Thursday, February 18, 2010

Who's Afraid of "Interposition"?

















Those who are mystified by the political concept called "interposition" can find a very compelling tutorial in a vignette from Larry McMurtry's novel
Lonesome Dove.



Led by former Texas Rangers Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call, the men of the Hat Creek Cattle Company left their village of Lonesome Dove, Texas to drive a herd of cattle to Montana. During a brief stop to replenish supplies and give their horses a rest, the cowboys encounter a small party of soldiers. Their commander, one Captain Weaver, approaches a Hat Creek Co. employee named Dish Boggett and explains that he seeks to "requisition" Boggett's horse, along with any others the soldiers find suitable.


After Boggett replies that his horse isn't for sale, Weaver tries to intimidate the man and his friends by saying that defying the U.S. Army is "treason" and that they could be hung. Once again, Weaver demands the animal, and once again Boggett refuses to sell it.




At this point, Weaver lets Dixon, his Army Scout, off the leash. The malodorous wretch beats Boggett to the ground and moves to steal his horse. This prompts young Newt -- a teenager who more than carried his weight in the company -- to intervene, grabbing the reins of Boggett's horse and reminding the scout that the animal, an item of private property, was not for sale and not the government's to take by force.




Newt's act is a form of peaceful interposition in defense of his friend's property rights. His reward is to be assaulted by the infuriated scout, who repeatedly lashes the young man with a quirt.
From across the plaza, Woodrow Call - who had been shopping at a dry goods store -- spies the assault on Newt, his only son (a fact not known to the young man).



After quickly saddling up and dashing on horseback the length of the town, Newt's infuriated father knocks Dixon from his horse.
Woodrow dismounts, kicks Dixon in the teeth -- and then he gets rude.



A blacksmith's shop nearby yields a branding iron that Woodrow wields as a club. His anger not abated, Woodrow then grabs the scout by collar and belt and hurls him, face-first, into an anvil. A pair of tongs then finds its way into Woodrow's hands. He is approaching the battered and bloodied bully with lethal intent when he is lassoed by his best friend, Augustus, who drags Woodrow away to let his fury dissipate.




"I can't stand rude behavior in a man," Woodrow politely explains to a group of stunned settlers who had witnessed the incident. "I won't tolerate it."



***
***



In addition to being the most beautiful scene in American literature, this episode illustrates several applications of the principle of interposition -- the lawful, necessary intervention by one person in defense of the rights of another.



Good company: Augustus McRae (Robert Duvall) and Newt (Rick Schroeder) in the miniseries adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel Lonesome Dove.



Newt interposed to protect his friend's horse; Woodrow intervened with righteous violence to protect Newt from the Army scout's criminal assault.


It could also be said that Augustus interposed on behalf of the scout by preventing his friend Woodrow from exceeding his moral authority: Yes, Dixon deserved a stout beating, but killing him outright would have been disproportionate.



By threatening the use of lethal violence against those who refused to surrender their property, the fictional Captain Weaver made explicit the implicit threat made every day by his analogues in real life. In terms of both morality and the law, Boggett's refusal to sell or surrender his horse ended the matter. The violence that ensued was an entirely credible dramatization of what happens when agents of the state's killing apparatus refuse to take "no" as the final answer to a demand for the legal property of a law-abiding man.



By using the term "law" we are not referring to the positivist enactments through which governments plunder the productive on behalf of the parasitical, and inflict criminal violence on anyone who objects; rather, we are referring to what Frederic Bastiat described as "
the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense."



While providing for that common defense is supposedly the purpose of government, it is government that most consistently threatens individual rights and property.
Interposition could be considered a form of "citizen's arrest" -- that is, an action taken to arrest criminal aggression by government. The most basic form of interposition is defensive physical action, whether through peaceful non-cooperation or lawful exercise of defensive violence.



In political terms, interposition is an organized effort to accomplish the same end by way of deputized representatives. In the U.S. constitutional system, interposition can take the form of nullification of unconstitutional federal acts by a state government, or of the application of an unjust "law" by a jury (as in "jury nullification").




