcibly away. Vellis shrieked at the separation. He wriggled frantically, lashing the water into little waves of anguish, in an attempt to re-establish the embrace. Althea held him at arm’s length with only modest effort.
     I’ve got to ask.
     “Efthis,” she said in a carefully controlled tone, “Vellis is mute, isn’t he?”
     Efthis frowned again. “Of course. Isn’t it obvious?”
     There’s too much obvious stuff going on here. I shouldn’t have relaxed.
     Althea nodded, holding the agitated male firmly away from her. “Is it by accident, or was he born that way?”
     The Loioc’s frown deepened further. “Born that way, of course.” She emitted a whistle of elaborate modulation. Vellis immediately ceased to struggle against Althea’s restraint. She relaxed her grip, and he returned to Efthis’s side reluctantly and with a look of frustration.
     “Well,” Althea said, “you must love him very much.”
     “Love?” Efthis said. “How does one love a nonsentient?”
     “What?”
     “Vellis is incapable of rational thought. He’s been conditioned to be loyal to me. He knows nothing of love, no more than an animal of the field.”
     “But...” Althea groped for words. “Your husband?”
     The Loioc woman nodded. “Yes. He husbands me. He fertilizes my eggs, when and as I permit. He need not be sentient for that.” She leaned forward to peer more closely into Althea’s face. “All our males are nonsentient. Just as yours will be, in time.”

* * *
     Vellis protested with a whimper that was nearly a howl, but Efthis spoke sharply and stamped one delicate foot, and the Loioc male became submissive. At his mistress’s direction, he went reluctantly into a room whose sole furnishings were a thin mattress, a hassock, and a large box filled with some crumbly substance, sat upon the hassock in a peculiarly canine fashion, and bowed his head. Efthis swung the room’s door, a grate of closely spaced metal bars, closed with a muted clang and twisted a knob that sent a deadbolt home. She turned back to Althea with an air of chagrin.
     “I must beg your pardon,” the Loioc said. “Despite all the study we have made of Hope and its people, I had momentarily forgotten that you allow your males to remain sentient. Indeed, that fact has caused no small amount of consternation among our people. We have awaited true, bidirectional intercourse with you with great eagerness for that reason among others.”
     We allow our males to remain sentient?
     “I had assumed,” she said, measuring out the words, “that this...condition was a consequence of some unfortunate cosmic phenomenon. Maybe a radiation field that swept over your home world, or something like that. You...engineered it? Genetically?”
     Efthis had led her to a rather conventional-looking kitchenette, complete with sink, faucet, counter, table, and chairs, and bade her to sit. The Loioc pulled open a large metal cabinet, extracted a pitcher and two glasses, and brought them to the table.
     “This is called kiara,” Efthis said. “It’s a fruit juice, moderately sweet, with a mildly acidic tang. You might enjoy it. Would you like to try it?”
     “Efthis...” Althea said, “I do appreciate your hospitality, but how do I know it’s not toxic to me? Just because we look alike?”
     Efthis smiled. “I had your body chemistry analyzed while you were in the bath with us. Our metabolisms are nearly perfectly identical. What would poison you would be equally lethal to me, if not more so.”
     “Why did you do that?”
     The Loioc gestured at the pitcher. “To know whether we could do this, for one thing.” She poured generous helpings of juice into both glasses and passed one to Althea. “For another, so that I could be certain that our body-maintenance devices can repair you, should you come to any harm while you are my guest.”
     Althea started to say got my own, thanks, and held her tongue.
     “So you’re completely self-sufficient here? Food, clothing, energy, medicine, diversions all taken care of?” She sniffed at the glass of kiara. Its aroma was as Efthis had described it: moderately sweet, with a citrus-like tang. Unsure of the proprieties but unwilling to proceed solely on Efthis’s assurances, she set the glass down and pushed it a little away.
     Efthis nodded. “Completely. It was a condition of the assignment. To be supplied with our necessities from groundside, with all the complexities and intrusions that would entail, would be entirely too troublesome for all concerned.”
     “But you could return to the planetary surface if you chose, couldn’t you?”
     “Oh yes,” Efthis said. “We have a one-way vehicle docked on the other side of the station.” She smiled. “Believe me, from time to time these past eight years, I’ve felt the urge to return. However, my relief won’t be ready to assume her duties for another two years, so it would be viewed with disfavor.”
     She and her...husband must have a lot of ways to keep occupied.
     “Concerning your earlier question,” the Loioc said, “yes, we quenched the sentience of our males by decision and design. What we learned from comparable races, to say nothing of our own experiences, made it imperative.
     “Before we did so, our world was riven by every kind of strife and madness. Loioc males were quite as aggressive and proprietary as yours, and we females could do little to mitigate their tendencies toward violence and destruction. The nations of our world were almost continuously at war.
     “Your ancestors on Earth provided a fertile field for study,” Efthis said. “Were you aware that over the two millennia that preceded your people’s departure from that system, your planet of origin had known peace—real peace, not merely a temporary lull in the slaughters—for a grand total of three days? That throughout the rest of that interval of history, Earth males had been killing and being killed, laying waste to whatever they could reach?
     “You, Althea, are the beneficiary of what progress your race could achieve despite the continuity of slaughter. Your achievements and those of your kindred began from the plateau of knowledge and technology build by those who preceded you—those who managed not to fall as the ordnance flew around them. By our measures, you of Hope have reached a technological level perhaps seventy-five percent as high as we Loioc have attained. At that, Hope has not progressed as far as the Earthly societies from which it was derived. I shall not denigrate it, even so. But have you ever contemplated how much higher your world would have risen—how much greater your own achievements would have been, Althea—had Earth known the blessings of peace?
     “About twenty-two hundred of your years ago, a great geneticist isolated the constellation of genes and alleles that give rise to a brain capable of sentience and rational thought. It was well that she was female and discreet. She immediately conceived of the application to the pacification of our race, and set about assembling a team that would construct a nanite that would unmake the sentience constellation in our male progeny. As soon as they were certain it was effective and safe, they flooded the waters of our world with the devices. Within fifty years, there was virtually no violence among us.”
     She glanced back at the door of Vellis’s cell. “My husband is typical of Loioc males. His brain masses to about sixty percent of mine. His ability to communicate is limited to what he can absorb through conditioning: simple sounds and simple gestures. He’s not the sort of companion with whom I could have a conversation such as this.” Efthis smiled. “But he essays no violence. He recognizes females—Loioc females, at least—as his superiors by inborn instinct, and submits to us without hesitation. Now that he’s been conditioned for personal loyalty, he does as I command him, and nothing more.
     “We had a few regrets, of course. Society was more dynamic, and more interesting, before we unmade our males’ minds. But the consensus was that a degree of social and economic stasis would be a small price to pay for the elimination of the horrors male aggression had brought us. At any rate, that door is closed forever. The nanites are self-replicating. The waters of our world are saturated with them, and they can never be seined out.”
     Althea suppressed her desire to shudder and did her best to smile.
     “If you had asked your men whether they would agree to be...pacified that way,” she said pleasantly, “do you think any great number of them would have said yes, do it?”
     Efthis shrugged. “Possibly not, but what does it matter? The moral imperative was too obvious to permit any resistance. We had learned all too well what develops when male aggression is permitted to operate unchecked.” She waved an elfin hand. “You would not find a Loioc anywhere below who’s unsatisfied with the arrangement.”
     Except the ones who can no longer say so.
     “I think the women of Hope would have a different opinion,” Althea said. “We love our men as they are. I can’t imagine perpetrating the sort of...adjustment on them that you’ve inflicted upon yours. In fact, among us what your great geneticist did would constitute an unimaginably vile crime, the rape of an entire species. She would be ostracized for life if she were even to suggest it.”
     Althea paused for a moment of reflection, and smiled. “Hope has never known war, or mass violence of any other sort. We left that sort of madness behind us when we set out from Earth. I doubt my sisters could bring themselves to think as yours do, no matter how eloquently you might argue it to them.”
     Efthis raised an eyebrow. “No war or mass violence, you say? Then why does nearly every denizen of your world go armed whenever he ventures beyond his home?”
     Althea shrugged. “Simple caution. Men—humans, both sexes, have free will and the capacity for evil. Besides, you never know what might come up.”
     “And from where might some threat that requires an armed response arise, Althea?” Efthis’s smile acquired a predatory edge. “Which of the two sexes are you being cautious about?”
     Althea’s temper strained against her leash. “We like our men as they are,” she grated. “They’re our partners in...” What did Martin call it? “...in the adventure of life. Not a threat we have to defend ourselves against at all costs.” She hardened her expression into lines of defiance. “You can keep those clever little nanites for yourselves.”
     Efthis smiled slyly. “Is that why you haven’t touched your kiara, Althea?”
     Despite her resolution to maintain her reserve, Althea felt a snarl form on her features.
     “What do you think, Mistress Efthis?”
     “I think you need not deprive yourself,” Efthis said. “You’ve been thoroughly infused with the nanites since a few seconds after you stepped into the bath. We are no more willing to allow your males than ours to pollute our galactic neighborhood with their violent ways. You will be the instrument of their gentling.”
     A tidal wave of fury surged within Althea Morelon. She reeled from her sudden, all but overpowering desire to smash, kill, and lay waste around her.
     “When I return to Hope,” Althea ground out, “the men of my world will very likely construct and commission an expeditionary fleet—a well armed fleet—and send it here. I can’t be certain what they’ll do when they get here, but I doubt you and your sisters groundside will find it pleasant.”
     The Loioc’s smile turned superior.
     “Then you will not be returning to Hope.”
     “Oh? Do you have a way to stop me?”
     Efthis rose from the table, turned toward a dim corridor into the station, and indicated with a negligent wave of her hand that Althea should follow.

