Amber Lee doesn't move, doesn't speak. She will hold it for the 4½ hours. Her urethra is already tied up in a double clove-hitch. She won't pass urine until Wednesday at the earliest.
"No? Good. Then go back to your magazine and don't say another word to me." With bored disgust he turns away.
Conversation Over.
Amber Lee apprehends that she is sitting an arm's length away from 170lbs of frothing human nitroglycerin. She can already imagine the headline: Passenger Annoys Volatile Seatmate — Blows Up Aircraft! She mechanically turns and buries her frozen chalk face in her little Utne Reader. She has developed an eye twitch, which will last eight days.
A stewardess three rows back, has heard all this and smoothly steps up to Graves's right. "Sir, can I get you a . . . drink?"
With his famous evil clown grin, Graves replies, "Jennifer, a drink is the last thing you'd want to give me right now." A mirthless chuckle.
After flying with United for six years, Jennifer has encountered every example of humanity grudgingly allowed on a Boeing 767. She knows he's not kidding. He is a trembling retaining wall, furious with the Iroquois gauntlet of modern airport "security." She is seeing more and more like him since 9/11. Regular people fed up with granny stripsearches, magnetometer silliness, and shoe-sniffing outrage.
Her professional instincts kick in.
Leave this man alone.
"Yes, sir."
She spreads the word to her colleagues.
Don't bother 21C. For anything. They don't.
Four hours and 33 minutes later, they touch down at SkyHarbor in Phoenix, jarring Graves awake. He had slept through the entire flight, head-down on his tray table — even during landing.
Nobody said a word about it.
James Wayne Preston makes himself comfortable in the garden with a pen and notepad to write his father a letter.
Dear Poppa,
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.
The proactive conservatives, meaning those who fully understand the nature of our cultural war, have had too vague a plan for future generations. They are certainly correct in having first seceded with their hearts. Then, by homeschooling their children they correctly avoided offering up their progeny to the altar of the State. But how and where will their philosophically and spiritually healthy children live?
Take an 18 year old young man who has been homeschooled with McGuffey's Readers and Maybury's "Uncle Eric" books. He knows the two basic laws: 1) Do all you have agreed to do, and 2) Do not encroach on other persons or their property. He knows that he was born with many fundamental rights, which cannot be taken away from him by decree. He reads five books a week because he loves reading and learning. He can count on his fingers how many hours of cable and broadcast TV he has watched. He grew up believing in heroes and in America. He is respectful of his parents and his elders. He knows that the Government is not his country, and that "law enforcement officers" are different from Peace Officers. He knows that inflation is a political phenomenon, purposely inflicted. He knows that the US dollar is doomed, as is and was all fiat currency. He knows that no law or regulation actually requires him to pay "income" taxes on his private-sector remuneration. He is an excellent woodsman and rifleman. He is more skilled with his handgun (which he wears daily) than most kids are with their skateboards. He knows that the USA is collapsing in the same way and for the same reasons as did ancient Rome — from within by decadence and apathy. He knows this has been the history of democracies.
Let's go even further. Let's add a religious component. Suppose he believes that the physical world was designed and created, versus the cumulation of accidental and beneficial mutation (which he knows to be utterly unscientific). That we are multidimensional spirit beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies, and that there are supernatural forces acting upon, and supernatural consequences resulting from, our earthly existence. That even though much pain and suffering exists in this world (nearly all of it caused by humans), there is too much joy and beauty to ignore the lovingness behind the creation.
Now, let's tour the world in which this fine young man must live. A world in which man is his own god, and rights come from government. Where 51 voters may tyrannize 49. Where history is untaught and morals are unknown. Where heroes are mocked and decency is scoffed at. Where a young bride (assuming she chooses to marry young, much less marry at all) on her wedding night already has the sexual experience of a prostitute. Where surrogate entertainment tramples individual imagination. Where people work 45 years in jobs they hate to buy crap they don't need. Where over half their paycheck goes to interest and taxes and regulation. Where people are herded like cattle and danced like puppets by a phalanx of purposeful masters. Where their food is mixed by corporations, their public school indoctrination conducted by bureaucrats, their entertainment served by devils.
So, where does this pure young man live? Where is his natural habitat? He has none. He is so sane, he is insane.
We are, in effect, building 200mph racecars in a world without asphalt roads. We're making airplanes without their landing strips. It's one thing to rear such fine children from the laboratory of the loving home, but we need to be creating a place where they can actually live. Otherwise, they will die. Either they will wither up and die, or they will crash headlong into the hard world and die. Raising quality children is only the first step. Creating their habitat is the next.
Raising self-sufficient, libertarian, and Christian children in America is like raising Jewish children in 1938 Germany. What did the Jewish Diaspora do? What was their only choice in a world which despised them? To create their own world. Israel.
That is why we need to create a free state. Not so much for ourselves, but for our children. For James, Jr. and Hanna. Can we abandon the future entirely, calling it "our genes' problem"? Theoretically, but I am very glad that the founders of our country did not. Liberty is not a debt one pays back; it is a debt one pays forward. Even if liberty requires a payback, our benefactors are all dead, which leaves nobody but our posterity to receive the check.
