Reading a comedic article recently, something struck me. To begin, let me present the relevant paragraph, wherein the author is describing the experience of the quintessential high-school class clown during his first college course:

“Anyway, that lasted about a minute and a half before the teacher finally had enough and just flat-out stopped her class and addressed him directly. ‘I’m assuming this is your first year of college so I’m going to give you exactly five minutes’ worth of leeway. The next time you interrupt my class for any reason, you won’t be attending it.’ And that was it. Shut down on the spot. As far as the school was concerned, that was his last trip to the ‘look at me’ well… because in college, there is no trip to the principal’s office. Get kicked out of enough classes, and they boot your ass completely out of school. And all at once, there was no venue for the show this guy had spent his entire childhood perfecting.” (John Cheese)

It struck me when he wrote, “[I]n college, there is no trip to the principal’s office.” What a different environment the two! In high school we have to put up with class clowns and what not because we are all compelled to attend, but in college attendance is not mandatory.

It is long past time we stop putting up with these silly mandatory-attendance laws, which restrict the freedom of parents and children alike, causing more strain on the school system and the other attendants. What an improvement in education would await our schooling if only it were not mandatory!

Whether you agree with me or not, I do not hesitate to remind you the institution that stands ready to fine, imprison, and even kill all of us for failing to comply with its dictates is the state. I do not stand ready to compel you and your children to attend school. Ecrasez l’etat!

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I would like to take this opportunity to commend and hopefully add to what my esteemed fellow blogger, The Cooperator, wrote recently about a misguided justification for war used especially by Christians. I write this from the perspective of a Russian Orthodox Christian who some years ago spent three years in the Roman Catholic seminary.

After the Fall of Adam and Eve (cf. Genesis iii. 3–15), God revealed himself to human beings. Rather than reveal everything at once, he did so gradually. (Why he chose to do so in a progressive fashion is a mystery to us; fortunately, it is not pertinent to this post.) For example, the understanding of marriage before the Fall was for Adam and Eve to “become one flesh” (Genesis ii. 24). After the Fall, the patriarchs were often polygynous; later, the Mosaic Law limited marriage again to two people but permitted divorce (cf. Deuteronomy xxiv. 1–4. Jesus Christ, who is the Fullness of Revelation (cf. Hebrews i. 1–2), restored marriage to its intention before the Fall (cf. Matthew xix. 8–9).

Applying this to the topic at hand, before the Fall there was no killing. After the Fall, however, it was one of the first sins (cf. Genesis iv. 8). After the Exodus from Egypt, God began to fulfill one of his promises to Abraham by giving the Israelites the Promised Land, and to accomplish this goal, he commanded his Chosen People to conquer cities completely, killing all people (genocide) and animals therein, going so far as to punish those who kept some of the possessions for themselves as booty. After the installation of the Davidic kingdom, acts of genocide were forbidden. Thereafter, God allowed only defensive wars, and even then disallowed certain defensive wars (cf. Jeremiah xxi. 12–14). Only in the teachings of Jesus Christ—Fullness of Revelation—did God reveal the full intention of how we are to treat other people: generosity, the Golden Rule, and turning the other cheek (cf. Luke vi. 29–31).

Nowhere does Christ teach his disciples to make war against anyone. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the first centuries of Christianity was the use of moral suasion rather than political or military force to convert others to The Way. Many of the early Christian teachers (cf. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures) listed soldiers alongside prostitutes, pimps, oracles, &c., as those who were bound to give up their present careers to be accepted as candidates for Baptism. What a far cry from those Christians today who encourage their children to fight offensive wars on behalf of their country!

Allowing the state to wage war because God allowed it during a period of imperfect and partial revelation is, as The Cooperator stated so well, a misguided justification.

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This is part two of a four-part series titled “A Call to Civilization” in which I exhort people to recognize the situation in which they find themselves today and act to better it. See part one.

It is impossible to engage the defenders of totalitarianism in intellectual discourse because theirs is not an intellectually defensible position. Theirs is not the product of a philosophy that has produced guiding principles that are universally applicable; theirs is an application of the use of the only tool at the totalitarian’s disposal: brute force.

The use of brute force as a principle of ruling is anathema to civilized people. From its inception this totalitarian principle was disguised as a means to more lofty ideals. Perhaps it is more honest to say a not insignificant number of the representatives lied so they could bring about and lead a totalitarian system. At its start the cancerous growth was not noticeable save by very few; in any case, there were then many more forces working for good than evil, so the embryonic restrictions of the natural rights of the people were kept under a semblance of control and barely perceptible on the whole. As it grew larger and took over a great majority of representatives within the ruling class, the tumor broke open and infected the body politic. Its opponents died off, were rendered impotent, or became marginalized; the intellectual life and health of the people went underground.

It is not this author’s purpose to offer an apology in defense of the natural rights of human beings. Far more capable intellectuals have already done this work; besides, you the reader are well aware of such defenses. Moreover, you are aware of the terrible atrocities committed by the representatives against their own people! Why, then, does the average person stand in apathetic stupor as the civilization of all people is reversed?