* * *
     “The mechanism you see via this viewscreen,” Efthis said, “occupies most of the volume of this station. It generates a high-intensity muon flux that permeates the galactic disk for two hundred light-years around. It’s powered by our sun, it’s self-repairing, and it cannot be turned off. Alone of all the children of Earth, you have learned how to negate the effects of that flux and relax the so-called speed-of-light limitation. But since you passed within the cometary belt, the flux has been far too intense for your ship’s superluminal drive to countervail. Nor will it avail you to exit our system on your reaction drive alone, for the suppressor has already infiltrated and taken command of your drive. You will not achieve interstellar velocities again unless I permit it.”
     Althea gazed in silence at the huge, faintly humming machine that held her prisoner.
     I never thought I’d find a machine that’s an abomination, all by itself, just because of what it can do.
     She closed her eyes, set her viewpoint free of her body, and sped it into the vast machine.
     The thing was complex beyond Althea’s understanding. It possessed hundreds of interlinked subsystems, only a few of which resembled anything she knew. She thought she could identify radiation sources and targets, direct-and-deflect conduits, baffles for stray emissions and sinks for excess heat. But far more assemblages were completely opaque to her comprehension. Some of them, though they appeared to be as unitary as gemstones, possessed internal structures of bewildering intricacy. She could not even be certain where any component began and ended. The whole hinted at properties of space-time and modes of matter-energy interaction beyond her attainments.
     She tested her telekinesis against a handful of the smaller pieces. None of them moved detectably, even when she exerted her full power.
     It doesn’t matter. I can’t just wrench a few bits of this contraption loose telekinetically and call the job finished. Not as long as it might retain the ability to fix itself, or if the Loioc might discover the damage and repair it...and not as long as I don’t really know what I’m doing.
     The whole thing has to go.
     “What’s the price for my freedom?” she said at last.
     Efthis turned toward her, a glittering metallic torque in one hand.
     “You must agree to wear this. It contains an advanced artificial intelligence, equipped with a full suite of environmental sensors, that will sense any attempt to violate the ethical constraints programmed into it. It also contains a generator capable of shocking you into unconsciousness, which will activate at any attempt, even a dubious one, to commit a violation or to remove it from your body.”
     Althea peered at the gleaming thing. “You have artificial intelligences that can read a person’s body language and forestall undesirable actions?”
     “Not entirely body language, Althea,” Efthis said. “Look at the inner surface of the torque.”
     Althea leaned in for a close inspection. At close range, a great many filaments, each one finer than a hair, became visible. “Neural probes?”
     Efthis nodded. “Quite sensitive ones. They give the onboard intelligence a way to anticipate the wearer’s actions, as well as react to his current ones. It’s how we restrain our few remaining lawbreakers without having to incarcerate them.” She smiled.
     Althea had seen that smile before. It was that of a woman who knows, beyond all possibility of contradiction, that she holds all the trumps. Her blood rose. She answered the Loioc’s smile with one of her own.
     “How clever,” Althea said. “I suppose I’ve no choice. But may I ask a question first?”
     Efthis cocked an eyebrow.
     “How do your sisters travel the galaxy?”
     The Loioc frowned. “We don’t. The suppressor’s speed-of-light restriction binds us as firmly as any other world within the machine’s radius of effect.”
     Althea widened her eyes. “But a race as advanced as yours must be working on some alternative, surely?”
     Darkness touched Efthis’s features. “Of course. We’ve been researching teleportation for centuries, but so far it’s remained out of reach. Entropic effects arising from the energies required fatally disorder anything we try to teleport.”
     “I see,” Althea said. “Has it ever occurred to you that those effects might be due to an even more advanced race’s suppression of your desire to wander the stars?” She gestured at the viewscreen. “Just as you’ve used that machine in there to confine the peoples around you?”
     Efthis’s mouth dropped open. She glanced at the huge machine, Althea moved with sudden, violent speed, and the Loioc fell to the floor unconscious.
     “Bitch,” Althea muttered as she hoisted the smaller woman into a fireman’s carry. “Never tell a Morelon there’s something he can’t do. Now just where do you keep your stash of rope?”