Critics of the concept treat it as either an invention of fringe-dwelling conspiracists or the disreputable refuge of race-fixated segregationists. Typical of such people is
self-styled "expert" on extremism David Neiwert (the author of a deeply silly and incurably dishonest book on "hate politics"), who -- exhibiting his proprietary blend of ignorance and mendacity -- refers to interposition and nullification as concepts supposedly created by the "militia movement" in the 1990s.



The truth, which is readily available to anyone with a library card (or access to Google) and a mind not shackled by statist prejudices, is that those concepts were first propounded centuries ago in England, and that they are part of the warp and weave of the U.S. constitutional system.
The Magna Carta is the product of interposition. The pseudonymously published 17th Century Puritan tract Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (elements of which clearly anticipate the Declaration of Independence), describes interposition by legislative bodies as a critical means of restraining a lawless king's corrupt ambitions.



The most systematic and compelling exposition of interposition and nullification was provided by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison -- neither of whom was among the living during the much-hyped "militia" scare of the mid-1990s -- in their 1798
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which were enacted by the legislatures of those states in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts.



The December 1798 Virginia Resolution condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts as an exercise of a power "no where delegated to the federal government" and subversive of "the general principles of free government," including "the Liberty of Conscience and of the Press." In the face of such usurpation, the states that created the federal government as their agent "have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil [represented by those Acts], and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."



Kentucky's Resolution, which had been passed earlier, addressed the same concerns described in Virginia's measure and focused particularly on the Alien Act, which provided for the deportation of non-citizens arbitrarily deemed to be threats to the "peace and safety of the United States." The Kentucky measure declared that "alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are [and] that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from the power over citizens."



In 1814, shortly before the end of a disastrous war with Great Britain,
delegates from New England States met in Hartford, Connecticut. Using the same constitutional reasoning Madison himself had invoked in 1798, the Hartford delegates discussed the possibility of seceding from the Union as a way of interposing on behalf of constituents whose livelihoods and liberties were imperiled by "Mr. Madison's war."



Among the possible actions contemplated by the delegates was enactment of state measures nullifying federal laws "which shall contain [any] provision subjecting the militia or other citizens to forcible drafts, conscriptions, or impressments...."



From this we see that the concepts of nullification and interposition were not created by southern politicians seeking to preserve Jim Crow, as we're told by Neiwert and other self-ordained pontiffs of "progressivism." In fact, they were most forcefully articulated in opposition to war and conscription, and in defense of civil liberties and the rights of unpopular minorities.



Either out of deliberate deceit, incurable ignorance, or some alloy of the same, Neiwert acts as if this history is of no relevance to the current controversy over nullification.


In fact, when former federal judge Andrew Napolitano observed that state legislatures have the authority to enact health freedom measures intended to nullify Obama's proposed "health care" legislation,
Neiwert's reflexive response was to traduce the judge as a proto-Klansman, rather than to engage his argument in the fashion of a practicing adult. (In a moderated debate with Judge Napolitano, Neiwert would be whipped more thoroughly than a pint of heavy cream in a French pastry shop.)



If so much as a particle of honesty resided within Neiwert he would acknowledge that many of George W. Bush's left-leaning critics, to their credit, re-discovered the merits of the "states' rights" perspective during his reign. Some of them eagerly practiced nullification and interposition ala carte,
particularly with respect to the so-called USA PATRIOT act.



In early 2002, the municipal government of Ann Arbor claimed the honor of being the first to enact a resolution urging outright nullification of key sections of that odious act; by 2005, hundreds of other municipal, county, and state governments had passed similar resolutions of their own.



Somehow those entirely commendable acts of nullification and interposition were spared the indignant condemnation of Neiwert and other anti-"hate" activists, who now insist that invocation of those principles is a rhetorical
"dog whistle" -- a type of political code used by cunning racists seeking a PR-friendly way to rile up their vast and stealthy constituency.



Likewise, during the late, unlamented Bush era, some 30 major U.S. cities enacted "sanctuary city" measures forbidding local police to enforce federal immigration laws. Unlike opposition to the PATRIOT (sic) act during the Bush era, and to much of the Obama administration's agenda today, the "Sanctuary City" movement was obviously and undeniably rooted in racial politics, as practiced by foundation-funded (and often federally supported) ethnic lobbies such as MALDEF and La Raza. Yet those racially tinged acts of nullification and interposition -- a form of city-by-city secession from a national immigration policy -- escaped censure by Neiwert and other self-appointed titans of tolerance.



