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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Cliven Bundy And The Death Rattles Of Rugged Individualism

Cliven Bundy
Denies existence of federal government.
Waves American flag.

***

"Bundy Standoff"
Wikipedia

***
Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

I'm starting to pay attention to the Bundy show-down.


I believe in a tripartite system of local, state and federal government.

 Alongside Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, I also believe in an overarching (but not all powerful) global federation. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/11/pacem-in-terris-and-world-government.html

Despite individualism's importance, it must play second fiddle to Community or we will never overcome the neo-barbarism of runaway capitalism and the gamut of deadly sins encysted at The Beast's breast. 

"Pope Francis Links"

Although it may seem non sequitur, Obamacare signifies definitive passage from the primacy of individualism to the centrality of community.

Like most last gasps, Bundy and his allies are determined to resist the unstoppable movement of a Universe whose long moral arc bends toward Justice. 

As Laura acknowledged in the wake of Obama's re-election, this gathering tidal shift is largely demographic. 

 For example...

Ever more young Americans see gun possession as self-chosen reckless endangerment.
Since 1973, the number of U.S. homes with firearms has declined by 35%

"Gun Cartoons and Gun Violence Bibliography"

In similar vein, there are ever more organic farmers but almost no one eager to "ride the range."

Not that I'm intrinsically opposed to an open range. (Few initiatives would be so inimical to winner-take-all capitalism.)

However, the range is no longer open.

And it was NOT closed by the govmint.

It was closed by an earlier generation of self-seeking capitalists who had no use for "The Commons."



However, if Bundy and his pals really want to resurrect The Commons -- which is what their behavior proclaims more eloquently than words -- they can count on my alliance.

But if they want to deny the existence of the federal government -- while waving American flags -- then it's time to remove their heads from the dark place.

Tragically, some people never see the light until it shines through bullet holes.

For me, the only question that remains "in all this" is whether "the good Christians" will force terrestrial Armageddon in order to insure that their descendants never have opportunity to realize that certain "eternal truths" are not as eternal as they once seemed.

Pax on both houses

Alan

PS I am still busy with my sister's 8-day Easter visit, simultaneously preparing for my April 30th departure to conduct a two week Yucatan Adventure for the Alabama Waldorf School. Despite this busy-ness, I hope to finish a piece tentatively titled "Thomas Piketty, Spanish Philosopher Ortega y Gasset and White Supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller." It sheds light on these issues.
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 4:58 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:
you might look into the Nevada ranch standoff -- the Bundys versus the gov-mint
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Alan Archibald <alanarchibaldo@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

It's also true that "you get what you pay for."

Consider "GOP's Anti-Medicaid Expansion Body Count, By State"

Don't forget that since red states are "right to work" states, residents also get paid less to begin with so that -- as a percentage of income -- rent may be even higher than in blue states.

It is true that people on fixed income -- with medicare -- do relatively well in red states.

Of course, red states -- particularly their most red-necky parts -- are seldom desirably pleasant places to live.

You, for example, live in a blue state and I live in such a blue section of a red state that Jesse Helms once argued against creation of the NC Zoo by saying "all you gotta do is put a fence around Orange County."

As soon as the whole nation realizes that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization"  -- and assuming that red necks then choose civilization -- the red states will be better places to live.

Here's what Ben Franklin -- a surpassingly successful businessman who retired in his 40s -- had to say about taxes:

Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris - 25 December, 1783

"The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.  All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html 

"Politics and Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

Pax tecum

Alan
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:


What You'd Need To Earn In Each U.S. County To Afford A Decent 1 Bedroom Apartment

Alan -- this map shows a great benefit to living in a red state -- it shows an affordable landscape in those conservative areas -- what I call a favorable ratio of wages to rent.
whereas California and other blue states are progressively expensively fucked.


-- 
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:


What You'd Need To Earn In Each U.S. County To Afford A Decent 1 Bedroom Apartment

Alan -- this map shows a great benefit to living in a red state -- it shows an affordable landscape in those conservative areas -- what I call a favorable ratio of wages to rent.
whereas California and other blue states are progressively expensively fucked.


-- 
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001




-- 
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001
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