* * *
     It took a while to locate the reentry vehicle Efthis had mentioned and secure the unconscious Loioc female in one of its seats. It took still longer to persuade the badly frightened Vellis that Althea meant him no harm, that it was safe to leave his cell and go where she directed him. Eventually she had the two properly strapped into their anti-acceleration chairs and ready for launch.
     One more thing to see to.
     She returned to Liberty’s Torch, powered up her voice recorder, and dictated a brief message.
     “This is Althea Morelon, mistress of interstellar vessel Liberty’s Torch from Hope, approximately eleven light-years out toward the galactic rim. I’ll be returning to Hope in just a little while, to tell my compatriots all about your society. I expect my reports will make them very angry. I expect that they’ll decide to do something about you...and that the time you’ll have to brace yourselves for our next visit will be a lot shorter than you’d like.
     “As you can see, I’ve returned your sentinels—excuse me, your gaolers to your loving arms. Don’t treat them too harshly. They did their best. They just didn’t reckon with having to face a Morelon. Anyway, try to smile about it all. I’m leaving you a present. Before I depart your system, you’ll have the same interstellar potential I’ve contrived for us of Hope. Think you’ll be able to make use of it without the help of your menfolk?
     “That’s all for now. Althea Morelon signing out.”
     She transferred the recording to a memory cartridge, returned to the reentry craft, and tucked it into a pocket of Efthis’s coverall. As she made to leave, Vellis looked up at her and whimpered.
     “Sorry, fella,” she murmured. “I can’t do a thing for you. Maybe we’ll be back to help your kids, some day.”
     She stepped out of the hatch and closed it behind her.

* * *
     When Liberty’s Torch’s sensors showed the reentry craft to be safely beyond Efthis’s station, Althea seated herself at the command console and strove to compose herself for her next moves. She checked the ship’s tanks of reaction mass, did a swift mental calculation, reached for the reaction drive igniter, and took a deep breath.
     It had to be Loioc men who built this abomination. The women would never have dared. The dangers of large-scale construction in space are far too great. They probably used collars like the one Efthis threatened me with to compel them to comply.
     But were they derationalized creatures like Vellis, or were they intact men? If the former, how could they have coped with the complexities? If the latter, what did the women promise them for their cooperation? A homeland of their own, where they could live as they pleased to their dying days? Or a privileged status of some sort among their derationalized brethren?
     Her thoughts veered toward an even less pleasant subject.
     An isolated group of genes responsible for sentience? Just one group that can be removed without damaging the rest of the genetic code? Not bloody likely. I should have probed for more details. What did the excision of the sentience constellation do to the rest of the male physiognomy? Was their strength reduced? Their dexterity? Their endurance? Their lifespan? What sort of process did the “great geneticist” go through in deciding that the tradeoff would be worthwhile?
     She tried to imagine Martin reaved of his intellect and reduced to a well-conditioned slave. To a mindless, soulless thing, good only for what his sinews could do and his heart and lungs could endure. The thought was enough to revive her fury. It burned white hot at the center of her soul—a soul whose reality she could no longer doubt, a soul uniquely and indissolubly hers beyond any possibility of separation.
     Only a part of her in direct contact with the moral laws of the universe could have flamed into such righteous rage.
     What right did they have? How on Hope—strike that; how in the galaxy did they convince themselves that this was their prerogative?
     Women have been civilizing the men of Hope for thirteen centuries. We’ve never needed to geld them. They’ve fought no wars. They’ve taken no slaves. They’ve erected no States, which is where all the other horrible ideas always came from. Maybe doing it our way, with love and devotion and lives filled with family and enterprise and riches, just seemed to the Loioc women like too much work.
     The more fools they.
     Another unpleasant possibility rose to bedevil her.
     Will the menfolk of Hope burn as fiercely as I do over this obscenity, or will it fall to Clan Morelon to arrange vengeance and salvation for their cousins on the world below?
     Will it fall to me?
     It doesn’t matter. If no one else will lead the expedition, I’ll do it myself. Strike that: I’ll do it, period. I’ll craft the warships, invent the weapons, and build the armada. I’ll train the leadership cadre and inspire the troops. I’ll bring the hammer of vengeance down on these arrogant bitches. And I’ll make a thorough job of it.
     She engaged the reaction drive, opened the exhaust baffles wide, sent power to the attitude jets, and slowly circumnavigated the station.
     She bathed the Loioc space station from end to end in the fusion plume. The station was tough; it had to be to accept, contain, and direct the energies required for its duties. But it wasn’t nearly tough enough to resist temperatures kindled in the heart of a star. Within minutes, the shell of the station had softened and turned to slag. The shell and all its contents were no more than plasma shortly thereafter.
     It never occurred to you that a mere female might have a little violence in her soul, did it, Efthis? Enough to deal with you and turn the door of your jail cell into a cloud of incandescent gas? Enough to return with a fleet of ships and weapons sufficient to deliver your menfolk from bondage and treat you and your sisters to the fate you’ve earned?
     In time, bitch. In time. I have a little more physics to do, and a lot more planning. But I’ll be back. With a fleet and a gaggle of angry companions...some of them women.
     When she could see that the destruction was complete, Althea nodded in satisfaction, damped the main drive, constricted the exhaust baffles, pulsed the attitude thrusters to reorient the ship for system exit, and headed for the cometary belt to top off the ship’s reaction mass tanks.
     When Liberty’s Torch had ingested enough cometary ice to bring her reaction-mass reserves to maximum, she went to high thrust and swiftly left the last objects in the outer system well behind. A few hours later, the densitometers declared that the vacuum was thin enough to go superluminal. She disengaged the reaction drive and briefly contemplated the return journey.
     An elaborate procedure was required to prepare the ship for an automated return to Hope system. She’d allowed for the possibility that it might be needed and had designed the necessary control linkages and software to make it possible, but of course had never tried it out.
     No help for it. As soon as I’m under superluminal drive and properly headed up, I’m getting into the medipod. With luck, it will find the nanites and strain them out of me. Without...God, be with me.
     She had to be certain she’d been thoroughly purged of them before she would allow herself to return to the surface of Hope.