The desire for power frequently begets petty hypocrisy, which
is among the world's most tragically abundant resources. Just as many of yesterday's leftist dissidents now treat political nonconformity as a species of treason, many of those who denounce the current president as a domestic enemy would have considered such rhetoric a Gitmo-worthy offense just a few years ago.



Many of yesterday's most strident "peace" activists are either deferentially silent, or dutifully supportive, as their president slays thousands of innocent foreigners via remote control. Likewise, many (by no means all) of those who condemn Obama's orgy of federal spending are recent converts to the church of public austerity, having endured eight years under the reign of the equally profligate Bush without audible complaint.




The problem here, of course, is that
both sides in this manufactured conflict are manipulated by power-obsessed people into defining the enemy in "horizontal" rather than "vertical" terms; that is, the real threat consists of "those people" over there, rather than those who presume to exercise power over all of us. Rather than seeking an end to the Leviathan State, each side seeks to control its coercive appendages while protecting its own interests in the cynical and entirely misplaced confidence that the powers they surrender to the state today won't be pitilessly deployed against them tomorrow.


There are at least a few campaigns that offer some modest cause for optimism:



*Former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, who insists that the only legitimate function of peace officers is the protection of person and property (he denounces most "law enforcement" as "taxation by citation") has finding at least some traction in his campaign to educate county sheriffs regarding their duty to interpose on behalf of constituents threatened by federal agencies, including -- no, especially -- the IRS.


*New Hampshire's Free State Project is seeking to cultivate an agorist society through both electoral politics and creative acts of peaceful non-cooperation with the state.



*South Carolina state representative Mike Pitts, who obviously has absorbed some of the lessons taught by the Ron Paul "End the Fed" movement, has proposed legislation to forbid the use of the Regime's fraudulent script (Federal Reserve Notes, commonly called "dollars") as legal tender in the Palmetto State. Although it is entirely symbolic at present, that measure may acquire substance as the collapse of the Regime's fiat currency accelerates.


*The Second Vermont Republic has not confined itself to symbolic repudiation of the Regime's currency. That movement, which promotes peaceful withdrawal from Washington's empire, has minted a silver token with a face value of $25. Last month, the movement announced that it would field nine candidates for state-wide office, including gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele.



A veteran of the U.S. Army, Steele reduces his political program to the essentials: The bastards who are running things are not getting his sons.


"I see my kids going off to fight in wars for empire 10, 15, 20 years from now," Steele told Time magazine. Think of Captain Woodrow Call racing to rescue his son Newt, and you've got a good picture of Steele's motivations.


That's interposition in its most elemental form. In what sense is this difficult to understand?


An Entirely Inadequate "Thank You"


I am profoundly thankful for the incredibly generous help my family has received during the last week -- not just the donations of any size (all of which are tremendously helpful), but also the kind notes, prayers, and very useful advice. While I intend to express thanks individually, I wanted to acknowledge your kindness in public. On behalf of Korrin and our kids -- thank you.





Be sure to listen to Pro Libertate Radio each weeknight from 6:00-7:00 Mountain Time on the Liberty News Radio Network.

















Dum spiro, pugno!

27 comments:

Bryan said...

This reminds me of one of my favorite movie scenes. Where the Gubmit comes to "confiscate" Charlie Anderson's horses. Mr. Anderson and his sons commence to defend their property rights with their fists. The scene ends when one of his daughters "interposes" with a scatter gun.

Michael K. said...

Will -

Another great article. You have a mastery of the language that is second-to-none.

Keep up the great work.

Anonymous said...

"In a moderated debate with Judge Napolitano, Neiwert would be beaten more thoroughly than a pint of heavy cream in a French pastry shop."

I'll be chuckling over that one for a week.

You do great works sir. Thank you.

William N. Grigg said...

Thank you for your kind comments -- and for catching a slip-up of the sort to which I'm prone when I'm drowsy and distracted....

