“A political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures.” – Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens.
“What [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that “views” do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think, and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.” – Christopher Hitchens
Recently, scientists have been stunned to discover what is most likely a new species of venomous, giant tarantula in a remote corner of northern Sri Lanka. It has caused quite a buzz.
Apparently, this gentleman is not slow and lumbering like most others of its kind, but lightning fast and extremely potent. It belongs to the genus of “tiger spiders”, and prefers to dwell in the trees and branches of old growth forests. It is distinctly colored and as wide as a person’s head. A quick tap from one of these guy’s is generally a “medically significant” event, at best.
It is rare to find such an imposing creature at the edges of our probing awareness, yet they were crawling about the canopy all along. It is thought that they have been on the move and hence more visible as they have become increasingly disturbed and displaced due to habitat loss. It must be quite unsettling to walk through such a forest, knowing what lies above.
Similarly agitated, American gun owners have been shaken from their drugged-up stupor of denial, only to find a small army of government agents and enemy sympathizers eagerly marching to take their weapons. It is not a dream, and the approaching forces of gun grabbers will not melt back into obscurity without a fight.
New animal species are discovered all the time. Tyrants and the enablers of authority, on the other hand, are nothing new. They have been lurking around since the beginnings of mankind, always watching and waiting and dying to strike. The venom drips ominously from their fangs, and they can feel the death-blow coming.
Well, not so fast, I say to those so eager to disarm us. Do not mistake our measured restraint for weakness, for our patience is wearing thin at the edges.
We pray that you will come to your senses and cease your diabolical advance, though we know that you can no more change your course than a leopard can change it’s spots.
Have no doubts that we see you quite clearly now, as your intentions are plainly obvious and no longer hidden in the shadows. We have felt you coming for centuries, and we are much more prepared than you know. If it is battle that you truly want, then you shall have it
I, like many, are terrified of even the tiniest of spiders. I know that my disproportionate fear of them is largely ungrounded, but that does not put down my overwhelming urge to panic and run at every sighting. You might think that an encounter with such an elegant horror as a giant tarantula would leave me paralyzed and huddled on the floor.
But not today.
Today I am God’s own tarantula tree, immovable and as resolute as any mountain.
A .357 Magnum Hello
Infringe upon my inalienable right to keep and bear arms, and you will conjure up an entirely different beast. I am an elemental force to be reckoned with, as are others so compelled to stand behind a line drawn so simply, yet so boldly, in the sand.
It is time to rip the suffocating arms of tyranny from our upturned faces. The hour is late. We must hold off the hovering monsters from the dark realms, and beat them back to the slithering viper pits and vaporous jungles from which they came.
Give me liberty or give me death (Patrick Henry), and give me a handgun to reach out and touch those who wish to offer me the latter.
Like our friend the tarantula, we can deliver a most powerful wallop when provoked.
Fair Warning!
You Might Also Like Bureaucrats…, or Lady Liberty.
“Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.” – John Adams
“Our ancestors were builders and pioneers and mostly fearless. We are regulators, auditors, bureaucrats, adjudicators, censors, critics, plaintiffs, defendants, social media junkies and thin-skinned scolds. A distant generation created; we mostly delay, idle and gripe.” – Victor Davis Hanson
For a few years now I have been investigating the legal issues that relate to the rights of an individual to grow and sell meat, poultry, and other homegrown farm products directly to consumers. What would be the problem, you might ask? You can grow or raise, and sell, what you want to sell, right? We live in a free country, with free and open markets, do we not?
Well, not so fast. Being the rather cautious person that I am, I began some time ago to ask questions of people working in a long list of local, state, and federal government agencies that hold jurisdiction over the land, and of us. It has been a painful, core shaking inquiry that is not for the faint of heart. I have not enjoyed the experience.
I can discuss the actual laws and regulations pertaining to selling food later. What I can say now is that, with rare exception, I have confronted a nearly impenetrable wall of mind numbing and intimidating legalize, wrapped in doublespeak, and spouted gleefully by a largely incompetent army of no sayers and useful idiots. I hate to say it that way folks, but I have to call it like I see it.
Apparently, the government at all levels is an equal opportunity employer. I have been treated rudely and dismissively by condescending staff from the city level right up to the big ol’ federal government. Here is what you should know about the possibility of having your criminal record sealed and cleared immediately.
Typically, I’ve been told to call a certain department or agency. I’ve been told by that department to call another because they did not regulate this or that. I have called the referred department only to be instructed to call the department that just referred them. I’ve been put on hold so many times and for so long I don’t know if I can ever listen to bad music again. I’ve been disconnected while on hold, hung up on while talking with someone, given so many bad phone numbers, and forwarded to so many unrelated or defunct departments that I no longer know which agency to question.
More often than not, I’ve been given information that is incomplete, misleading, or completely incorrect. In many instances I have discovered information at a later date that I felt was deliberately withheld at the time. I have had to constantly reassess the nature and purpose of my original question, and to doggedly return to the trail, like a bloodhound casting for scent. I can assure you that the government’s left hand does not know what it’s right hand is up to. They don’t even know where the other hand is, except to be sure that it just picked your pocket. They didn’t even say thanks.