There seem to be two answers: (1) The present situation is accepted and put out of mind, and thus hardly anyone thinks about it; or (2) the people are not able to think about the current situation, and thus hardly anyone thinks about it. The second is much more plausible, especially in a system wherein the same representatives who choose to legalize and utilize totalitarian means are the same who fund and operate most of the schools and give accreditation to the others. If the schools are beholden to the representatives for funding or accreditation, there is a seemingly insurmountable disincentive to teach the people who attend schools to use their natural ability to think critically, especially when such critical thinking leads to questioning the current system. Thus, the faculty of reason—the sine qua non of Aristotle’s “rational animal”—is not nurtured, developed, or expressed throughout the schooling process, and the end result is conscienceless savages who appear to be human beings but respond only to base instincts and brute force.

The people are starting to recognize their limitations within this system. Now is the time to share ideas, to build relationships, to bring into focus one purpose, and to remain vigilant as the common cause becomes increasingly clear. The welfare of all people is threatened by this catastrophic status quo. Now is the time to seek out ways to neutralize and roll back the sickness that has infected us, no matter how small. Everyone must oppose the ruling class and show sympathy for the billions of their victims; apathy gives rise only to more upon more victims.

Offer passive resistance where you can. Spread this word to abate and reverse the spread of the greatest evil in our lives. Ecrasez l’etat.

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This is part one of a four-part series titled “A Call to Civilization” in which I exhort people to recognize the situation in which they find themselves today and act to better it.

It is utterly unworthy of a civilized people to allow itself to be governed by a bourgeois political system populated by irresponsible men and women who appeal constantly to our base instincts. It becomes increasingly apparent to me as the days go by every person is dissatisfied with his or her representatives. What levels of embarrassment and shame may befall this generation when we have to defend their choices—which are said to represent our choices—to our inheritors! After all, everyone is responsible for what laws are being passed, what crimes are being prosecuted, and what legal decisions being rendered in his or her name.

If the people are so far corrupted and spiritually bereft they do not raise a voice or raise a pen against their representatives, then they choose tacitly in favor of trusting the same lot who bear primary responsibility for our present situation. If the people trust without reason in their representatives to conform to the advancement of human progress, then they enable the same lot who work against us in so many discernible ways, yea, too many for this author to count. If the people surrender their rights readily—ordering instead the will of their representatives above their own in every dispute—then they deserve their cowardly slough towards ruin.

It might appear the people are spineless and trendy, lacking stability and at least passively willing the destruction of their own civilization. I do not think this to be so. Indeed, these people have endured a process of abuse by their representatives that graduates day by day and year by year until they find themselves in the present state; they gave up increasing fractions of their rights in an incremental process in such a manner they did not notice the shackles being locked about their wrists. I can only describe this situation as their representatives holding the key, and people are starting to become dissatisfied with this fate.

The people are starting to recognize their servitude and the limits imposed by their shackles. Their representatives are rewarding the people unjustly with death, physical harm, detention, and financial depletion with increasing frequency. Allowed to continue unabated, this leviathan will come closer and closer to each person, carrying out its will using the only tool it has: brute force. Every individual, conscious of his or her responsibility to self and society, must defend against those who rob everyone of civilization: the proponents of totalitarianism of every sort.

Offer passive resistance where you can. Spread this word to abate and reverse the spread of the greatest evil in our lives. Ecrasez l’etat.

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I read a quote recently that bears repeating:

“It is sad when the battlelines for the defense of liberty have retreated so far that it is necessary to argue that it is imprudent to permit Presidents to secretly kill one’s fellow citizens.”
—James Bovard, 09 February 2012, antiwar.com

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DuPage County in Illinois has been recognized for having used less salt in the past years than they otherwise would have used. This brings several thoughts to my mind:

1. Why does not every county implement a similar mixture of de-icing chemicals that have a lesser impact on the local environment?

2. Given the number of decades counties have been salting roads, why has it taken this long for such a simple change to occur?

I am no chemist—as evidenced by having preferred to study pure mathematics and the liberal arts in college—so I understand neither the feasibility of alternative chemicals nor the technologies that need to exist to make, for example, Geomelt K, one of the chemicals used in DuPage County. For all I know, it was impossible to have produced such a compound ten years ago.

The larger question in my mind is this: Why has every community throughout every winter across the northern USA been using the same process, materials, etc., to clear winter weather from the roadways? In a free market, I would expect every region to experiment with different chemicals and processes to develop whatever works best for that region.

The question, I am convinced, comes down to ownership. Everybody “owns” the roads in theory, so nobody has ownership of the roads in practice. This removes the pricing mechanism from decisions about clearing the roadways: Is it more efficient to use salt or sand during today’s snowfall? Might it be more efficient to use a series of forced-air heaters at major intersections or electrical-resistance heaters built into the concrete of overpasses? How could we measure the effectiveness of such experiments?

Certainly, I do not know enough to answer these questions. How many more jobs might be created, though, if the roadways were privately owned, giving a profit-and-loss calculation to researching new ways to clear the winter weather from the roadways?

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