Anonymous said...

When does the government cease being legitimate?
Does anyone who regularly reads WNG think that the governments, federal, state, local actually reflect the America that the Founding Fathers created?
Every kind of criminal is offered asylum but the Heretical Two, — writer Stephen Whittle (pen name Luke O’Farrell), and his publisher, Simon Sheppard, were refused asylum from the same judge who gave aslyum to an IRA man who had shot 2 policemen dead.

So why were these 2 political writers deported and are now imprisoned in England? Well they offended the most favored group in America. The same gang that got US Senators out of bed in the middle of the night to vote for the “Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act” law last June.

They won't stop with David Duke you know, they will round up ALL of the OPPOSITION.

Patriots, whether WNG or Sherrif Mack, realize that the Enemy is in DC. They dangle their $$$ in front of states and the states ask how high they have to jump. Of course most states WANT to do the evil, they really don't need to be bribed.

I wanted to complement WNG for a great article and here I am being all pessimistic.

With Rahm running the census from the White House what the heck is there to worry about?

Freedom, America used to be its champion.

liberranter said...

Patriots, whether WNG or Sherrif Mack, realize that the Enemy is in DC. They dangle their $$$ in front of states and the states ask how high they have to jump. Of course most states WANT to do the evil, they really don't need to be bribed.


It must be some mutant form of political Stockholm Syndrome. It's akin to the guy at the ATM who is forced by a gun-wielding robber to empty out his bank account and then grovel, beg, and abase himself in order for the robber to agree to give him back a few coins of his own stolen money. If only the guy had been armed and willing to defend himself in the first place against the predatory bully, he wouldn't have found himself in that humiliating predicament. One wonders if the citizens of the several states will ever reclaim their guns and give the federal bully a taste of its own medicine.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,
A fine companion piece to your last article. I wonder if everyone understands what you are saying...

The most the State can do to someone who says "No" is take their life away. The State can only have power when it has subjects to wield power over. If enough of its subjects say "No" the State is faced with a looming dilemma: Take away the lives of ALL of its subjects, and then what power does it wield, and over whom?

What is the point of being Lord of Nobody because you have killed them all? Who will worship you? Who will obey? Who will grovel at your feet? Whose labor will you exploit? Who will wash your windows? Who will drive your limousine? Who will kiss your fat arse?

This was the strategy pursued by Gandhi. If subjects simply refuse to be subjects, the State's power vanishes like a puff of smoke. If EVERYBODY in this nation - all 300 million - simply stayed home ONE DAY and did not go out, even to shop, the State would collapse at once. Terror would spread on Capitol Hill. Terror would spread in the Statehouses. Terror would spread in the City Halls. They would realize that there are a hundred times as many of us, as there are of them.

If everybody in this nation refused to fly on an airplane for just ONE DAY - everybody! - the thugs at the TSA would be out of a job. At once. If nothing else, the corporations would make certain of it.

In unity is strength. That is why we live together in "society."

In the clip from "Lonesome Dove" the reason the soldiers backed down is because it looked like they would end up having to fight the whole town. One young man, six soldiers can handle. A thousand men, women and children, they cannot handle.

Only humans can realize this truth. Other animals, like sheep, flee in fear. Only humans are - sometimes - prepared to sacrifice themselves deliberately and with intent, for the divine right to say NO.

That is because we are made in God's image, and God has the right to say NO. And sometimes does.

Then there is the occasional person so clearly unafraid of death that no-one is able to kill him. Remember the skinny little shirt-sleeved man in Beijing in 1989, a plastic shopping bag in each hand, who faced down an entire column of tanks? The tank drivers saw before them an image all of them could recognize, and none of them dared to harm - the image of a man, made in the image of God.

Saying No.

Lemuel Gulliver.

Chris Ritchie said...

@Lemuel Gulliver
Well said! I've often contemplated a boycott of air travel or staging a sit in that says I'm not a terrorist and I won't submit to this chicanery and search and seizure. But how to organize such a thing. Most people will say, "I just HAVE to make this trip and CANNOT delay." But you are right, we are made in the image of God and it is time we stand up to this tyrannical government and declare that we are citizens first of the Kingdom of God, then family members, then community members and leaders, then business community members. Being a loyal subject to the federal government comes in a distant fifth or sixth.