That free state should be Wyoming. Attached is a report1 I've had prepared which explains the details.
Love from your son,
James
Dear James,
Your letters are always a pleasure for me. I am very blessed to have a son who is passionate about our nation's heritage of liberty. I wish that my generation did more to not leave you with this mess, but after we returned from WW2 and Korea I guess most of us just couldn't be bothered with domestic vigilance, so we wallowed in the rampant materialism of the day. I'm sorry that you and your children are paying for that now.
I've carefully read your report. Please know that I am completely behind you and your Wyoming plan.
It's the least I can do after having fallen asleep in 1953.
Your loving father
__________
1 The "Wyoming Report" is in the Appendix, beginning at page 373. It thoroughly describes Preston's plan for libertarian migration which began in the Prologue during the summer of 2006. When to read it (i.e., be-fore, during, or after the wave of Wyoming newcomers) is up to you. For those unwilling to risk spoiling any suspense, pages 373-384 (down to the subchapter heading) are "safe" to read now. The rest should probably be saved until you've finished the story.
2003
I think that if you do even a cursory reading of 20th century history, you can't help but come away with a somewhat skeptical attitude towards government power. But it really doesn't have to grow out of any fundamental philosophical or political belief system. Really it's very simple — if there's a big beast that keeps running around eating people, then you can see that it ought to be caged or done away with. You don't need to base that opinion on any kind of belief system.
— Neal Stephenson, interview, SFX magazine #8, Jan 1996
I pitched the Wyoming plan to a renowned libertarian novelist. He did not find much with which to agree, countering th
at we should continue to "retake America." I replied that such simply could not be accomplished with our present numbers, nor with our likely future numbers. He opined such talk as "defeatist."
Let's say that a small child wants a cookie, but the cookie jar is on the top shelf and too high for him to reach. That cookie jar is America. We cannot reach it, but we can use a chair to climb onto the counter.
Wyoming is the chair.
It's time we simultaneously realize our limitations and our abilities. We cannot reach the cookie jar, or even the kitchen counter — but we are tall enough to climb onto that chair.
Even if we never make it to the cookie jar, there are some gummibears on the counter. So, not only will the effort prove at least somewhat worthwhile, we really have no other choice . . .
— James Wayne Preston, Journals
April 2003 Speech
Colorado Libertarian convention
"Look, here's the straight scoop, like it or not. The Libertarian Party has about 50,000 paid members. Even as the largest third party — or, if you prefer, the third largest party — the LP commands no more than a million votes in presidential elections, and usually less than half that. It has one US Congressman out of 435 — Ron Paul of Texas — and he has to run as a Republican. It has one sheriff out of 3,100 counties, and no Senators or governors. Only billionaires like Perot or DuPont have ever hurdled the obstacles put in the way of third parties, and the LP has no billionaires on the ticket, and likely never will. The LP has never met the 15% electorate requirement to enter the presidential debates, and national media understandably carry on as if the LP isn't even a blip on the political radar screen, so the vast percentage of the electorate will never hear of a Libertarian candidate, and even if they ever did, the LP's platform of ending welfare and Social Security would end their brief interest.
"The graying Baby Boomers — who will not begin to die off until the year 2024, and half of them will live until 2035 — will do anything necessary to ensure their monthly Social Security checks, including the increased wage slavery of their children and grandchildren. That means Social Security will not only remain a politically-untouchable issue for at least the next thirty years, it will also, at minimum, double in size during that period. And you believe that some political party will be able to reduce, privatize, or eliminate Social Security and MediCare in our lifetimes? Hah! They don't call SS a "third-rail" issue for nothing. Touch it, and you're fried.
"Point being, it is a political and social impossibility to convert the United States of America into a Libertarian nation. It'd be like trying to Christianize Iran. America simply does not want to go there, and since we do not believe in using force as a political instrument we cannot drag the country there kicking and screaming. Neither will we ever win by education and argument because we have no access to media and academia, and we likely never will. Perhaps after the Social Security collapse and the demise of the elderly Baby Boomers a third party may have a chance to lead from the chaos, but for the next generation or two the USA will continue to be run by some variant of the DemoPublicans. Them's the facts.
"Does that mean that libertarians, classical liberals, constitutionalists, and conservatives have no chance of some political victory in our lifetimes? No, it doesn't. All it means is that we must honestly assess our strength and pick a fight that we can actually win for a change. Numerically, 50,000 paid members means a good sized town. But, we are sprinkled about a nation of nearly 300 million. We have the raw numbers to win possibly a state, but we don't have the concentration of numbers to elect the local dogcatcher. But . . . we could if enough of us packed up and relocated. We could concentrate our numbers somewhere and become politically effective. All it would take is perspective, planning, and commitment. It's time we all got off our asses and actually inconvenienced ourselves for Liberty.
"The trouble is that most members of the national LP, sympathetic or even harmonious with a state goal, would not lend much support to the effort. For example, why would California libertarians donate funds for a campaign in New Hampshire? As the saying goes, All politics are local.
