After some relatively careful thought and consideration (I know, I know, how strange for me, eh?), I can only come to the conclusion that I am Simon Jester:
We are Simon Jester.
We are not anarchists.
We are not Far-Right or Far-Left. We are the seventy percent in the middle.
We are not Capital “L” libertarians, although we do have sympathies with their platform.
We are neither bitter clingers nor conspiracy nuts.
What we are is a group of folks that think e see liberty and freedom eroding in our beloved United States. We see the policies and agendas of the hirelings in Washington D.C. heading toward an abbreviation if not outright abrogation of the Bill of Rights.
We think that the Federal government is grasping to consolidate power using the current crisis, since as Rahm Emmanuel said, it’s a terrible thing to waste. We think the Federal government, not just this administration, is more interested in self-serving personal, political, and party power than it is in actually doing its best to do the least.
This President didn’t make it this way. It has been heading along this path since Woodrow Wilson held political prisoners and FDR held four terms as president; since Johnson’s Great Society and Nixon took us off the gold standard; since Bush Sr. lied about no new taxes, Clinton desecrated the Oval Office, Bush Jr. rammed through the Patriot Act, and Obama wanted every high school kid to ‘volunteer.’
For almost a hundred years, our country has been heading towards becoming a Socialist, centrally planned, Nanny State where the Federal Government tells it citizens how to conduct business, what they would grow in their own gardens or on their own farms, and now even how much a private citizen is allowed to earn before punitive and illegal taxation takes it away.
Now is the time to make it stop.
The Constitution of the United States of America tells us how our government is supposed to operate. It tells us what powers they have been lent by its citizens. It even delineates what powers each branch of government is supposed to have. Our Federal Government, all three branches, has over-reached. Continually.
The Declaration of Independence told King George what we felt about the way he was treating the Thirteen Colonies. It also told the world what we as Americans believed were natural truths about how government should work, with the consent of the governed. It amazes us how many of the things the Colonies begged King George to address have raised their ugly heads in the present day. We are taxed without our consent for government programs we don’t want. We are told that our natural resources are not ours to do with what we would. We are even told that our property can be confiscated if the government thinks it can get a bigger tax base from a different owner. Our elections are swayed by huge amounts of dollars and the willing collaboration of the old media giants. More than that, our elections are influenced by unconstitutional law such as McCain-Feingold, communist groups such as ACORN signing up 200,000 illegal voters in Ohio, and terrorist groups like the Black Panthers staking our polling places such as in Philadelphia. And we, the legitimate voters of this country are forced to accept the results.
Our voice has been ignored, even to the point of telling the citizens of a state that a duly enacted and overwhelmingly voter-approved constitutional amendment would not be allowed to stand due to political correctness.
Our representatives have listened to us on occasion however; only to be overturned by a penstroke from the Executive Branch, like when we said we didn’t like the idea of bailing out the auto industry.
Our legislature has pretended to listen to us about our need to protect our country’s borders, but then come back and tried to tell us that they have changed their minds. All the while trying to curry favor to their own districts with pork projects.
We flood D.C. with calls and letters and emails demanding that the administration not burden our grandchildren with huge government debt that will necessitate huge tax increases, but are told that our thoughts on the matter have no bearing because some things are just too big to fail; only to hear the same legislators come back a few months later and demand punitive taxes on those companies it gave money to against our wishes.
The current administration has appointed all of these extra-constitutional “Czars” to oversee what they view as problems in our country and in our world, including an avowed Communist.
This administration, as well as far too many legislators, clings to a philosophy of man-made global warming that is far from settled science and has decided that “Cap and Trade”, regardless of the huge burden that will place on the consumers, is necessary to limit carbon emissions. The fact that it has been tried in Europe and FAILED to limit carbon emissions doesn’t matter because this program will generate huge tax dollars for the government while at the same time penalizing the consumers of energy in the form of higher energy bills.
Another thing that has failed in Europe and elsewhere is the idea of universal health care. Yet still our government is racing headlong towards rationed medical procedures, diagnostics, medicines, and preventive care because it is yet another way to control the population. It is very hard to tell the government “No” when you or your spouse, or your child, depend upon the government owned and run kidney machine, insulin shots, or cancer treatments.
And now our Federal government has asked for more power. It isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. They want the power to regulate to the point of confiscation the administration of every business in the United States, just for our own financial safety or course. They want to regulate our salaries and compensation. They want to bankrupt the coal industry, which provides eighty (80 !!) percent of all the power in this country. They don’t want us to be able to drill for oil or natural gas. But at the same time they don’t want to allow the transmission of power from wind farms or solar farms across the countryside because they say it will affect the natural beauty of the desert or they don’t want their view cluttered out past Martha’s Vineyard. They want control of the means of production, the type of crops we grow, and the structure and location of the buildings in which we live. And, despite their protestation to the contrary, they want to disarm us. Too much has slipped out about that for them to be able to deny it any more.
And yes, we repeat, they now are asking for more power. This isn’t just theft, it is a bloody strong-arm robbery with a knife in your ribs.
Now, here is where Simon Jester comes in.