==<O>==

Copyright © 2013 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

An Early Morning Thought

     For me, early morning is the time for “thinking about the unthinkable,” as the late, great Herman Kahn once put it. The “unthinkable” has many sub-varieties. One of them is the degradation of the United States into just one more totalitarian hellhole.

     “But how could that happen?” I hear you cry. If Project Veritas has its facts right, it’s happening now:

     If federal agents are really doing this, then it’s time for a Second American Revolution.

     It might start small:

     Devin came awake in the darkness to see his brother’s silhouette gliding down the sleeping loft’s stairs. Andrew was fully dressed. He moved with the silent fluidity of a great hunting cat on the stalk.
     Devin sat up and strained to hear whatever disturbance in the night had alerted Andrew, but nothing reached him. He threw off his sheet and clattered down the stairs, coming to a halt just before he crashed into his brother. Andrew smirked at him in the near-total darkness.
     “What’s up, Drew?”
     The elder MacLachlan put a finger to his lips. “Go get dressed. Make it quick.”
     Devin raced back up the stairs. When he’d clothed himself and descended again, Andrew handed him the shotgun, then took down the Winchester and headed for the cabin door.
     Andrew hurried down the dirt path that was the only connection between the cabin and the world beyond his freehold. Devin followed close behind, straining to match his brother’s stealth of movement. About three hundred yards from the cabin, Andrew waved him off the path and into the thick brush that flanked it. They crouched and waited. Nothing moved in the meager light from the almost-new moon.
     About a minute later, Devin heard a low grinding sound from something moving ponderously up the path. It took a few seconds before he could identify it: wide pneumatic tires at low pressure. Someone was driving an off-road vehicle toward the cabin.
     He started to rise, but Andrew’s hand descended on his shoulder and squeezed. The elder MacLachlan’s eyes were fixed on the road.
     The vehicle came into view. It looked to be a luxury four-by-four that had been painted a dark forest green. Its weight pressed its enormous tires nearly flat against the dirt path. Its headlights were off. Behind the windscreen Devin could see two faces, both expressionless.
     He glanced at his brother. Andrew remained statue-still.
     When the truck was within ten yards of their lookout, there was a bright flash and a loud report, and one of its tires disintegrated. The vehicle listed immediately and violently. For an instant Devin expected it to flip, but it righted itself narrowly and came to a halt.
     Two tall, husky men in dark clothing dismounted quickly from the truck and squatted to look at the denuded wheel. Andrew rose silently and moved toward them. Devin hurried to catch up.
     The first of them to notice Andrew’s approach rose and turned to catch the Winchester’s stock squarely across his face. There was a crunching of teeth and bone, a spray of blood, and the intruder went down. The other turned without rising, while simultaneously trying to free a gun from a back holster. Winnie caught him under the chin with an even sharper crack. He flipped backward and sprawled in the dust. Both lay still.
     Andrew stared down at them with the rifle at the ready. Devin swallowed his heart.
     “You’re not going to kill them, are you?”
     Andrew shook his head. “No need. Fetch their guns and wallets.”
     While Andrew watched, Devin rifled the two unconscious men’s pockets. Both yielded up automatics, billfolds and badge folders. The badges identified their possessors as employees of the Department of Justice. Devin handed the folders to Andrew, who glanced at them and nodded with no hint of surprise.
     Well, who else would it have been?
     “What next, Drew?”
     Andrew’s eyes darted to the truck. “Take a look at their cargo, see what you can make of it.”
     The back of the truck was full of electronic gear Devin couldn’t identify. It could have been sophisticated spy equipment, or parts for obsolete radios and televisions. He looked at his brother and shrugged.
     “No weapons?”
     “Nope.”
     “Too bad.” Andrew beckoned Devin back to his side and handed him the Winchester. “Cover ‘em.”
     Devin held the rifle on the uninvited guests and watched as his brother crushed the fingers of each man’s right hand with a savage blow from the heel of his boot. They returned to consciousness with much shrieking.
     Andrew stepped back, reclaimed his rifle from Devin and leveled it at the two men. Their screams stopped at once.
     “You’re trespassing. This is private property, and it’s posted every sixty feet for its whole perimeter. Get into your buggy and get back down that path before I send you to hell where you belong.”
     “We’re federal agents,” one hissed. He clutched his freshly maimed hand to his chest.
     Andrew nodded. “I know that. I decided to spare your lives anyway. Don’t make me feel a fool for doing it.” He raised the Winchester and sighted it.
     The intruders fled.