E. Dean said...

@Bryan - Shenandoah is one of my favorite movies, and a great reference.

Anonymous said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902028.html
Ky. man charged with threatening Obama in Web poem
Friday, February 19, 2010; 5:41 PM

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Kentucky man has been charged with posting a poem threatening President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama on a white supremacist Web site.

U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Stephan M. Pazenzia said Johnny Logan Spencer Jr., 27, of Louisville wrote and posted the poem, titled "The Sniper," on a page called NewSaxon.org. The site is described as an "Online Community for Whites by Whites." The poem was posted in August 2007, according to an arrest affidavit.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Dixon deserved a stout beating, but killing him outright would have been disproportionate.

What would have happened if Newt had pointed a gun at Dixon and said "stop beating me or I'll shoot you"? Newt would have been killed. Everyone involved knew the army was willing and able to kill anyone that displeased it sufficiently. The army's attack on Newt threatened his life, and it started when the army demanded his 'money (horse) or his life'. Killing Dixon for his lethal threat would have been proportional, but Woodrow's friend didn't want the army to go on a lethal rampage against Woodrow. Newt's beating was merely a corporal punishment to break his will and encourage him to surrender.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,

Only 10 comments so far -- we need Apollonian, so you can get another 75 comments and raise the price of your advertising! Does nobody else out there hate Jews? Or support the fine work of the Federal Reserve and your local police?

Where IS Apollonian? Are you banning him, or is it just that there are no Jews in the town of Lonesome Dove? How about the local banker? I guess in those pre-1913 days of innocence before fiat currency, all the bankers were Gentiles. Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff and Shlomo Rothschild weren't born yet, or else were still being groomed by their fathers to rule the world. And Woodrow Wilson, our finest President, father of the Federal Reserve, the military draft, and the Treaty of Versailles, naturally a fine Democrat like Barack Obama, (huzzah!) was only a teenager and had not yet realized his full potential.

Right?

Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

In case anyone needs to get more riled up, here is a link to a video that shows our "finest" doing what they do best:

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=7086&title=The_Largest_Street_Gang_in_America

The above was linked from this at Sipseystreetirregulars:

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-open-letter-to-american-law.html

Seems we're not the "only ones"(he, he) getting a little upset with the way things are heading.
Wayne B

MarxMarvelous said...

Found this and thought I'd share with you Will, relates to the JBS. http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/jbs-1

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXzhEokVn0s&feature=related

'Nuff Said!

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Wayne B. "Anonymous" -

Excellent links. I have bookmarked both of them. I recommend others to go check them out.

Things will only begin to change when someone takes the war to the "police" instead of waiting for them to keep bringing it to us. (Like the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.) The problem is that Leviathan controls the media, and the vast majority of citizens still do not know what is going on, until they are foolish enough to call on the "police" for help and they, the victims, get beaten up or killed by the "police."

If the Afghan and Iraqi people can defeat the entire armed might of the US military, there is no way the "police" in America can win their war on the American people.

All we need is more people like Mr. Grigg and you telling the truth.

Anyone in America without a gun, or several, and plenty of ammunition, is living dangerously. The day may come when we have to defend ourselves and our families against all types of criminal gangs, including those with badges.

There are many other useful items besides guns for that purpose. No space here to expound on them, but many of those items are readily available at the hardware or sporting goods store.

Lemuel Gulliver.

To the other Anonymous @ 7:31 PM:

The IRA in Ireland addressed many centuries of English oppression of Catholics, which began with Oliver Cromwell and culminated in the Potato Famine, but I could not and can not stomach their methods. Targeted assassination of the power elite and their minions is one thing, but random terrorism is stupid. One sector of the public terrorising and killing another is pointless, and achieves nothing. The only time it bothers the power elite is when the general chaos begins to diminish their fiscal profits from the slave labor of the peasantry.