This whole thing isn’t about the Democrats or the Republicans, because they are both taking us to the same place and they aren’t afraid of us anymore. It is about our Constitutional form of government. The Rights were there before the words were written, for they are inherent in all people. They don’t come from government; government, no matter how hard it tries, cannot dissolve them. Now, here we the people are, having all these Tea Parties, trying to show our government that we, the seventy percent or so of the country who is right smack dab in the middle trying to raise our families and give our children better lives than we had, are tired of this grab for power. These Tea Parties, where no one actually throws anything in the harbor, are getting hardly any coverage from the press. In fact, the TWO counter protestors at the March Tea Party in Orlando got as much or more local coverage than the under-reported thousands who attended the rally. So, short of actually committing acts of vandalism and felonious assault, how are we going to get noticed?
Simon Jester. A symbol, since “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert A. Heinlein was published in 1966, of dissent against authority. Let the press, and the government, and your neighbors know that you are paying attention to what the Federal government is trying to do. Let someone ask you what that little devil underneath the word “Citizen” across your chest means and then explain it to them. Explain to the one pool reporter who shows up at the next Tea Party that you and Simon have your eyes open and are watching as the government tries to control your life. Explain to your pastor, or your waitress, or your barista at Starbucks, that our government is power hungry and that you and others like you are trying to be heard.
We are Simon Jester. So are they.
And so are you.
Robert Heinlein was pretty much my first introduction to the realm of science fiction writings. By a curious happenstance, I actually managed to read “The Number of the Beast
” first, and, as any Heinlein fan would recognize, that was probably not the best course of action – the book is basically a compilation of various other stories he penned, in addition to writings from other authors in other fictional universes, and without all of this background information, TNotB did not really make a whole lot of sense. However, it did manage to instill in me a desire to figure out who all of these people were, and how all their stories were interconnected. The sequel to TNotB (“The Cat Who Walks Through Walls“) introduced me to Hazel Stone, which, in turn, caused me to pick up “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” one day.
Looking back on it now, and reading through more Heinlein books today, I was reading them for the fun of it – and they are glorious stories. But reading through TNotB and TCWWTW now, later in life, I realize they were much deeper than that.
The same holds true for TMiaHM. I first read that book probably before I knew how to drive, and while it was an outstanding story, almost all of the political intrigue, sociological philosophizing, and political proselytizing went right over my hormonal head. Hell, those days, I paid about as much attention to politics as I did the value of the American dollar in Turkmenistan.
But times have changed. My awakening was probably about as slow and as gradual as that of Mycroft Holmes IV, though signficantly less exciting and revoltionary, and on a much, much smaller scale. I started noticing things around me… how the government went about its business… how oversight worked, or did not… how rights that should be protected and enshrined were instead trampled on and ignored… how governmental officials elected to represent their constituents never even tried to do so… injustices perpetrated for the “good of society” (which might as well read “for the good of politicians”)… The litany of little things I noticed goes on.
No, my maturation was not nearly as eventful or momentous as a computer achieving that fabled state of “artificial intelligence”, but it was, if nothing else, personally important.
And throughout that awakening, the philosophies and politics of Heinlein played an important role, probably moreso than I realized at the time. The importance of not only individual responsibility, but also individual reliance and sustainability impressed themselves upon my mind, and affected how I viewed the world and its people around me… and how those people, and their government, behaved. No, I am nowhere near the Heinleinian ideal portrayed in his, “Specialization is for insects,” quote, but I have done quite a few of those things, and can probably figure out the rest given the desire and opportunity. More importantly, I would be willing and able to jump into any of those proposed situations with a desire to learn and successfully execute them… unlike those folks who would rather rely on the government to bail them out.
That was probably the most important part of my growth, now that I have rambled around to it – the realization that my life is my own, and my successes, failures, victories, and defeats are entirely consequences of my own actions, and thus my own responsibilities. I cannot blame anyone else. I cannot rely on anyone who is not willing to provide me assistance – forcing someone to help me monetarily, with their time, or in any other way is nothing short of highway robbery.
And that, that is why the path our government and society are going down is the wrong one, and why I am Simon Jester. Our government has no business telling people how to live their lives, how to spend their money, or how to do anything else. Our government has absolutely no business bailing out corporations that would otherwise have failed in a free market. Our government has absolutely no business instituting, or even considering, a form of indentured servitude. And, as before, the list just goes on.
However, the government is us, as a people – we elected our representatives, we pay the taxes that fund these programs, we lobby our legislators to try and get changes done, we put people in their positions of power. Our Founding Fathers created our country specifically that way, for a reason – that we, the people of our great country, take responsibility for it and help it out.
Those great men, those hundreds of years ago, created a self-correcting system, but one that has not gone through such a correction in a very long time. Too long have politicians catered to their own personal desires. Too long has the Constitution been used and abused to perpetrate legislation that would not have passed muster 200 years ago. Too long has the government as a whole taken on powers and abilities that it was never intended to have.
And it is the duty of us, the people, the citizens of our country, to bring things back to an even keel.
To be fair, I do not agree with some of the things the Simon Jester folks propose. A return to the gold standard? *shrug* Not really a priority of mine. Furthermore, I adamantly and vociferously oppose any attempts at an overthrow of our government – we are still well within the realm of being able to correct it internally, within the confines of the systems our Founding Fathers created for us, and in a peaceful manner.
But in terms of protecting, preserving, and defending our individual rights, granted to us simply by dint of being conscious humans? That I can agree with and support, and because of that, I am Simon Jester.
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