     ...or it might start really big. But one way or another, the time will have come.

Planned Chaos: A Coda

Macdonough’s Song

Whether the State can loose and bind
     In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
     Before or after the birth--
These are matters of high concern
     Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
     Endeth in Holy War.

Whether The People be led by The Lord,
     Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
     Or cheaper to die by vote--
These are things we have dealt with once,
     (And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
     Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,
     Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
     Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King--
     Or Holy People's Will--
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
     Order the guns and kill!
          Saying --after--me:--

Once there was The People--Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain!
Once there was The People--it shall never be again!

-- Rudyard Kipling --

The Expiration Of Traditional Conservatism

     There’s a new conservatism in town. The old one, which feels itself being displaced, doesn’t like it. No surprise there, I suppose. But it’s worthy of a few words of examination on a relatively quiet Thursday morning.

     The old, “traditional” conservatism that feels itself being displaced is probably best characterized by a statement the late William F. Buckley made many years ago about his conception of the role of the conservative:

     A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

     “Stop,” of course, means “Stop here. Go no further.” It is a slogan against change, rather than for any particular value. It is the outcry of the defeated party anxious for an armistice that will preserve what he still holds against further incursions by his enemy. It is a maxim that implicitly admits failure.

     The pre-Trump GOP, to the extent that it was “conservative” in any sense, was that kind of conservative. It conceded that the enemy – left-liberalism, social democracy, “progressivism,” what have you – had gained much ground. It did not fight for the ground it had lost; rather, it accepted the Left’s gains as irreversible. It merely hoped to thwart any further left-wing gains, especially in economic and fiscal matters.

     But a “hold our ground” position will always be attacked with the enemy’s full force. Without a counter-initiative pressed with vigor and resolve, it will continue to lose ground. So “hold our ground” comes to mean “lose our ground as slowly as possible.”

     Yet that variety of conservatism appeals to many. Humans are extraordinarily adaptable. Given time, we adapt to changes in our environment, including our legal environment, with changes in ourselves and our behavioral patterns that will preserve as much of what we value as possible. But “change is hard, and difficulty makes people impatient.” (Arthur Herzog) Traditional conservatism, with its message of resistance to further change, appeals to our adaptability and our dislike of change itself.

     Once men have adapted to a set of changes, keeping things as they are appears to be “the path of least action.” It seems to require the least thought and effort from us. We’ve adapted; we’re still doing reasonably well; why exert ourselves any further? Especially if in our hearts we believe that the changes forced upon us are “here to stay” — ?

     If history has any enduring message about sociopolitical systems and their dynamics, it’s that the most difficult of all feats is staying in one place.

---

     My thoughts this morning were nudged in this direction by this most recent piece from Wes Rhinier:

     [H]istory proves and human nature holds true that the only time people are motivated to change is when the turmoil and pain of change is better than the current state of affairs. Right now I don’t think many people are happy with how our country is at this point in time.

     As long as we continue to vote for the lesser of two evils the best we can ever hope for is the status quo. But evil and the power hungry will never settle for status quo, they will always want even more power. We are losing ground by continuing to play their game, on their terms.

     As long as everyone has remained fat, happy and entertained, people have seemed content to justify voting for the system.

     Now, Wes’s essay is a broadside against simply “voting for the lesser of two evils:” Republicans rather than Democrats. And it has merit – if there is no prospect for converting the GOP from its traditional “Stop here” conservatism to the more modern variety which the policies of Donald Trump have largely expressed. That modern, Trumpian conservatism is founded on a question:

What should we be trying to conserve?

     If we can arrive at coherent answers to that question – answers that would be widely agreed upon – we will simultaneously answer the related questions:

What is not worth conserving?
What must we oppose with all our power?

     My question, to Wes and my other Gentle Readers, is a simple one:

Can we transform the Republican Party:
Away from its “Stop here” legacy,
Into a party that promotes freedom and American sovereignty?

     I hold that this question, which is seldom seriously addressed and almost never seriously answered, is the crux of our contemporary political discourse.

---

     William F. Buckley was no fool. Indeed, he possessed a powerful intellect and a great erudition. One of his other statements, which seems to qualify the “stand athwart history yelling Stop” maxim, runs thus:

     Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great....The laws concerning marijuana aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating....General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend.

     While that addresses a single contentious issue, the general principle to which it alludes – Each of us has the right to go to Hell after his own fashion – is an important one. While Buckley was willing to consider exceptions to that principle, he would not do so lightly, nor without pondering the consequences and alternatives.

     If there must be exceptions to the principle of individual freedom, let them be as few as possible. Never accede to one without soberly contemplating the probable consequences. Traditional conservatism often espoused policies that had grave consequences – far worse than the goals held out for those policies – that could have been foreseen, whether from simple reasoning or from historical precedents. It is from that sort of dogmatic, uncontemplative conservatism that we must retreat.

     President Trump’s thinking and preferences appear to incline in the direction of a new, freedom-centered conservatism. For me, the question of the hour is whether we can swing the rest of the Republican Party into his orbit, or whether he’s fated to be a glitch on the graph of history. If it is still possible to make the GOP into a party of freedom that isn’t overrun by fringe loonies and anti-Americans, then the time for revolution, and the chaos and bloodshed it would entail, is not yet upon us.

     Thoughts?

Declaration Of Personal Emancipation

     It’s time for some personal assertions of freedom.

     I broke a pair of glasses, just yesterday. I thought to bring them to where I purchased them, whether to be repaired or replaced. But at the door was a sign that informed the prospective customer that no one would be allowed inside without a mask. I turned around, went directly home, and emailed them that they’d lost my patronage.

     I’m in New York, one of the least free, most sheeplike states in the U.S. I can’t move for reasons of family. And I chafe at the complete idiocy of persons wearing useless face coverings and demanding that I do the same as a condition of doing business with me. When the demander is in the medical field, the irritation is especially great, as these cloth masks don’t even inconvenience the tiny COVID-19 virus. All they do is impede one’s breathing while reducing one’s recognizability.

     The worst part is the cowardice. “Well, it’s corporate policy.” Then the corporation has no respect for its customers. “But there’s a dangerous disease to consider.” COVID-19 is less dangerous than the common flu and is easily remedied with safe, inexpensive drugs. “The state has mandated it.” The state has no authority to do so!