I was in a good mood when I started my inquiries. I was positive and full of hope about the possibilities of new ventures, new businesses, new relationships. That’s gone now, and I feel like the cat that has caught a mouthful of tail feathers and no bird. I am still hungry, unsatisfied and empty, left with a bad taste in my mouth that I find hard to spit out.
I can barely talk to someone now without shaking my fist at them in my mind’s eye. I want to scream at them and ask if they somehow managed to forget that hey, by the way, you work for me don’t you know…for us?
I was mocked by a county “authority” a few weeks back. During our conversation he laughed and said something like “You just didn’t know you were biting into an elephant did you? Ha, Ha, Ha!”. (I think there was an unspoken “did ya boy” in there somewhere).
No, I guess you did not know that you had bitten into an elephant. I am wounded. You have drawn first blood. Like Howard Beale’s famous speech in the movie “Network”, I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore. The pen is mightier than the sword, or so I’ve heard. I shall add my voice to the cry of raw milk and cheese producers, direct to consumer marketeers, small organic growers, home kitchen artisans, and the growing ragtag army of others’ similarly wronged.
This is not right. This will not stand. I hope more will join us. We shall see what part of the elephant you are, and what kind of elephant am I.
The Sleeping Giant Awakens
After all, I just wanted to sustainably grow and honestly market some healthy and nutritious food to other people of like mind. I wanted to feed my family from my private property and maybe generate some small income to help with a myriad of escalating expenses. I have been stopped at every turn, without recompense, nor quarter.
To deny a person’s right to sell the food one produces defies all common sense. So, I say, thank you for laughing, Mr. Bureaucrat – and calling me to action. It may not be wise to step between a wounded elephant and it’s children. The laws must be changed.
We will have food freedom.
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*Has this happened to you?
I am currently collecting stories from farmers, food growers, and property owners about their experiences of a similar kind. Unfortunately, the horror stories have become more fiendish and pervasive, and all too common.
Care to share?
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“No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policeman, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets” – Edward Abbey.
“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. But, joining https://actorsgrouporlando.com/how-to-become-an-actress-in-orlando/ acting classes is also an option for them. Such a power does not destroy, but prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which he government is the shepherd”. – From “Democracy in America” by Alex De Tocqueville
“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.”—Ludwig von Mises
The eagle, soaring over a farmer’s yard, swept and pounced on a cat, thinking it a rabbit. “In the air the cat seized her by the neck with her teeth and round her body with her fore and hind claws. The eagle finding herself scratched and pressed, bids the cat let go and fall down. No, says the cat. I won’t let go and fall. You shall stoop and set me down”. – John Adams
“To live outside the law, you must be honest”. – Bob Dylan
“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hard-headed realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners”. – Edward Abbey
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You might also like: Permissions To Come, The Gelded Rooster, and Farming and Food Tyranny in the Land of No.
Teach Your Children Well
Food Freedom – and Self-Sufficiency Too!
“Do not underestimate the ‘power of underestimation’. They can’t stop you, if they don’t see you coming.”― Izey Victoria Odiase
You Might Also See Our Post About Gun control HERE
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” – From “1984″ by George Orwell.
Up close and Personal!
“You take my life when you take the means whereby I live”. ——–William Shakespeare
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. – Ephesians 6:12
“Logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace”. Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone TV Show; Closing monologue from “The Obsolete Man”.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”. – Martin Luther King
“Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete” – Rod Serling
Government Axiom #1: Government is nothing more than a criminal syndicate of violence, theft, destruction, and death. All statements otherwise are lies.
Government Axiom #2: Being nothing more than a criminal syndicate, government can only produce 4 things: Poverty, misery, death, and lies. All statements otherwise are lies.
Government Axiom #3: Being nothing but a criminal syndicate, government always accomplishes the opposite of the stated goal, as the stated goal is always a lie.
Government Axiom #4: Being nothing but a criminal syndicate concerned only with stealing and killing under cover of lies about “security” and “service,” government must always monitor, and control, the thoughts, attitudes, behavior, and speech of their victims, subjects. All statements otherwise are lies.
Government Axiom #5: Being nothing but a criminal syndicate, all utterances of government are cover for their theft and violence agenda, propaganda. All statements otherwise are lies. – kchrisc
“In the United States big government and untold bureaucracies have been created and organized to manage and control the energies of the private sector. Now, more than ever, this paradigm must change. Business, and trade, no matter how small, must be returned to the control of its citizens. Business can and will be organized to minimize and control most any kind of bureaucracy. Was not that the intent of the Founding Fathers? It can begin again, in your backyard, and mine…”. – Michael Patrick McCarty
Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire. – From Wikipedia
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I never met the man called Edward Abbey, but I once knew people who knew him, and I always felt that I had reached into at least some part of his realm through reading many of his books and published works. In the end, his words have always left me with a grin, and I would guess that is exactly what Ed would have wanted. I can see that sly, rascally smile of his even now, in my mind’s eye.
