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Pushing Rope
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

Distribute and attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

In 212 B.C., in the Greek city of Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, Archimedes, the greatest mathematician and inventor of his times, was murdered by a Roman soldier while he was preoccupied studying a geometry problem laid out in a bed of sand he used as a blackboard.

Just before the gladius fell, obliterating one of the brightest, most productive minds the world has ever known, Archimedes is rumored to have admonished the copper-skirted military thug, "Don't mess up my circles."

Unlike other students of history, however—and allowing for the fact that Archimedes was an astonishing 75 years old at the time—I blame the Roman G.I. less for the death of the Greek genius than I blame the Greek genius himself. He couldn't have not known the Sabine rapists were on the way. He couldn't have imagined that their looting and pillaging wouldn't have included his neighborhood. He must have understood that no uniformed breaker-of-things and killer-of-people would have any respect whatever for his intellectual prowess and accomplishments.

Among other things, Archimedes was an inventor of clever weapons that must have seemed science fictional at the time. Apparently the jury is still out with regard to the claim that he built a device to focus the sun's energy on enemy ships and destroy them (I disagree with Mythbusters' conclusion about that) but something like an automated repeating crossbow wouldn't have been beyond his amazing powers.

The Chinese came that close.

If I were rewriting history (my chosen profession of the last four decades), what he'd have told the Roman thug is "Say hello to whatever gods you worship." Whereupon the arrow-riddled body of the soldier would have been dragged out of sight and work on the geometry problem continued.

Because people fail to learn from history, it could all happen again. I have a recurring daymare that when the Glorious People's SWAT Teams smash their way in, most of us—by which I mean members of the general freedom movement—will be caught flatfooted, sitting in our underwear behind our computer monitors, guzzling Jolt and gorging on Cheetos, while arguing with our friends and enemies online about immigration or abortion, two of the issues that the Lefties know they can always rely on to keep that general freedom movement divided and powerless.

So what do I propose instead? Countermeasures? I get e-mail from plenty of folks who imagine they can fight back physically against the god-king and his socialist minions. I certainly don't advocate helplessness, but I'm also aware that government will do anything—anything at all—to quash pockets of resistance before they can spread. Lincoln murdered 620,000 individuals to wipe out those who didn't wish to live under his poxy thumb. Hitler killed 13,000,000. Stalin killed more than Hitler, and Mao Tse Tung killed more than Stalin.

The MOVE bombing, Ruby Ridge, and Waco represent a lesson that must be learned: get government under control before the American Holocaust begins, because once it does, it will be too late. Having watched George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, and George Bush Junior at work around the world, I have no doubt whatever that Barack Obama would not hesitate to use tactical nuclear weapons, if necessary, to stifle opposition.

Meaning you and me.

It is very, very late in the game. Trying to emulate Archimedes, I have invented various means of preventing the horror that looms before us. But getting my fellow libertarians to act in any sort of effective manner has proven close to impossible. It always has been. Some have compared it to herding cats, although I've lived with cats all my life and know that they can be herded if you approach the job correctly. Getting libertarians to move forward is a great deal more like pushing rope.

I know—and so do you—that we have no allies. We can count on the cowardly Republicans—right wing socialists—only to get down on their craven bellies to lick the boots of their left wing socialist oppressors.

I know—and so do you—that conventional electoral activity on the part, say, of the Libertarian Party or any other such group, will only waste our energies and meager resources, even if the LP had not been ripped from real libertarians and smashed to pieces by Republican saboteurs and their Quisling accomplices. Collectivists have rigged the American political process beyond redemption and reforming it remains a task best left for after we have won, if we can, by other means.

Go back to a couple of essays that have appeared recently in the virtual pages of The Libertarian Enterprise. Each outlines a method by which we can effectively defend our lives, our property, and our rights, while utterly eradicating socialism once and for all. Make no mistake about it, socialism—of the Left and the Right—must die. That is what we must accomplish in order to survive and ultimately to thrive and prosper once again. Fall a millimeter short of that and we will lose—or our children will have to fight this battle all over again.

Here are the essays:

"Waking from the Nightmare":

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle496-20081207-02.html

"It Has to Cost Them Something":

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle505-20090208-02.html

Instead of sitting on our backsides, waiting to be killed—or dragged off to a FEMA extermination camp where we can be processed more efficiently—we must make what they plan impossible while we can. (A couple of you have already signed on with us. You know who you are.)

To that end—although I'm extremely busy and had hoped somebody else would do it—I am forming the National Recall Coordinating Committees, whose task, outlined in the first essay above, will be the removal from office of the habitual criminal violators of the Bill of Rights who mistakenly believe they rule us. The NRCC (colloquially called "NERK") will also pursue the ideas you'll find in the second essay.

Along with any others I can think of.

TLE now becomes the "official journal of the National Recall Coordinating Committees". Don't worry, it will also keep on doing what it's always done. Your distinguished editor, Ken Holder, will act as my right-hand man in this, as usual. We will be looking for folks to form NRCC committees in their own states, counties, and cities. We will eventually have an online discussion group, not to analyze and argue pointlessly, as is the libertarian habit, but to plan and get things done.

Real things.

In the meantime, if you feel up to the task forming a NRCC committee, write to us at nrcc@ncc-1776.org and we'll get back to you. As the organization begins to get, well, organized, be prepared to state your agreement with and adherence to the Zero Aggression Principle.

Might as well get started right.

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