     So I’ve decided on a one-man rebellion. I refuse to do business with any firm that requires me to wear a mask. Moreover, I let them know that, for the cheek of refusing my patronage on ridiculous grounds, I shan’t do business with them ever again. Virtually every business has enough competitors that there’ll be one with spine enough to act like a free man.

     Will it have any effect? We shall see. I’ll keep you posted.

Why the Pro-Maskers Are SO Ready to Exact Retribution on the "Q-M2" Types

It's a long argument, and requires some patience. It also leans on my understanding of the PMMs (Pro-Mandatory Maskers), and how they reason.

BTW, Q-M2 people are those who Question Mandatory Masks.

First, some assumptions:

• Some of the PMMs work in high-risk fields - Medical/Nursing, Heavy Public Contact, Teaching (those germy little buggers are EVERYWHERE), etc. They wouldn't be human if they weren't concerned, and anxious to reduce their vulnerability.
• Some of the PMMs are in positions where failure to be Pro-Mandatory could cause them to lose their job or risk lawsuits. Really can't argue with looking after your own self.
• Some of the PMMs are anxious to put distance between themselves and famous non-maskers - Trump, for example. They fear that reliance on the actual science involved might put them in jeopardy of being lumped in with Bad Orange Man.
• Some are Karens - those people who yearn to be able to lay down rules for others, particularly when they can claim the high ground. In this case, THEY CARE ABOUT PEOPLE - you are a HEARTLESS KILLER!
• Some are just Drama Queens - not something new, there have always been whose primary way of dealing with the world is to over-dramatize their part in it.
• And, some are just going along with the crowd. Because going along is the easiest thing to do.

Now, the whole issue - to mask or not - is not that simple. It can be divided into:

• Masking around sick people - most, if not all, people would agree with that.
• Masking in crowded situations - most would say "OK" to that.
• Masking outside - there are those who do, but most people can't wait to exit a store or building, as eager to take off the mask as a woman is to shed that push-up bra upon closing the door to her house.And, despite the meme stating that government mandates bras, wearing them is optional (although, if the females do, Thank You!).
• And, MANDATORY masking, a government-imposed requirement, with penalties that may include fines, arrest, and even imprisonment.

That last is what is causing MOST of the problem with me.

Most people will wear masks when necessary. Cases like that celebrity who held a big mask-less party, then toddled off to visit his elderly relative - well, those are rare. Most of us, when it involves close contact with actual sick or immuno-compromised people, will sigh, pull on the covering, and comply with their demands.

Even though it's been recently proven that those without symptoms are generally NOT contagious.

But, others are scared. So...easier to go along - in the short term, for limited times.

What some have a problem with is keeping the mask on for extended periods of time. Yeah, yeah, I know it's the norm in operating rooms.

But, when the doctors and nurses leave, the first thing they do is to take off the mask.

What happens when you can NEVER take off the mask, all day, every day. Even on breaks. Even at lunch. Even when the mask makes it very hard for the hearing impaired to understand you. It's worse in many large offices, where the fad for Open Offices has made distancing yourself just not possible. Worse, Shared Co-Spaces are common in many businesses in the New Economy.

What happens when the police tell you to put on a mask? Even hand you a mask.

And, you still refuse?

Will they wrestle you into the back of the police car?

Will they do it if you're Black? If there is a crowd that is yelling "Police Brutality"?

Or, will all of this just affect the White part of the population?

What about the crazy homeless? Will they be arrested?

Or, just the sane ones?

What if citizens take this into their own hands, and attack the mask-less? Will they face jail time? Or, will their actions be excused, because the mask-less person was CLEARLY trying to kill them?

The ZMan has some important things to say about the prevalence of contagion for most of us. I'd suggest you read it, soon.

Me? I'm busy; I have to complete Medicare Annual Re-certification this week, followed by other work-related stuff, working on Science Lessons with my husband, and - perhaps most important - set up my new laptop, scheduled to be delivered on this Thursday.

So, too busy to spend much more time on this topic for a while. Or, to bother with most Social Media.

Quickies: A Refresher Class In Freedom

     There’s no need to add anything to the video in this tweet.

     Some commenters feel the citizen “should have been less profane.” I disagree: civility is neither appropriate nor required toward tyrants and their servants.

     Go thou and do likewise.

Patriotism And Courage

     Shelley Luther has both.

A judge told Shelley Luther, the salon owner who opened her business in defiance of the governor's orders, that she had the option to avoid jail time if she admitted to the government she was "wrong" and "selfish" for opening.

Here is her response:pic.twitter.com/s5SM2XKYSq

— Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) May 5, 2020

     Her supporters have started a GoFundMe for her. Let’s make her a millionaire. Maybe we can make that damned tyrant of a judge cower in fear of the wrath of decent Americans!

It’s Up To Us Now

     Many have been petitioning and pleading for government(s) to “give us back our freedom.” Whoever accepted the premise behind this – i.e., that freedom is something awarded to the subject by the State – is badly in need of remedial historical education.

Freedom is not “given;” it is taken.
By force if necessary…which it usually is.

     Consider all these recent emissions and incidents:

• KC, MO Wants Churchgoers To Register
• Di Blasio Wants To Enforce Social Distancing
• Oregon Governor Extends Lockdown Into JULY.
• Chicago Mayor Threatens “Scofflaws” With Arrest
• 33 Arrested During Sacramento Freedom Protest
• Twitter Suspends Candace Owens For Tweeting “Go To Work”

     Governments at every level are flexing their muscles. They’re testing you, probing to see how much they can do to you before you rebel. Some of them are even pre-announcing sharp tax increases, to “make up for the shortfall during the lockdown.” And of course we’ve all heard about the mass releases of convicted felons, including serial killers and pedophiles, haven’t we? The State has to make room for the anti-lockdown protesters, doesn’t it?

     Regard them well: episodes in the march of anarcho-tyranny:

     What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny – the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny. [From the essay Synthesizing Tyranny, written shortly before Francis’s death.]

