Vote Like an Egyptian
By L. Neil Smith
[email protected]
Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise
A long time ago in a dynasty far, far away, there reigned in
ancient Egypt a Pharoah, Akenaton, and his Pharie princess, the lovely
Nefertiti.
People these days are inclined to think well of Akenaton and his
bride -- the world's original supermodel -- mainly because he was the
first guy, apparently, ever to think of the idea that there's only one
god, and also the first guy with the political and military power to
cram that idea down everybody else's throats whether they liked it or
not.
It seems that, until Akenaton and his sweetie Nefertiti came
along, folks were perfectly content believing there were hundreds --
maybe even thousands -- of gods, celestial bureaucrats in a manner of
speaking, each with his, hers, or its separate responsibility, such as
looking out for all the hippopotamuses, making sure this year's batch
of baby cockroaches got off to a good start, or keeping the Plague in
tune.
For each divine department, there were hundreds -- maybe even
thousands -- of perfectly human priests, priestesses, and acolytes,
employing architects, builders, artisans, artists, and caterers too
numerous to count, all of them busy making sure the gods were happy,
the Nile overflowed its banks now and again fertilizing all the farm
acreage, and that individuals who died got properly routed to the
afterlife.
Akenaton and Never-say-nevertiti changed all that -- or at least
they tried to, reinventing Egyptian religion overnight, moving the
nation's capital upriver, creating a brand new art style, and building
temples, shrines, obelisks, and whatnot to their new sun-god Ra,
demolishing as much of the real estate and construction dedicated to
the old gods as they could manage, while replacing it with their own
stuff.
Akenaton: Man of Stele.
Naturally, none of this went down well with the hundreds -- maybe
even thousands -- of priests, priestesses, and acolytes of the old
religion, although it's safe to assume that Egyptian architects,
builders, artisans, artists, and caterers were fairly happy with all
the new jobs that the Pharoah and his sculptogenic spouse were busy
creating.
As I say, the modern world celebrates Akenaton as some kind of
theological genius, centuries ahead of his time. But in his own time,
he and his wife were a couple of typical southern California-type nut
cases, full of crazy ideas -- with the power to back them up by force
-- ruling against the grain of Egyptian tradition and the will of the
people.
In short, Ak and Nef were exactly like our current southern
California-type nut case rulers, Bladdernose Bill and the Thing with
One Eyebrow.
It's enlightening to discover what Egyptian civilization did once
Akenaton's term of office, er ... expired. (Nobody's quite sure what
happened to him; he apparently had physical deformities that may have
contributed to an early natural demise; once he was gone, Nefertiti
disappeared from history with breathtaking alacrity and thoroughness.)
Free of what must have seemed a reign of terror, those who still
revered the old gods erased every trace of Akenaton and Nefertiti,
moving the capital back to where it had been, and destroying every
building, statue, obelisk, painting, carving, and graffito they had
produced.
We wouldn't even know about this pair of long-ago loonies, except
that some of those buildings supplied material for new buildings, with
all the Akenaton/Nefertiti propaganda tastefully turned to the inside
of the structure (where it was presumably concealed by inner walls),
leaving only the former backsides of the stones to moon the world.
When this fact was discovered, archaeologists started looking in other
out-of-the way places and reconstructed the entire dreadful Akenaton
Administration.
Too bad.
But it sort of makes you think, doesn't it?
These last six years, from 1992 to the present, have been the
worst the nation has had to endure since the War between the States.
The current Bubba/Bubbette Administration has displayed all of the
respect for this country, its people, its libertarian traditions, and
its highest law -- the Bill of Rights --as the average rustic does for
the Sears Roebuck catalog hanging in the little house behind the big
house.
But one way or another, by democratic rotation in office or
impeachment, the Never-Inhaled/Never-Swallowed Administration can't
last forever. It has to end someday, when Bill slimes his way back to
Darkest Arkansas and Hillary mounts her broom for Nevada and a quickie
divorce.
At that point, I recommend a Constitutional Amendment, forever
erasing these two boils on the derriere of the body politic from
history. Every likeness of them would be smashed or burned. All of
the official record books would show (from the viewpoint of future
archaeologists) a baffling gap between George Bush and whoever gets
elected next. Most importantly, every law passed, every regulation
promulgated, every executive order written, would be declared null and
void. No more Deedee, Stephie, Lanny, or Eleanor. And everybody
jailed during this never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed era would be set
free.
It would be exactly as if the Bozo/Evita Administration had never
existed.
This won't restore the republic altogether -- RICO and the War on
Drugs were both Republican ideas -- we have plenty of elbow-grease-
consuming work in front of us, consisting, for the most part, of the
draconian enforcement of the Bill of Rights, before we've accomplished
that.
Nor will it save the precious lives of thousands of victims of
Clinton's murderous tyranny, here and overseas. But it may let them
rest easier -- as they wait for Bill and Hillary in the Land of the
Dead.
Novelist and political essayist L. Neil Smith is the only Libertarian
ever to be called a "thug" within the pages of the Libertarian Party
News. He has also been characterized by one disgruntled reader as
having written the "single most repugnant ... piece of tripe ... ever
seen in an American newspaper." In his spare time, he's the award-
winning author of The Probability Broach,
Pallas,
Henry Martyn, and Bretta Martyn and 15 other novels, as well as publisher of The
Libertarian Enterprise http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/index.html.
Order his books from Amazon.com at his home site "The Webley Page" at
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