Even when the IRA planted a time bomb in a flower bed outside the officer's mess at Sandhurst, (UK equivalent of West Point,) which might have been a worthy target, it failed. It went off prematurely when the mess was empty, and killed only an Irish Catholic gardener who accidentally dug it up, and two cooks in the kitchen. Then they planted a time bomb in the Tower of London, which went off just when a party of 25 small kids was in that room on a school history trip. With 5-foot-thick stone walls to contain the blast, the butchery was horrible. There are dozens if not hundreds more examples. Do not, ever, idolize the IRA. It was led and staffed by subhuman assholes and idiots. God forbid we should ever be afflicted in this country with such a moronic group of barbarian thugs.
- LG

liberranter said...

Lemuel Gulliver wrote:

One sector of the public terrorizing and killing another is pointless, and achieves nothing. The only time it bothers the power elite is when the general chaos begins to diminish their fiscal profits from the slave labor of the peasantry.


Exactly. Once again, the Elite and the Elite alone profit from the time-tested, tried-and-true tactic of "divide and conquer."

Job said...

The underlying message of this post, as I see it, is that the champions of liberty must be as bold as those of injustice if we truly desire to once again live in a free country.

apollonian said...

Is Grigg's "Intellect" Adequate?
(Apollonian, 22 Feb 10)

I submit that CFR-Bilderberg/Trilateralist conspirators at the top might easily subvert cohesion of people as they impose martial law, this by simply ending the internet as we know it, along w. the usual false-flags. Politicians will go along, betraying the people, as they're perfectly and thoroughly bribed and extorted.

Need more money?--hey, just print it up, by golly--it won't fail until money completely loses its value after hyper-inflation, which is still months away, presently--though we ARE in beginning stages, undoubtedly.

Thus people will have only one chance of organizing, this in accord w. Christian principles which saved them before in history (esp. in 4th cent. Roman emp., under leadership of St. Constantine the Great). But look at truly daunting and formidable obstacles in way of such Christian organization: (a) Christianity is Truth/honesty vs. lies (Gosp. JOHN)--BUT soooooo many fools think it's merely idiotic "love" balderdash.

(b) And as Christianity is actually defense and assertion of OBJECTIVITY of Aristotle, necessary foundation/criterion of TRUTH and REASON, observe how many people actually think Christianity is MYSTIC indulgence, founded on mystic understanding of "faith" by which believing in something thereby makes it true. For "faith," properly understood, is simply LOYALTY.

So I maintain crux of patriot rebellion against ascendant oligarchs is rationalist Christianity which defends against confusion and MYSTICISM by means of heeding to simplified CONCRETE truth--for example seeing the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed--see RealityZone.com and TheMoneyMasters.com for expo/ref.) as sheer COUNTERFEITING scam/operation/mechanism, which counterfeiting even children can understand.

And when once people can FOCUS upon those criminal conspirators at heart of Fed fraud, crux to everything else about ZOG-Mammon empire-of-lies, they will know their enemies are NOT "Muslims"--and aren't Christian either--they're someone else entirely, which New Testament warned of most un-mistakably.

CONCLUSION: And so a most poignant question then is regarding the "intellectuality" of such as Mr. Grigg--is it really adequate to CONCRETE purpose of freedom of the people?--I rather doubt it. For note Grigg's purpose seems to be rather "moralism"-Pharisaism above all, Grigg not believing or really even interested in a simple, OBJECTIVE truth. Honest elections and death to the Fed. Apollonian

William N. Grigg said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
William N. Grigg said...

Is Grigg's "Intellect" Adequate?

"Adequate" for what purpose?

It seems to me that the obvious answer is "no." I'm not aware than anyone has ever suggested that the contrary is true.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Dear "Such As Mr. Grigg,"

He's BAA-AACK!

Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, (to the tune of "The Twilight Zone".......)

Look again at Apollonian's last paragraph: "And so a most poignant question then is regarding the "intellectuality" of such as Mr. Grigg--is it really adequate to CONCRETE purpose of freedom of the people?"

OH! OOOH!! I'm feeling completely POIGNED by this penchantly posed, puissant, prescient, primal, precautionary, precatory, preclusionary, premonitory, probatory, and POIGNANT pietism of Apollonian's.