     Well? Where’s the line? How much will you sit still for before you rear up on your hind legs, take back your freedom, and – in the ideal case – punish your oppressors?

     What’s that? Your gaolers are reassuring you that the fetters they’ve fastened upon you are necessary? That it’s all “for your own good?”

     Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt

     The real freedom of any individual can always be measured by the amount of responsibility which he must assume for his own welfare and security. – Robert Welch

     The crowning irony of all this is that the data are in: COVID-19 / Kung Flu / Lung Pao Sicken / Wuhan Virus is seriously dangerous only to the exact same cohorts endangered by common influenza: the very young and the very old. Most infectees, as has been demonstrated on naval vessels and at military installations, don’t even exhibit symptoms. The rest of us are moderately and briefly discommoded, even without treatment.

     Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube would prefer that you not know that, of course. They’ve labored like galley slaves to suppress any mention of the actual data, let alone analysis of what it means in epidemiological terms. I suppose that’s “for your own good,” too. After all, if you were exposed to that stuff, you might get ideas.

     Enough. Go back to your jobs. (Employers: reopen your offices and workplaces. Churches: resume the sacraments.) Resume your social lives. Renew your communities. Make play dates for your minor children. Return to your normal lives.

     Let’s be the America the residents of Hong Kong believe us to be.

Quickies: The Lockdown Lever

     The rising sentiment among common Americans is that this “stay at home” BS has gone too far and must end forthwith. Yet it’s not ending. Not all the enforcement power in the world could keep Americans confined to our homes, were we to decide that we’d had enough. Yet we’re doing so. Why?

     Some of it is probably fear. “The experts” – you know, those guys who’ve been wrong about absolutely everything from the start of this mess – continue to preach fear. Quite a lot of our countrymen have probably been affected by those preachments, at least to the extend of muttering “better safe than sorry” to themselves. In effect, they’re quarantining themselves.

     But there’s a more baleful influence at work, and it might have a greater part of the responsibility for our ongoing paralysis: licensure and business regulation.

     I’ve written before about the essentially totalitarian nature of licensure. Business regulation – the institution of conditions under which a business must do its business or be shut down by the State – is another facet to that evil jewel. There are fewer businesses than there are Americans – and those businesses’ owners and managers are aware of what the State could do to them should they step out of line.

     So our employers – and remember, the Fortune 3000 employ half of all working Americans – are afraid to reopen at the risk of the State’s wrath. But without the reopening and normal functioning of those businesses, where would most of us be going when we leave our homes? By far the greater part of our moving about is for occupational purposes!

     This applies even to “essential” businesses that are “permitted” to operate during the lockdown. Note how sharply their staffs-on-hand have been reduced. Many won’t even allow customers into their physical stores; rather, the customer must call ahead and accept “curbside delivery,” regardless of his preferences or his desire to survey the available alternatives. I’d bet the rent money that agents of the State are watching them for compliance to their decrees.

     The apostles of State licensure and regulation have always claimed that it’s for “the safety of the public.” They’ve always contended that mere registration and certification – i.e., promulgated safety standards and an easily accessed list of which businesses comply and which conspicuously do not, with no enforcement – would be “insufficient.” If that chant hasn’t grown strained yet, something has gone wrong with Americans’ hearing. We used to bridle at being told that we don’t know our own best interests, that the heavy hand of the State must confine us – and occasionally punish us – “for your own good.”

     And here we are.

By Permission Only

     It’s odd how often an old anecdote will echo in thunderous harmony with some contemporary crime. It’s the sort of thing that makes me happy about my frequently annoying near-eidetic memory. (Don’t look so shocked. Try waking up at 4:15 AM with an old CrackerJack commercial resounding in your head and see what you think.)

     In 1987 I attended a lecture by Nathaniel Branden, once a very close associate of Ayn Rand’s, during which he narrated the process by which he came to understand Rand’s political-philosophical convictions. As nearly as I can recall – see the “near-eidetic memory” part above – it went this way:

     Branden had read The Fountainhead and two other books Rand had recommended to him – if you really care, they were Economics in One Lesson and The God of the Machine, which I also recommend highly – and found that he still required clarification about Rand’s core precepts about capitalism. So she sat him down and asked him a simple question: “Do you believe that man has the right to exist?”

     Branden was surprised, to say the least: “Why, Miss Rand, of course he does!”

     Rand continued, “You understand that the right to exist means the right to exist for one’s own sake?”

     Once again, the question puzzled Branden: “Well, of course! If he doesn’t exist for his own sake, it would mean he was existing by permission.”

     Rand nodded and said, “The political implementation of that idea is capitalism.”

     And Branden said “Oh!”

     “From that moment forward,” Branden told the audience, “capitalism for me was filled with moral energy…It was the only system fit for human consumption.”

     Ponder that for a moment, as my second pot of coffee should be ready by now.

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     And now for the episodes and articles that caused me to remember that old lecture:

• One from New York,
• One from North Carolina,
• One from California,
• And one from Czechoslovakia.

     The tyrants of Czechoslovakia escaped the fall of the Iron Curtain with their lives. (Apparently, the writing on the wall was legible to them.) As for what will become of the tyrants of the Empire State, the Tarheel State, and the Land of Fruits and Nuts, the future has yet to speak. (If it speaks to you, keep it to yourself. Please.) But Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania could educate them about the fate that awaits the tyrant who clings over-stubbornly to his “power,” once his subjects have decided that only the most definite and permanent of answers to overweening authority will serve their needs.

     Far better, in my opinion at least, that we detect and thwart the aspiring tyrant before he rises to high office, rather than wait until it becomes necessary to drag him forcibly from his palace and dangle him by the neck from a gibbet.

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     Now and then, some wag will attempt to distinguish among the varieties of tyranny and their associated tyrants. It’s almost always a false trail that leads nowhere useful. Yet even William F. Buckley was seduced by it. I remember him straining to discriminate between the Soviet and Red Chinese systems, and thinking “What on Earth does he think he could accomplish?”

     Still, some will try. In most instances, the hairsplitting involved would enrage a bald man. Yet now and again it can tell us something of importance.