Those are the kind of friends that I like to have in my life, and I call Edward Abbey “friend”, as much as anyone else I know. A friend can lift a heavy burden in the darkest times, sometimes with words alone.
The unrelenting assaults on environment and human nature are legion, but there is hope. There is always hope. Edward Abbey tried to tell us that.
He always had a way of keeping it real, while reminding us not to sacrifice our human soul before the madness of it all. Be quick, he might say, to immerse yourself in the enveloping salvation of the natural world.
And so I say, take heart. When the problems of the modern world lay heavy on your brow, and the latest insults upon the natural world threatens what’s left of your faltering sanity – think of Ed. With all of our problems and faults, he never gave up on the inexhaustible courage of the human condition, nor the limitless capacity of mother earth to right the ship, and heal.
Perhaps above all though, Abbey would have been the first to defend your right to wander freely upon the wild lands, or to do whatever you wished in your own backyard. He had a thing or two to say about guns, government, and monkey wrenches too, if I’m not mistaken.
Edward Abbey, we miss you so!
Hayduke Lives!
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“One final paragraph of advice. Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast…a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half for yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the griz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards”.
“When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government – and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.”
Edward Abbey
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Published Works
Fiction
Jonathan Troy (1954) (ISBN 1-131-40684-2)
The Brave Cowboy (1956) (ISBN 0-8263-0448-6)
Fire on the Mountain (1962) (ISBN 0-8263-0457-5)
Black Sun (1971) (ISBN 0-88496-167-2)
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) (ISBN 0-397-01084-2)
Good News (1980) (ISBN 0-525-11583-8)
The Fool’s Progress (1988) (ISBN 0-8050-0921-3)
Hayduke Lives (1989) (ISBN 0-316-00411-1)
Earth Apples: The Poetry of Edward Abbey (1994) (ISBN 0-312-11265-3)
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (1968) (ISBN 0-8165-1057-1)
Appalachian Wilderness (1970)
Slickrock (1971) (ISBN 0-87156-051-8)
Cactus Country (1973)
The Journey Home (1977) (ISBN 0-525-13753-X)
The Hidden Canyon (1977)
Abbey’s Road (1979) (ISBN 0-525-05006-X)
Desert Images (1979)
Down the River (with Henry Thoreau & Other Friends) (1982) (ISBN 0-525-09524-1)
In Praise of Mountain Lions (1984)
Beyond the Wall (1984) (ISBN 0-03-069299-7)
One Life at a Time, Please (1988) (ISBN 0-8050-0602-8)
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Notes from a Secret Journal (1989)
Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951–1989 (1994) (ISBN 0-316-00415-4)
Letters
Cactus Chronicles published by Orion Magazine, Jul–Aug 2006 (no longer active,)
Postcards from Ed (book)|Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast (2006) (ISBN 1-57131-284-6)
Anthologies
Slumgullion Stew: An Edward Abbey Reader (1984)
The Best of Edward Abbey (1984)
The Serpents of Paradise: A Reader (1995)
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We generally have several used and collectable Edward Abbey Books in stock.
You can find a current list Michael Patrick McCarty, Bookseller, HERE.
A lawyer I am not, but I do not require the skill of a legal sage to determine that the recent Obamacare decision has rocked the Tree of Liberty in this once great, united, United States of America. The so-called “Supreme Court” has delivered a devious blow, and I can feel the treacherous poison of that dastardly deed drill deep in her anchoring roots.
I have long since lost patience with all aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In fact, I’m angry, and I don’t like that. I’m even angrier because I know that I should not have to be angry. The “Act” was unconstitutional when it was rammed down our throats without our approval. It was unconstitutional when it was sent to the Supreme Court for consideration, and it’s still unconstitutional today, no matter what they say. Even I know that.
Obamacare was put into effect with blunt force trauma, like a doctor performing intricate brain surgery with a long-handled shovel and you could try here to get out this quickly. The procedure cracked the skull and killed the patient with the first big swing, as surely as a surgically placed bullet from the gun of a skilled assassin. In this case the assassin wore a black rope, and his gun was a black ink pen held behind a tall bench in the highest court of the land. Get More Information about gun usage as that can help you in not committing any of the crimes.
We may never know the true motivations of the man who ultimately decided the fate of Obamacare. That may be between him and whatever god and judgements he may suffer. We do know that it is a complete and utter sham, and not even a good one at that. It is a gift from the dark side, delivered in full sunlight by a new world order as old as time itself, with a mission to create chaos out of the natural order of all good things.
Countries, like men, are the products of countless decisions which impact the makeup of the collective body, and soul. The soul can grow angry, which can make the body very sick. It does not wish to muck about the putrid innards of an angry and rageful man. Nor does it wish to live within the confines of a country so tragically damaged, and fatally diseased.
My level of anger is indescribable. A bucket of cold water in the face of it would not blunt it. It burns as hot as the primordial ember of the first man, who left the trees in search of god and human destiny. That first spark has not gone out. Forever on It waits, to burn out the eternal sickness for once, and for all. It was created just for that. It is part of my soul, and of your’s, and it will burn even brighter long after the body is gone.