"I wouldn't expect much support from the national LP. Its goal is to elect national candidates, which we have just seen is nearly impossible. Unless they snap out of their delusion and embrace our plan, we are a threat to the LP. Every campaign finance dollar we spend in our targeted state means a dollar that will not be spent trying to elect Libertarian presidents and congressmen. To them, we will be working at cross purposes.
"Accordingly, I suggest that we form a new political party in our chosen state. A party philosophically indistinguishable from the LP, but with none of the LP baggage of national aspirations.
"The LP wants to remain a national "army"? Fine. Good luck. We, however, will become the "Special Forces" of the movement. We won't fight losing wars — we will win handpicked battles, one at a time. Had the LP nominated a presidential candidate with small-unit combat experience, the LP might have figured all this out a long time ago. Instead of thinking of strategy like generals, they should have been thinking of unit tactics like noncoms and captains. But no, the LP has dreamed only of winning the war when it has not occupied even a single hill of the enemy.
"This luxurious thinking has wasted 25 years of valuable time. If we do not start making visible and dramatic gains somewhere, libertarians and conservatives will not be galvanized into further action. We are tired of losing across the board. Let's pick one winning horse and place all our bets on it. We couldn't do any worse than we already are, right?"
FREE STATE PROJECT
CHOOSES . . . NEW HAMPSHIRE?
* * *
Only 46% of FSPers participate in vote
Exclusive to The Modern Jeffersonian, by "Whisk E. Rebellion" 1 October 2003
The results of the September FSP vote were announced in New York City today, though not even 1 in 2 of FSP's first 5,500 members voted for their favorite state amongst the ballot's ten choices. According to FSP sources, 65-80% of the nearly 3,000 nonvoters "abstained."
Of the 2,500 members who did bother to vote, New Hampshire received the most 1st and 2nd votes, beating out the next favored state Wyoming by 10%. Since the Eastern USA is more populated than the West, this was reflected in the FSP's members, who naturally were inclined to stay in the East.
This was most unfortunate for the free state movement at large.
First of all, New Hampshire has 2.7 times more voters than Wyoming, which automatically diminishes the NH/FSP's political effectiveness by 63%.
Secondly, it is far too crowded back East. New Hampshire has about 140 per mile2 — twice the national average, four times that of Colorado, and twenty-three times Wyoming's six people/mile2. New Hampshire is certainly a very nice state for the random newcomer, but it cannot gracefully contain a flood of 20,000+ relocators, much less the 100,000+ needed to affect politics.
Finally, even if it could, no New England state is hospitable to a thriving gun culture, a necessary feature of a modern free state (and one sadly underappreciated by the FSP). A "thriving gun culture" does not mean 4% of adults with concealed handgun permits. It does not mean more than one skeet range per county. It doesn't even mean a preponderance of hunters every deer season.
A thriving gun culture is much more than that. It is a culture where all things related to shooting are widely and passionately enjoyed. Its members would rather go to the range than bowl or golf or watch TV. They would rather go to a gun show than a football game.
New Hampshire does not have a thriving gun culture. With only four or five gun shows each year (the largest being just 325 tables) and little public land to shoot on, how could it?
Folks already there have few places to become 500yd Riflemen, the smallest component of Liberty. If men serious about defending their freedoms did not have the supporting terrain (and culture) to practice putting .308 FMJ into 20" circles at nearly a third of a mile, then they could not become competent with full-power semi-auto mil
itary-pattern battle rifles. They could not become Riflemen and thus have a chance of defeating a modern military which relies too much on air and artillery. Using .223 carbines within 250yds is fighting an enemy on his terms. We have only marksmanship and .30 caliber power on our side. Should a fight come (and I pray that it never does), then we must engage at ranges beyond our enemy's. (They have only 250yd carbines and 50yd marksmanship.)
The only advantage a militia force has are 500yd accurate rifles. Americans cannot own battle rifles and train at such distances in the East. That means FSPers in New Hampshire will not be able to, if required, effectively fight for their liberty. Libertarian philosophy is, in the end, moot if its adherents have no final resort of armed defense, and freedom has usually required the shedding of blood on battlefields. If history has taught us anything, it's that liberty is won and maintained by Riflemen. As Heinlein once wrote:
The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, anytime, and with utter recklessness.
Willingness to do sudden battle implies capability to do sudden battle. You must already have the tools, training, and practice to fight effectively. When you are capable and willing to fight, then you have options. When you are capable and willing to fight, then your enemy will perhaps fear and avoid you.
But not until then.
If you do not have — right now —an FAL, M1, M1A, or HK91, then there is something you have chosen not to own for your freedom.
If you do own such a rifle but cannot — right now — from offhand position hit a dinner plate at 100yds within 5 seconds on demand without fail, then there is a skill you have chosen not to earn for your freedom.
If you are not a Rifleman — right now — then you have announced to the world that your commitment to liberty goes only just so far. If you will not spend a summer and the price of a used jetski to become a Rifleman — to become a deadly foe of tyranny — then you are just mouthing platitudes, treating liberty as a hobby and expecting brave men to do your fighting for you.
Molon Labe! Page 8