     Let’s start with the “novice” or “apprentice” tyrant. However he rises to power, he’ll be proud – and jealous – of his position and its supposed authority. But he’ll start small. He’ll solicit the advice of an inner circle of the like-minded. He’ll put a sincere effort into persuading his subjects that he knows what’s best and that it’s “for your own good.” He does these things because he still respects consensus and “the consent of the governed.” If he can’t have that consensus and consent…

     Then we get to the “intermediate” tyrant. This fellow is seldom sincere about the rationales he expresses to anyone, whether inside his circles or well beyond them. Neither does he ever doubt his own superiority in wisdom. If the moral dimension of his rule ever troubles him, he dissolves it in alcohol or sex. Needless to say, the intermediate’s jealousy over his power and status goes beyond that of his “novice” colleague, though he might take occasional pains to conceal it. Still, his critics tend to recant. His opponents have shorter than average lifespans.

     The “advanced” tyrant has moved beyond pretense. He’s also moved beyond remorse, regret, and the twinges of conscience. You don’t dare to criticize him, much less oppose him; for that he’d have your whole family murdered and you personally tortured to death for a live audience. He uses whatever forces respond to his command to make his word the absolute law of the land, and his judgments un-appealable. Photos of him are frequently retouched for “accuracy.”

     With these three grades of tyrant go three grades of tyranny, each one fitted to the developing character and individual personality of the tyrant. I’m sure I don’t need to describe them for you in detail. But despite their differences, they share a common trait: in whatever matters the tyrant has chosen to assert his will, his subjects exist only by his permission.

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     Those states in which the governor has ruled out a lifting of his “lockdown” order, whether he qualifies his decree to any extent or simply says “I said no, so sit down and shut up,” are places where the citizenry is being treated as subjects: men without rights who can move and act only by permission. Some such subjects think it easier to submit, and to hope that the tyrant’s will soon falters. Others, braver than the rest, merely go about their chosen business, essentially daring the tyrant to do his worst. Some have paid a price, though none, as far as I know, have paid the ultimate price…yet.

     But given the proclivities of “law enforcement officers” and their frequent recourse to the self-exculpation that “I’m only doing my job,” that price is always “on the menu.” Should some citizen resist with sufficient determination, some thug with a badge will pull his gun. At that point things will become terribly, unambiguously clear.

     Tyrants of all grades are alike in another thing: they never willingly surrender their power. It must be taken from them by their subjects. But of course, that act of will never receives official permission.

     Free men don’t ask for permission to do what must be done.

     Food for thought.

A Few Quotes To Power A Question Of Some Importance

     The novel of ideas is a largely abandoned form of expression today. In part, that ‘s because most such books won’t sell. People read fiction primarily to be entertained. A novel too concerned with ideas is unlikely to entertain adequately. But it’s also because far too many people are made uncomfortable by any idea that demands that they separate themselves, even temporarily, from their usual patterns of thought.

     Below are a few snippets from one novel of ideas that was widely read. I regard it as one of the finest novels of the Twentieth Century. (Before you ask: No, it’s not one of mine, and it’s not Atlas Shrugged.) The dialogue below is between two very bright men: one a scientist, the other a writer and thinker. The scientist has been thwarted professionally by a colleague with immense power, though that power is unacknowledged as such:

     “He uses you where he can, and where he can’t, he prevents you from publishing, from teaching, even from working. Right? In other words, he has power over you. Where does he get it from? Not from vested authority, there isn’t any. Not from intellectual excellence, he hasn’t any. He gets it from the innate cowardice of the average human mind. Public opinion! That’s the power structure he’s part of, and knows how to use.”

     The scientist is reluctant to confront what his friend has suggested. He calls it “crazy talk.” The writer demurs:

     “What drives people crazy is trying to live outside reality. Reality is terrible. It can kill you. Given time, it certainly will kill you. The reality is pain—you said that! But it’s the lies, the evasions of reality, that drive you crazy. It’s the lies that make you want to kill yourself.”

     The scientist continues to grope for reasons to disbelieve:

     “Look, brother,” he said at last. “It’s not our society that frustrates individual creativity. It’s the poverty of our world. This planet wasn’t meant to support civilization. If we let one another down, if we don’t give up our personal desires to the common good, nothing, nothing on this barren world can save us. Human solidarity is our only resource.”

     The writer’s reply:

     “Solidarity, yes! Even there, where food falls out of the trees, even there our founder said that human solidarity is our one hope. But we’ve betrayed that hope. We’ve let cooperation become obedience. Back there they have government by the minority. Here we have government by the majority. But it is government! The social conscience isn’t a living thing any more, but a machine, a power machine, controlled by bureaucrats!”…

     “In the early years of the Settlement we were aware of that, on the lookout for it. People discriminated very carefully then between administering things and governing people. They did it so well that we forgot that the will to dominance is as central in human beings as the impulse to mutual aid is, and has to be trained in each individual, in each new generation. Nobody’s born free any more than he’s born civilized!”

     Ultimately, the scientist comes to see and understand what his writer friend has been talking about:

     “You said it—you should have refused to go there. I said it as soon as I got here: I’m a free man, I didn’t have to come here! . . . We always think it, and say it, but we don’t do it. We keep our initiative tucked away safe in our mind, like a room where we can come and say, ‘I don’t have to do anything, I make my own choices, I’m free.’ And then we leave the little room in our mind, and go where PDC posts us, and stay till we’re reposted.”

     I’ve altered a very few words in the snippets above to conceal the source. It’s a novel about a society founded on the principle of utter and complete anarchism: that is, that there shall be no entity allowed to assert the privilege of coercion, regardless of its size or the rationale it proposes. Yet after some decades, despite a complete lack of infection or infiltration from archist societies – indeed, despite an educational system that strives to inculcate the anarchist premise as the essence of freedom even in the very youngest of its pupils — the anarchic society is deteriorating into one ruled by a bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has the support of the most influential citizens. The majority passively goes along with it, out of nothing but the fear of disapproval.

     My question: How and why has it happened to us?

     What is the nature of our American reality? Are we free men, or are we subjects under the rule of others who can move us about like pawns, take our property when and as they please, and disenfranchise us at their whim?

     Reflect on this. I beseech you, reflect!