Prithee, "Such as Mr.Grigg", perspicaciously respond to the piquantly petulant phraseology of the pseudo-Pharisaical Apollonian and preemptively placate his predicatory accusation of POIGNANCY!

PFFFTTT!!

(That, hopefully, was a concordance concisely connotating someone's CONCRETE balloon concomitantly collapsing.)

Hobbesian elections and monoclinal mortality to the miscreant Fed!

Lemuel Gulliver

Anonymous said...

Appolian
Shut up and go listen to some more Richard Wagner on your old Victrola - you f"@!n freak.

William N. Grigg said...

Hey -- as Samuel Clemens said, Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Apollonian,

You say some useful things. You are quite correct about the Fed and the immense fraud of fiat money, and TheMoneyMasters.com and RealityZone.com do an excellent job of exposing the mechanism of the imaginary-money fraud.

A lot of the people posting on this site, Mr. Grigg included, know all about it. Most of them have read Eustace Mullins' "The Secrets of the Federal Reserve," and Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket." One more good book, not so well known, is Gustave LeBon's classic political treatise on "The Crowd."

You are also correct about the ethnicity of the originators or inventors of fiat money. In the Middle Ages travel was very dangerous. Roads were primitive mud tracks, through forests and over mountains, and highway robbers abounded. A merchant wishing to travel across Europe to buy goods, if he did not want to risk losing his money or could not afford an armed escort, might deposit his money with Solomon Goldfarb in London or Antwerp and pick it up at the other end, less commissions, from Yehuda Mandelbaum in Turin or Genoa. The reasons for this business model were that (1) The Jews in Christian Europe were excluded from manufacturing craft guilds and from ownership of land, and resorted to finance to make a living, and (2) The Jews, unlike Christians, understood that honesty was good business and did not cheat each other or their customers. They drove hard bargains, but nobody forced their customers to accept their terms.

Today, their descendants are the kings of finance. They never get their hands dirty. They get an education instead, unlike our lazy-bum Christian children, and either become professionals, or make money from the labor of others. So, one may ask, why not? Darwin said it well - survival of the fittest. All people - not just Jews - will try to get away with whatever we will let them get away with. Look around you.

As far as honest elections - the last time we had an honest election in this country, my great-grandfather was sucking at my great-great-grandmother's tit.

A piece of advice: Try really hard to drop the multiple polysyllabic adjectives and adverbs, and write in conversational English. You will get a much more respectful hearing, and even rational responses. Ther are some bright folks on this site - they get it, they really do, and your wordiness irritates them.

Finally, I have learned from long experience that religion is a touchy subject. People believe what they believe, and will only change their minds when they themselves decide to. Those decisions arise out of their life experiences, and it is not possible to change belief with argument. Best to simply avoid the subject of religion.

Your opinions are valuable and welcome, if you would just express them more simply.

Finally, please excuse my mockery of your style above. I was illustrating what I just said.

Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

"The problem here, of course, is that both sides in this manufactured conflict are manipulated by power-obsessed people into defining the enemy in "horizontal" rather than "vertical" terms; that is, the real threat consists of "those people" over there, rather than those who presume to exercise power over all of us. Rather than seeking an end to the Leviathan State, each side seeks to control its coercive appendages while protecting its own interests in the cynical and entirely misplaced confidence that the powers they surrender to the state today won't be pitilessly deployed against them tomorrow."

Wow.

Simply sublime!

Is Grigg a genius?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Grigg, a wonderful analysis on the abuse of eminent domain; however, I just finished watching the Star Trek episode "Mudd's Women", where Captain Kirk is forced to choose between releasing a criminal (Harvey Mudd), and being allowed to purchase enough fuel to save the Enterprise and its crew.

The sellers of the fuel essentially hold their product ransom in order to effect the release of a criminal (that said, it is their fuel to sell or not to sell.)

The group of people I watched these two scenarios with discerned a difference between these two situations, and sided first with the Cowboys in Lonesome Dove, but with the use of eminent domain in the case of Captain Kirk.

I would love to see you put your considerable talents to work detailing the distinctions between the situation in "Mudd's Women" and that in Lonesome Dove. Thank you for your time and consideration, C.