Time for a Boynout
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.org

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

Meet John Spencer, the poor, dumb sacrificial beast the GOP plans to put up against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the US Senate next time around.

The sad, strange little man knows he has the proverbial cellophane snowball's chance in hell of winning a tiny, insignificant fraction of the votes the Woman-with-One-Eyebrow will be able to collect, more or less in her sleep, but he still has to have something to say on those rare occasions anybody is listening. Or reporting. So he's chosen to go the Marxist route—the Groucho Marxist route, that is—of comic surrealism, because he knows he hasn't got a thing (or a vote) to lose.

Comic surrealism? Well, judge for yourself. According to an online article I saw today by Associated Press political writer Marc Humbert, Spencer charged last week in Albany, after what Humbert described as a "fiery speech" to the New York Conservative Party leadership defending the Patriot Act, that Senator Clinton "aids and abets our enemies" in the battle against terrorism with her public criticisms of the Bush Administration.

What's that again?

Hillary voted for this evil, stupid war and for the Patriot Act. If the continued wellbeing of Israel is an article of anybody's faith, it's hers. Her ties to mercantilist chicanery are every bit as strong as any Republican's. Her husband had a habit of bombing anything that looked at him crosseyed, especially whenever his sexual indiscretions threatened to become hot news. That he lacked the audacity—or the insanity—to turn America into a fascist police state and declare war on the entire planet simply makes him the Herbert Hoover of the Democrats.

And of what do Clinton's criticisms of the Bush Administration largely consist? Well the last time this columnist looked, it was that the Bushies aren't prosecuting the war on terrorism vigorously enough.

Of the Patriot Act, Hillary's likely opponent said, "I wish we['d] had it before 9-11 ... And I wish we['d] had an administration in Washington that wasn't an appeasing, liberal, whining administration in the 90's that allowed the terrorists to build up the way they built up."

Hold on, isn't this is the same woman who (with exactly the same disdain for that "goddamned piece of paper"—the Constitution—that Curious George himself displays) continually launches trial balloons that would end in the credentialling of Internet journalists. In other words, Hillary wants the government to inspect the activities of, and give licenses to —or withhold them from—the individuals whose job it is to investigate and, if necessary, oppose the plans of government.

Why can't she and Spencer get together? They represent exactly the same interests and they propose policies that are indistinguishable. As my regular readers know, as far as I'm concerned, they represent two not-terribly-different wings of exactly the same political party: the Boot on Your Neck Party. If it isn't George Bush with his boot on your neck after 2008—if George isn't there any more to steal half of everything you make, and enslave your kids for military and other purposes, and dog your steps, and lowjack your phone, and read your mail, and ransack your medical records, and censor your radio and television, and search your home, and probe your bunghole—it'll be Hillary.

Or somebody just like her.

Neither of these phony antagonists will offer not to do any of those evil things. Instead, they're competing on the basis of who can deprive us all of more of our rights faster. Standing on the shoulders of would-be tyrants like Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Johnson, Bill Clinton did his damnedable best to make the state stronger and more unaccountable to the people. George Bush stands on Clinton's shoulders today.

Any "progress" made by Republicans in converting America into a dictatorship will be absorbed by the next Democratic administration before they go on to make "progress" of their own. The "no-fly" list will become the "no-ride" list, then the "no-drive" list, then the "no-walk" list, and finally the "no-breathe" list. Why anybody should think that it matters which wing of the Boot on Your Neck Party is doing it to us at any given moment is—and always has been—beyond me.

We already know that if the media cover both wings of the Boot On Your Neck Party they will claim that they're covering all possible political alternatives. They'd rather send a reporter and a cameraman to a local dog show and air the resulting tape in three-hour segments than treat anyone who's dissatisfied with politics-as-they-are with any more dignity than they do the attendees at a science fiction convention.

Is there any hope left? Can anything be done? I think so, but watch out, because I've been wrong before. I think a national organization, with local affiliates, dedicated to dis-electing politicians, aiming at an eventual hundred year moratorium on further legislation of any kind (except for repeals), might just stand a chance.

I call it the Impeachment Party.

Such an organization wouldn't steal half of everything you make. It wouldn't enslave your kids for military and other purposes. It wouldn't dog your steps. It wouldn't lowjack your phone. It wouldn't read your mail. It wouldn't ransack your medical records. It wouldn't censor your radio and television. It wouldn't search your home. And it wouldn't probe your bunghole—because it wouldn't run candidates who believed they had something to gain by advancing idiotic policies like that.

In fact, the Impeachment Party wouldn't run candidates at all. Instead it would work, full time, to see the Bill of Rights enforced, to repeal laws contradicting it, to remove politicians violating it, and to stop, for a century, adding to millions of laws that already exist.

I've said before, many times, that to put an end to war, we must end taxation, end conscription, disarm the government, and arm the people.

The Impeachment Party would be a good start.

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org.

Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil's 1993 Ngu family novel Pallas was recently completed and is presently looking for a literary home.

A decensored, e-published version of Neil's 1984 novel, TOM PAINE MARU is available at: http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=137991. Neil is presently working on Ares, the middle volume of the epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Roswell, Texas, with Rex F. "Baloo" May.

The stunning 185-page full-color graphic-novelized version of The Probability Broach, which features the art of Scott Bieser and was published by BigHead Press www.bigheadpress.com has recently won a Special Prometheus Award. It may be had through the publisher, at www.Amazon.com, or at BillOfRightsPress.com.

TLE ADVERTISER

Cheaper Than Dirt!

Help Support TLE by patronizing our advertisers and affiliates.
We cheerfully accept donations!