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Re: “Andrew and Donald” by L. Neil Smith (in this issue)
It is not mentioned in this article, but Johnson faced the ire of the Radical Republican Congress for vetoing their efforts to guarantee Black civil rights and overturn Jim Crow laws on the grounds that they were unconstitutional (which they were, regardless of their good intent and positive effects), and when they sought to correct this with the 14th Amendment, advising Southern States not to ratify it due to the punitive Section 3.
It was also the intent of the Republicans to turn the President into a symbolic head of state and placing true executive power in the hands of the Speaker of the House. Please note that US Grant was a figurehead for the Radical Republicans during his term in office.
The Democrats are risking control of the House of Representatives in this coming election on the vote to impeach, and I think it was a suicidal bet. They will be doing the same in the Senate trial, and they will lose. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi is demonstrating her lack of leadership ability.
A.X. Perez
[email protected]
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Happy Bill of Rights Day
Happy Bill of Rights Day. Raise hell to protect those rights.
Up until the last two years of the Obama administration murder was down and the population was going up. During those last two years things turned around the other way. People lost hope and got angry.
US population has risen to 330 million plus since the last time I commented on it in TLE. Murder rate is declining again, in spite of well publicized mass shootings.
Americans have hope again. Hopeful people are less likely to be seduced by the lies of wannabe tyrants.
I am not a fan of Donald Trump’s. I don’t see any Democrat running in ’16 or this year who would have brought hope or even slowed the growth of anger and despair as well.
25 December is the first day after the Winter Solstice that you can tell the days are getting longer again, or so I’ve been told. Also been told that’s why Christians stole it from the pagans, to celebrate the return of hope when their Savior is born. I know a lot of you aren’t believers, but may the next year be a hopeful one.
A.X. Perez
[email protected]
[ The last issue of this little magazine was published on Bill of Rights Day, and I, your abashed editor, forgot and did not even mention it! Shame! And I had already put up the issue and turned off all the hardware before this reminder from Albert arrived. And so it goes…. — Editor ]
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Re: “Robert Heinlein Remembered” by L. Neil Smith (in the last issue)
Regarding Heinlein and heroes:
"For three thousand years architects designed buildings with columns shaped as female figures. At last Rodin pointed out that this was work too heavy for a girl. He didn’t say, ‘Look, you jerks, if you must do this, make it a brawny male figure.’ No, he showed it. This poor little caryatid has fallen under the load. She’s a good girl-look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, not blaming anyone, not even the gods…and still trying to shoulder her load, after she’s crumpled under it.
“But she’s more than good art denouncing bad art; she’s a symbol for every woman who ever shouldered a load too heavy. But not alone women—this symbol means every man and woman who ever sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude, until they crumpled under their loads. It’s courage, […] and victory.”
“‘Victory’?”
“Victory in defeat; there is none higher. She didn’t give up[…]; she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. She’s a father working while cancer eats away his insides, to bring home one more pay check. She’s a twelve-year old trying to mother her brothers and sisters because Mama had to go to Heaven. She’s a switchboard operator sticking to her post while smoke chokes her and fire cuts off her escape. She’s all the unsung heroes who couldn’t make it but never quit.”
—Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (1961)
I only wish that living in a world filled with people who daily engage in acts of heroism, sometimes even unto death, or worse (losing the use of ones's legs while saving another or not breaking under torture, for example.) was all we needed to guarantee freedom, as I long ago learned my world is filled with everyday heroes. They don't all wear uniforms, some are only children (Xander Vento, for example), and they don't always seem heroic (a father who spends a lifetime raising kids well when he has no talent for the job, Rod's dad in Tunnel in the Sky.). The bosses often see them as saps, at least the worst of the bosses.But they are the people who make thing work.
A.X. Perez
[email protected]
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Christmas Greetings and Best Wishes for 2020
Where public events are concerned, 2019 appears to have ended much better than it began. I won't join in the jubilation that has attended the crushing Conservative win this month. But I am hopeful. I wish my American friends an outcome at least as good to their Presidential election. Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are not necessarily our friends. But they are hated and feared by our enemies. They might become our friends, even if only in what the Marxists call the objective sense. And bear in mind that our enemies aren't getting any younger. The clever ones are dropping out one at a time. Their replacements are generally mediocre. One good push in the next year or so, and we may approach a “1660 moment.” But I will save this reflection for a longer post when I have the time. For the moment, I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2010.
Sean Gabb
[email protected]
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Re: “Robert Heinlein Remembered” by L. Neil Smith (in the last issue)
Thanks,
I missed the first printing of the Heinlein article but was glad to read the December 15 posting.
The description of the kid, including being sentenced to the Library as punishment, read like a description of my early life. I read Heinlein (starting with Have Spacesuit Will Travel) before I ever heard of Ayn Rand, and long before I knew there was such a thing as “libertarian” or “ancap”.
Since then (about 1964) I've had a life long love of RAH and his books. In 1970 I was protesting Vietnam because good men were dying without the will to win, and by 1973 I had enlisted in the Marines. Four years later, when I got out, my BS meter had moved beyond 50%. Slowly but surely, I had all I could stand from both Republicans and Democrats, and spent the next 25 years growing more dissatisfied.
By 2004 the BS meter was pegged, and in early 2005 at the age of 51, I read the book The Probability Broach. I was delighted, and thought “Damn, I'd like to live in that society.” That single book lead me to von Mises, Hayek, Rand, and dozens of others. I also realized once again what RAH was talking about, how important it was, and that there were other people who thought like me.
I'm writing to let Mr. Smith know how much his book has meant. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction and helping to pull the blinders off.
Mike Murray
[email protected]
[email protected]
Deplorable in flyover country,
Northern New Mexico
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